Residents and an employee of he Midtown Motel in Newport News, Virginia claim the motel has bed bugs in a story from News 10 by Mary Kay Mallonee.

It’s a typical “bed bugs in motel” expose, with motel guests complaining of and displaying what they say are bed bug bites, and the maintenance man describing bed bugs crawling on mattresses. (They also complain about missing smoke detectors, black mold in rooms, and so on.)

However, there are two interesting things in this video:

First, police were called in as well as the news team.  After investigating the rooms, police took some items away in paper bags.

Note to Newport News Police: items which may contain bed bugs (i.e. anything sampled from a room with bed bugs) should be treated carefully and carried off only in plastic bags with airtight seals (garbage bags tied with the right kind of knot, XL Ziploc bags, etc.)

We don’t want the next story out of Newport News to be about an infested police station!

Second, the reporter tells the owner, in reference to the bed bug problem, “You’ve got to change that tonight.  They can’t sleep like that!”

It’s true that bed bugs do need to be addressed right away, and motel guests should probably be assisted in carefully relocating without bringing bed bugs, while the motel is treated for bed bugs.

However, viewers need to know that bed bug problems treated with conventional methods cannot be eliminated overnight.

These are small points, but important, since many news viewers will not know a lot about bed bugs, and education — spreading good information — is key.

See: Motel guests covered with bed bug bites.Similar Posts:

• Wisconsin Dept. of Corrections houses former inmates in bed bug-infested motel
• North Carolina shelter with bed bugs: outlook grim
• Penguin offices infested with bed bugs. Are non-Bedbuggers worried yet?
• University of Central Missouri (and other Missouri colleges) vs. bed bugs
• Woman notifies hotel desk about bed bugs in room, is evicted from hotel

The Daily Press details the spread of bed bugs around motels, hotels, apartment buildings, and college dorms, with a special focus on the spread locally in Newport News, Hampton, West Point, and Virginia Beach, in Virginia.Similar Posts:

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• WAVY TV 10 – Bed bugs invade another oceanfront motel (in Virginia Beach, VA)
  “Bed bugs invade another oceanfront motel. This time the health department forced the MacThrift Motor Inn on 22nd street to close off some of its rooms because of the pesky little critters.” Five rooms, to be exact.
  (tags: virginiabeach virginia bedbugs spread motels hotels macthrift oceanfront healthdepartment virginiabeachhealthdepartment 2007 nov2007)
• Bed bugs are reported locally (Brown County, Ohio, News Democrat)
  Bed bugs in Brown County, Ohio.
  (tags: browncounty bedbugs bedbug ohio spread 2007 nov2007 newsdemocrat.com)
• TIME article from 1963 on bed bug’s potential health risks
  “Dr. George J. Burton, a medical entomologist for the U.S. Public Health Service who has studied bedbugs in India and British Guiana, says in Public Health Reports that the bedbug has been accused of carrying the microbes of no fewer than 30 infectious diseases: anthrax, brucellosis, epidemic cerebrospinal meningitis, leprosy, paratyphoid fever, plague, pneumococcal pneumonia, staphylococcal septicemia, tuberculosis, tularemia, typhoid fever, boutonneuse fever, epidemic typhus, exanthematous typhus, Q fever, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, relapsing fever, epidemic jaundice (Brazzaville), sleeping sickness, encephalomyelitis, influenza, lymphocytic choriomeningitis, poliomyelitis, smallpox, yellow fever, Chagas’ disease, malaria, oriental sore, mansonelliasis, onchocerciasis.”
  (tags: bedbugs bedbug health TIME 1963)

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According to this ARTICLE: Virginia Beach hotel sued over alleged bed bug attack (The Virginian-Pilot – HamptonRoads.com/PilotOnline.com), the Rodeway Inn on Atlantic Avenue in Virginia Beach is being sued for $400,000 by a woman who claims she was bitten by bed bugs there.

