Of course, bed bugs are everywhere; we know that. But word spreads slowly, article by article, city by city, town by town.

• Hotel Pennsylvania Settles Bedbug Suits for Nearly $100,000 | The New York Observer
• This is bad: bed bugs crawling everywhere. Video at 11.
• Bed bugs in homeless shelters, casinos, hotels, apartments: Waynesboro, Atlantic City, Greenpoint, Toronto
• The NYTimes is back on the bed bugs story

ShareThis

• bed bugs in Toronto; Vancouver; Billings, MT,
• bed bug news for 2007-11-11: Lexington, KY and Toronto, ON
• Allegations of bed bugs affect tourism, according to travel agent
• Bed bugs in casino and senior apartments in New Jersey, Binghamton University (again) and another dust mite photo in the news

ShareThis

• bed bug news for 2007-11-11: Lexington, KY and Toronto, ON
• bed bugs in Toronto; Vancouver; Billings, MT,
• bed bug news for 2007-11-16
• Bed bugs in homeless shelters, casinos, hotels, apartments: Waynesboro, Atlantic City, Greenpoint, Toronto

ShareThis

For those of you who don’t know, webpages can tell where you’re coming from (though not very specifically). They know the location of your ISP. For most people, this comes up as somewhere near where they live, though it’s not always precise and sometimes it’s just the country. It also tells the webmaster what internet browser you use (Go Firefox!) and whether you like Macs or Windows machines. No, I do not know your name, or where you live, don’t worry!

This may all seem very “meta,” so far, but we know that our readership consists of four kinds of people:

a) People who have, or think they have, or recently had, bed bugs.
b) People whose work makes them concerned about bed bugs (pest control professionals, entomologists, politicians, landlords, hotel managers, social service agencies, government officials, are just some sectors that I have heard from).
c) People who have heard about bed bugs and are concerned, and want to know more.

I think that group (a) is in the majority, and although most people don’t comment, most commenters fit in group a. In any case, the Bedbugger.com readership is a map of bed bug concern, and you’d be pretty safe betting its a map of where bed bugs are popping up–with the caveat, of course, that our site pops up more in US search engines than those abroad, and also that our readers are overwhelmingly English-speakers, though we have dreams of breaking down those linguistic barriers!

This is where the last 89 readers were reading the blog (circa 6:30 this evening):

1. San Diego, California, United States
2. Nottingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom
3. Walden, New York, United States
4. Long Island City, New York, United States
5. New York, New York, United States
6. Plattekill, New York, United States
7. Hull, Quebec, Canada
8. Durant, Iowa, United States
9. Miamiville, Ohio, United States
10. Gibraltar
11. Calgary, Alberta, Canada
12. Boston, Massachusetts, United States
13. Humble, Texas, United States
14. Germantown, Maryland, United States
15. Rowland Heights, California, United States
16. New York, New York, United States
17. New York, New York, United States
18. Hadley, Kentucky, United States
19. Buffalo, New York, United States
20. Hveragerði, Arnessysla, Iceland
21. Pine Falls, Manitoba, Canada
22. Livonia, Michigan, United States
23. Bayside, New York, United States
24. Woodhaven, New York, United States
25. Denver, Colorado, United States
26. New York, New York, United States
27. United States
28. Waterloo, Quebec, Canada
29. Los Angeles, California, United States
30. Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
31. Santa Maria, California, United States
32. Beamsville, Ontario, Canada
33. Kansas City, Missouri, United States
34. Corona, New York, United States
35. Barker, Texas, United States
36. Readville, Massachusetts, United States
37. Palo Alto, California, United States
38. Salt Lake City, Utah, United States
39. Mill Valley, California, United States
40. Ridgewood, New York, United States
41. Mehama, Oregon, United States
42. San Francisco, California, United States
43. Feeding Hills, Massachusetts, United States
44. Swedesburg, Iowa, United States
45. Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
46. West New York, New Jersey, United States
47. Lancaster, Blackpool, United Kingdom
48. New York, New York, United States
49. Miami, Florida, United States
50. Anaheim, California, United States
51. Harrow, Harrow, United Kingdom
52. Wilsonville, Oregon, United States
53. Sheffield, Sheffield, United Kingdom
54. Forest Hill, Ontario, Canada
55. Wayne, New Jersey, United States
56. Kecskemét, Bacs-Kiskun, Hungary
57. Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, Canada
58. Short Hills, New Jersey, United States
59. Seattle, Washington, United States
60. Jackson, Mississippi, United States
61. Tulsa, Oklahoma, United States
62. Secaucus, New Jersey, United States
63. Long Island City, New York, United States
64. United States
65. Tranbjerg, Arhus, Denmark
66. Naples, Florida, United States
67. San Francisco, California, United States
68. Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
69. Gainesville, Florida, United States
70. Edmond, Oklahoma, United States
71. Hempstead, New York, United States
72. Everett, Massachusetts, United States
73. United States
74. United States
75. São Paulo, Sao Paulo, Brazil
76. Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
77. Bismarck, North Dakota, United States
78. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States
79. Downers Grove, Illinois, United States
80. United States
81. Bend, Oregon, United States
82. Henderson, Nevada, United States
83. Montréal, Quebec, Canada
84. Sunnyvale, California, United States
85. Arlington, Texas, United States
86. United States
87. New York, New York, United States
88. Fairfax, Virginia, United States
89. Rochester, New York, United States

