Brick Underground, a blog for New York City homeowners, has a two-part in-depth series on the issue of bed bugs in storage facilities.

The Brick Underground blogger asked me about how people can avoid getting bed bugs from a storage facility, and I was happy to pass on some suggestions.  The author also talks to (among others): John Furman of Boot-a-Pest and Gil Bloom of Standard Pest Management (about pests and storage), and Donna Bossuyt of Bed Bugs and Beyond (about the Vikane gas fumigation option for those removing items from storage).

See Bed-bugged storage (Part 1): Is your stuff safe? and Bed-bugged storage (Part 2): How to protect your stuff.Similar Posts:

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On August 22nd, an entire 18-story apartment building in Dayton, the Biltmore at 210 N. Main St., is being treated for bed bugs with Vikane (sulfuryl fluoride) gas fumigation.  Residents will be evacuated for a week (to friends’ homes, or to a local hotel).

The Dayton Daily News reports that this process is only being undertaken after two years of unsuccessful spraying of individual units:

Because the infestation has resisted floor-by-floor fumigation for two years, [Denver-based building owners] Aimco said, the building-wide attack with the deadly gas is now the only option.

Aimco spokeswoman Cindy Duffy said residents should be ready to return Aug. 30. She had no cost estimates for the project, but said the money for the fumigation and relocation would come from Aimco’s operational budget.

Interestingly, last October, AIMCO evacuated a Philadelphia building for thermal treatment.  We have not heard any follow-up on that case; it would be interesting to know why Vikane was chosen in the Dayton case.

It’s important to note that when an entire building is treated, residents, management and staff will likely need to be educated about how to avoid bringing in bed bugs again — because if they can be brought in to the building once, they can be brought in again, and again.

Management should also have some continued inspection policy.  Some PCOs might want to use additional treatments such as a mechanical dust to nip future infestations in the bud, and methods like caulking to help prevent future infestations from spreading.

However, nothing is more important than making sure residents and staff know how bed bugs spread, how to avoid and spot them, and that they will suffer no repercussions for reporting them swiftly in future.

Future reports of bed bug bites or sightings must be met with swift attention — and not just attention to the unit where the complaint was made.

The Dayton Daily News also notes that

The Biltmore, which receives Department of Housing and Urban Development Section 8 subsidies, isn’t the only apartment building in the area with bedbug problems.

(Incidentally, you may recall that a few weeks ago, HUD told a landlord in Florida that tenants did not have to pay to treat their bed bugs, as the building owner was insisting.)

The Dayton Daily News also illuminated the details of the spread of bed bugs in Dayton:

Tom Hut, a supervisor with Public Health — Dayton & Montgomery County, said he’s receiving a dozen queries a day, mostly from apartment dwellers, about bedbug infestations. That’s a jump from a dozen queries per week in 2008, he said.

This is troubling: if we assume Hut is only getting calls about bed bugs Monday-Friday, that’s still five times as many bed bug queries per week now as in the prior year.

Dayton needs to take bed bugs very seriously.

See the full story in the Dayton Daily News: Bedbug war to empty downtown apartments.

Note: as bbbites and cilecto pointed out in a thread on this story in our Bedbugger Forums, be aware that there’s some odd advice in the Tips for Avoiding Bed Bugs inset, for example, “Regularly launder bedding in very hot water, especially when coming back from a trip.”  Unless you travel with your own bedsheets (which we do not recommend), this does not make much sense.  For more detailed travel advice, see our Travel FAQs.Similar Posts:

• Large Philadelphia Seniors’ Apartment Building Gets Thermal Remediation for Bed Bugs
• Bed bugs infest New Rochelle cell block and three police cars
• Bed bugs in Grand Forks, North Dakota public housing
• Entire Kansas City high-rise gets thermal treatment for bed bugs
• Bed bugs bite in Edmonton sleep disorder clinic

Well, okay, not Zen exactly.

I enjoyed reading some of New 2 The City’s blog entries about bed bugs.  In this post, she describes going through her books over the bathtub, before bagging them and placing them in sealed containers:

Upon confirming that my apartment was infested with BBs, I was instructed to put everything in my apartment into heavy-duty, black contractor bags. Currently I am fanning books over the white tub to determine whether or not the book hosts a fat bedbug. After fanning, I put the book stacks into plastic bags, suck out the air, repeat the process with a second bag–first spaying pesticide– then putting the bags into plastic containers.