The plaintiff Elizabeth Glenn and her daughter stayed at the Rodeway Inn, and later experienced itchy welts. Glenn called the local health department, who inspected the room.

An official later inspected the room where she and her daughter stayed and found bed bugs in the bed. Glenn and her daughter’s belongings were damaged when they were sprayed with a sanitizing liquid and insect killer.

In the lawsuit, attorney Barry R. Taylor said it was the hotel’s responsibility to maintain the premises and take reasonable precautions to protect guests. However, the hotel breached those duties when it allowed the rooms to become infested with biting, disease-carrying bed bugs, he said.

“The defendant’s conduct was so outrageous and egregious that it offends the community standards of morals and decency,” wrote Taylor in the suit.

A manager who answered the telephone at Rodeway Inn said the hotel had not been served the lawsuit on Monday and declined to comment on any insect problems.

This is the second recent article in which hotel guests who saw (or in this case suspected) bed bugs in the hotel room, called the health department and had the room inspected by them and found to have bed bugs. I would definitely recommend that people call the local health department, as well as leaving a review on tripadvisor.com, and in the Bed Bug Registry (see links), whenever they encounter (or think they encounter) bed bugs in a hotel or motel.

UPDATE (11/4):

According to Patrick Terpstra of WVEC.com,health inspectors found “one living bed bug,” and ordered the hotel to “clean”:

The Health Department searched room 208, where the family stayed, and found one living bed bug in the room. Inspectors ordered the hotel to clean the room immediately.

The owner, Sanjay Gandhi, says he’s kept 208 off the market ever since and threw out the sheets and mattresses.

“I’ve never saw any bed bugs here and I don’t know what else I can say,” said Gandhi.

It does not sound like a pest control operator was employed. If there were more bed bugs in the room, then closing it off may have encouraged them to spread and seek other sources of food.

This does not sound good, if the story is accurate.Similar Posts:

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Lindsay Roberts reports for WVEC.com that bed bugs are flourishing in Virginia hotels in areas such as Newport News, Hampton Roads, and Virginia Beach.

One woman is interviewed who used to work as a motel housekeeper; she started getting bitten at work, and she quit her job because of it.

“If I’m getting bit up like this, making me sick, I’m sure other people are too,” said Laquita Grimes.

I just hope she did not take them home from work with her. It’s tragic that she had to quit her job because of this. I wonder how many more people take bed bugs home from work, and are faced with the expense of eradication.

The motel where Grimes works tells 13News they have sprayed and that the problem is now under control, but the management admits bed bugs are a problem reputable hotels and motels across the country are dealing with now more than ever.

While I am glad the motel has treated for bed bugs, I am not reassured by being told “they have sprayed.” “Under control” might be enough for pests like cockroaches, but bed bugs need to be eliminated. While this is not permanently possible in a hotel or motel, where new bed bugs could arrive any day, managers of lodging establishments need to do more, on an ongoing basis.

I hope that they realize that regular treatment is necessary for bed bugs. The motel needs to clean extensively to remove bed bugs and their eggs, and treat aggressively, including follow-ups every 10-14 days by a PCO who knows bed bugs (not simply by motel staff). They also, in my opinion, need a bed bug protocol, which should include training staff to recognize signs of bed bugs, and maybe some kind of preventive treatment, since bed bugs will be brought in again and again.

Click the button to read the story or watch the video.Similar Posts:

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You can click here to see a map of the last 90 or so visitors to the site. It will look different from what I describe below, because I am writing about what I saw there about 4-5 hours ago. Now it’s almost midnight in New York, and the Aussies are starting to surf in.

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.Similar Posts:

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Virginia Tech grad students are raising bed bugs to be used in scientific experiments, as described in this 90 second A Touch of Tech podcast. Click here to listen to an mp3 (it is very short). Scientists will use the “livestock” to “try to find a chink in the bed bug armor” which may lead to their demise.Similar Posts:

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