You might expect that most of these people came from the bed bug hot spots. We get lots of readers from Chicago, Boston, NYC, San Francisco, Vancouver, Toronto. So it’s surprising that 89 people came from such a wide variety of places:

68 from at least 33 states (only 12 of these from NYC, San Francisco or Boston);
11 from 5 provinces in Canada;
4 from 4 cities in the UK (none of them London);
1 person each from: Hungary, Ireland, Denmark, Brazil, Iceland, and Gilbraltar.

In New York state, 10 of the 17 visitors were from NYC. And of the 10 in NYC, 60% were in Queens, where, unlike Staten Island, Brooklyn, the Bronx and Manhattan, each neighborhood has its own name used for the purposes of the postal service: Ridgewood, Corona, Long Island City, Woodhaven, Bayside, New York, are all in Queens, and part of NYC. Remember the Queens Gazette speculating that Queens was the “ground zero for NYC’s bed bugs? Well, I am still not sure it’s true, but it seems plausible: we certainly have a lot of Bedbuggers in Queens.

I peeked at the traffic report for the site because I have a geeky side and I find it interesting to know where you’re coming from. However, looking at it can tell us something about the bed bug problem. This is not a scientific study, but just a snapshot of our site’s traffic does tell you who’s worried about bed bugs (and, we can assume, many are worried because they have bed bugs).

Most of those cities were not capitals or the biggest cities in their regions or countries. A small percentage are from those places you think are hot spots. It should serve as a warning sign that bed bugs, like Bedbuggers, are everywhere, and way more spread out than you thought.

• California fights bed bugs: good news from the golden state
• Portsmouth NH’s Health Officer proactive about bed bugs
• Comedian moves into NJ Ikea store
• Tracing the path of the epidemic

ShareThis

Wow.

Denver-based Apartment Investment and Management Co., or AIMCO, is the largest landlord in the US, with 1,370 rental properties. Attorney Jeffrey Rudnick is representing six separate clients who were or are tenants of the building, and say they were blamed (individually) for bringing in bed bugs. The landlord refused to pay for treatment. One tenant, Jessica Viccari, a nurse, complained to management.

The local manager sent up an exterminator who reported finding no evidence of bedbugs.

Unimpressed, Viccari called in her own exterminator who found plenty of bedbugs.

This is where Viccari and Park Towne Place part ways.

She complains that the company refused to pay for the exterminator who found the problem to then get rid of the bedbugs. Frustrated, she moved out. Now AIMCO wants to charge her $2,400 for breaking her lease.

AIMCO wants to charge tenants because the landlord blames them for the infestation. As lawyer Rudnick says,

After Viccari and her family called to tell me her story, I used my investigative skills to size up the situation.

By that, I mean I typed “Park Towne Place” and “bedbugs” into Google.

Up popped information about attorney Jeffrey Rudnick, who represents five other tenants in the West building who also say they suffered through bedbug infestations. They say management blamed them for the bugs. Viccari is now Rudnick’s sixth client from the West building.

“They’ve all gotten the same litany, which is you must have brought them with you,” said Rudnick, who is preparing to file a legal brief to take the tenants’ complaints into arbitration.

Viccari brought furniture from her parent’s home when she moved in. Her mother, Linda McLean, objects to AIMCO’s claim that the bedbugs came in with the tenants. “That bed and that couch were in my home,” McLean said. “There are no bedbugs in my house.”

However, AIMCO regional VP Lynn Bora

. . . said Viccari complained late in the game, just before she moved out. She also said Viccari didn’t give AIMCO a copy of the report from the exterminator who found the bedbugs.

That last bit is curious, considering that Viccari and her mother returned to her apartment last Wednesday to pick up the rest of her stuff and found that someone had been there, overturning the bed and pulling the cushions off the couch.

Viccari found a note from the building manager, saying AIMCO had indeed found bedbugs in the apartment.