Warning: Since people often rush to “do something” when they notice bed bugs, I want to note, for other readers’ benefit, that no one should be bagging anything (or spraying pesticides!) without the explicit instructions of their pest professional (preferably one they believe to have extensive experience getting rid of bed bugs).  PCOs each have their own ideas about prep and you should never do anything until someone has confirmed the presence of bed bugs (and, hopefully, gotten some idea of their harborages) and then told you what to do.  “Bagging” is not a given, and in fact, can mean wildly different things as this FAQ explains.

Anyway, back to the story.  In the course of this book inspection and bagging procedure, New 2 The City encounters her copy of Shakti Gawain’s Creative Visualization, and contemplates the glass-half-full side of having bed bugs:

As much as this experience with bedbugs has created a overwhelming amount of stress in my world, I am grateful for the opportunity for contemplation that is at hand.

Similar sentiments tonight from fedupwithbb in the forums (that’s the woman featured on the Today show this week whose home had four vikane gas fumigation treatments (four!), and who still has bed bugs, and no idea where they’re coming from); she writes:

I suppose this kind of slow house fire (as I like to call it) does have one advantage… It gives you a new perspective on the idea that “it’s just stuff.” It has been sad to let go of a few things, but somewhat liberating to realize that I don’t need a lot of what I have in my house, you know? I mean, it creates a terrible carbon footprint because I can’t re-use, I can’t continue my cloth diapering, I use crazy amounts of water, energy for heat, plastic bags, disposable diapers, etc., etc. But it does paint a very clear picture of the few things I have that *really* matter. The rest, I am learning, I can live without. That’s a good thing to be reminded of.

What an amazing attitude!

Make no mistake, bed bugs are a nightmare in many respects.  But we have to do what we have to do, and bravo to these ladies for seeing the other side of the coin.

Creative visualization.  Let’s all go visualize bed bugs disappearing.

Can’t hurt, right?

Creative Visualization: Use the Power of Your Imagination to Create What You Want in Your Life (Gawain, Shakti)
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An upscale hotel in Kona, Hawai’i is now the largest structure ever to be fumigated for bed bugs, according to this PCTOnline article.

KONA, HAWAII — Nov. 24, 2008 — Kama’aina Termite & Pest Control recently completed work at the largest structure ever to be fumigated for bed bugs: an upscale hotel in Kona, Hawaii. The 4.5 million-cubic-foot hotel had been plagued by bed bugs for several months with no acceptable control from topical applications.

Kama’aina used Vikane (TM), a.k.a. sulfuryl fluoride, and it took 16 workers and $100,000 in tarps, water snakes and clamps. It was not easy:

This was an extremely challenging fumigation,” Miske says. “The structure was massive, there was a strong wind coming off the coastline and we had to meet an extremely tight deadline. We had to take special safety precautions to keep our employees and the public safe.”

During the fumigation, safety officers were positioned around the structure to ensure worker safety. In addition, any fumigator going more than 10 feet off the ground to lay a tarp was required to wear a safety harness and retractable lanyard.

You can read more in PCT Online and do look at Kama’aina’s photos of enormous tented structures including King Kamehameha’s Kona Beach Hotel.

Thanks to Renee for the tip.
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• Bed bugs in Washington, D.C.? Yes! And growing in number daily.

Here’s The Stamford Advocate with another story that makes me mad. Residents of a building for senior citizens like Adelaida Ramos have been dealing with bed bugs for three years:

Ramos is one of more than 50 people at Stamford Manor, a public housing residence for seniors, who have reported bedbugs to the housing authority over the past three years. The authority has fumigated apartments, especially since the problem became rampant last year, but residents said the bloodsuckers persist, moving from one apartment to the next.

Some residents, including Ramos, think the only way to annihilate the pests is to fumigate all of Stamford Manor.

“If they continue doing it like this, it’s never going to end,” said Ramos, who speaks Spanish.

On Wednesday, Richard Fox, executive director of the housing authority recently renamed Charter Oak Communities, said he plans to do that. Monday the authority will begin fumigating two floors a day for five days, said Bob Violet, the building inspector. Another 20 apartments will be fumigated each week for three weeks, Fox said.

That doesn’t sound like fumigation.

True fumigation, commonly done with gases such as sulfuryl fluoride, Vikane (TM), requires evacuation, and is helpful in clearing an entire building of bed bugs at once. Thermal treatment can also lead to a quick resolution (as I hope it will for these seniors in Philadelphia).