The note said Viccari will be charged an extra $350 to pay for a bedbug exterminator.

So let me get this straight: the landlord claims they did not treat because there were no bed bugs. They fine the tenant $2400 for moving out of a $1200 unit because she claims its infested with a bug five other tenants are also suffering from. They refuse to believe she found bedbugs. And as she is moving out, they ransack her apartment, find bed bugs and fine her $350 for the treatment?

Talk about adding insult to injury.

• New Jersey’s laws designed to spread bed bugs in rental housing
• Toronto tenants camping outside to avoid bed bugs: update
• The strange case of bed bugs in Bushwick
• Bedbugs called “a new kind of roach”; building managment lies

ShareThis

Offering a welcome respite from the same old bug photos, this video from KDKA news has Allegheny County Health Dept. entomologist Bill Todaro holding a bedbug impaled on a sharp pin. They also have three different varieties of bite photos–showing huge welts on one woman, small bites on another (like mine!) and in-between size on a third victim.

Not so great was the insistence of entomologist Todaro that you’ll see the bugs, since some of us look for months and don’t catch them in sight:

“You’ll see the bugs. They’re visisble. They are big enough to be seen with the naked eye.”

Yes, and no. They’re big enough to be seen, sure, but it’s important for people to know that they may hide in locations other than your mattress (where they’re easier to spot), and they also have five life stages. The smallest is speck-like (one journalist compared the size of the smallest ones to the size of a period in the New York Times). I’m a bit sensitive on this point; my own doctor has been taking this kind of “you’ll see them” advice to heart, and refused to believe I even had them. That’s not to say my experience is typical; most people with infestations do see some bedbugs at some point. But it is not a done deal, and it certainly is not guaranteed they’ll be in any way infesting your actual bed. We were overjoyed to find our bed looked brand new, assuming at first this meant no bedbugs.

Todaro also mentioned the “musty smell” they can produce. In my opinion this is a waste of news time, since I have not come across anyone with infestations who could smell them. Perhaps it has to be quite severe.

I did, however, appreciate the warning that people who’ve been to hotels should unpack (upon their return home) over the washing machine, or maybe put their suitcase in a freezer for a week. Their other suggestion (leaving your bag outside in a plastic bag for a week) would be virtually useless unless it were below freezing all week. In October, it’s poor advice.

All in all, they did really well on some fronts but quite poorly in others. Grade: C+.

(It would be a solid C but their range of original footage was impressive.)

No bedbug news segment is bad, however. I am glad these monsters are all over the news.

There was a second tv news story from WPXI Pittsburgh, but I was almost glad the video link did not work, since the photo looked like something out of a horror movie. Bedbugs the size of a child’s face, leave wounded youngsters in their wake (news at 11):

The horror!  The horror!

Yes, bedbugs are bad, but I take some comfort in their size, relative to mine.

It’s a bit sad that Bedbugger is now actually reviewing bedbug news segments. But what else do you expect, since reading and viewing the bedbug news is now my main pastime?

• bed bugs in the media: the Today Show, Tuesday morning
• Riding the bed bug wave
• recent bites from bed bugs (photo)
• teaching doctors to diagnose bed bug bites

ShareThis

This blog is attracting an ever-increasing readership. We’ve only been going about two weeks, but every day more people find us; visits to the site increase by about 20% per day.

I hope most of you are just curious, but I have a horrible feeling lots of you are fighting these monsters, and need information. Be assured that we’re working to get FAQs up ASAP, so you can have the benefit of many Bedbuggers’ knowledge, gained the hard way.

We’re happy to carry the BedBugBlog baton, as Caitlin is now way recovered from bedbugs, and pursuing a more normal range of interests. Caitlin, who started the yahoo group that spawned this blog, is proof that you can get rid of these monsters.

Go, Caitlin, live! Be free!

It’s my impression that Caitlin was able to become bedbug free because her landlord exterminated every unit in her building. Not just her apartment. And this is what it takes. Until this is standard practice, many apartment dwellers will have only temporary respite from bedbugs, after their homes are exterminated. If yours is the only apartment treated, you’re just whiling away time until they come back.

News round-up: stories today from Ryerson University dorms (Toronto), and also from Greenwich, CT, and Pittsburgh, PA. Well, you know what they say about bedbug bites: they come in threes, like “breakfast, lunch, and dinner.” (Mine almostnever do, but it’s a lovely visual to leave you with, isn’t it?)

• Caitlin of the bed bug blog was reinfested.
• new, good Bed bug videos
• A little inspiration, from those who beat bed bugs
• Family of five “run out of their home” by bed bugs in Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia

ShareThis