What Stamford Manor is getting sounds like traditional bed bug treatments (spraying, dusting). The bed bugs have been traveling aroud the building for three years already, and this treatment plan may not be the end of it, unfortunately.

Update (11/25): at least for now, the Stamford Advocate reports there are no complaints of bed bugs in Stamford Manor, according to management. The whole building was treated — I am not sure how many times, though at least some units (perhaps all?) got three spray treatments in two weeks. Six residents were still claiming to have bed bugs as of mid-November, so I think it’s too soon to call it a success. Similar Posts:

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According to this report from TampaBay.com, Personal Enrichment for Mental Health Services, 11254 58th St. N, in Pinellas Park, Florida (near Tampa) was closed for bed bug treatment last week.

Interestingly,

The bed bug infestation came to light last week after the Pinellas County Health Department received an anonymous call about the problem.

So do call those health departments to report bed bugs in public spaces, or your workplace, people.

Even more interestingly,

Unlike roaches, which can be spotted easily, bed bugs hide, so “we don’t even bother looking for them,” said Charles Minor, a supervisor with the health department’s environmental division. “If we get a complaint, we assume that they’re there. We focus on getting rid of them.”

We’ve heard some pest control operators treat bed bugs the same way, even though in many places, it’s illegal to treat without evidence. Yes, bites are a form of evidence, but they can come from other sources, and so don’t definitively indicate bed bugs.

Still, I appreciate the Pinellas County Health Department’s enthusiasm for treating bed bugs.

PEMHS stopped taking new patients, moved those in the facility elsewhere and tented the building for fumigation, said Erin Gillespie, a spokeswoman for the Department of Children and Families, which oversees PEMHS. The building remained closed until Monday when employees and residents began moving back in.

It sounds like the building was treated with vikane gas fumigation. The facility may wish to educate employees and clients about bed bugs, since we can assume the bed bugs may have both been brought into the center from someone’s home, and may have been taken home by others, infesting their homes.

If employees or clients have bed bugs at home and do not get proper treatment, the facility can easily become reinfested.Similar Posts:

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This item from WPRI 12 Eyewitness News takes a spin down the “pesticide resistance” road, with sound bites from a woman with bed bugs, Dr. Michael Potter (whose unofficial fan club is housed right here), an unnamed ThermaPure Heat representative talking about that technology, and Douglas Stern talking about Cryonite.

Stern stresses the need for a residual placed down after Cryonite in order to deal with bed bugs not knocked down by the process; one person in the forums has claimed to have had multiple Cryonite treatments and a persistent infestation.

Some additional non-pesticide options not mentioned are Vikane gas and the careful and diligent use of a steamer (preferably a dry steamer, to avoid mold and fungus growth). Steam is a lot of work, and most effective in experienced hands, but can seriously reduce your bed bug population. Coupled with dusts and pesticides, it is a viable option.

Thanks to the anonymous Bedbugger who pointed us to this video.

Click here to watch the film.
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The Wall Street Journal published an article today mentioning some of the “new” methods of fighting bed bugs. The WSJ mentions Stern’s new Cryonite method, ThermaPure’s heat treatment, Bed Bugs and Beyond’s “poisonous gas,” and Advanced K9’s bed bug dogs.

We’re all familiar with all of these options, and in some cases, with other providers of heat, Vikane gas, and bed bug dog services.  Nothing really “new” to us there.

However, I don’t think we were aware that

. . . researchers at the University of Minnesota are studying bedbugs’ behavior in an attempt to develop a trap that simulates a typical victim — a sleeping human.

Bring it on, University of Minnesota!

We do know that newbites (what we call Bedbuggers with newly detected bed bug problems) often jump on the latest treatments or the latest,  flavor-of-the-month PCO that the last guy just mentioned “discovering.” And sometimes those are good choices. But it helps to be skeptical: we’ve learned grand claims of success should be taken with a grain of salt:

Companies pitching the latest eradication methods — such as heat or icy sprays — say they are more effective as well as more palatable for people worried about using pesticides. Yet entomologists caution there still are drawbacks: The cold spray might not reach every bug; dogs can miss hiding places high up in a room; and heating might cause bugs to flee to a cooler place in the home. Except for heating, the latest methods usually require the homeowner to go through the onerous process of clearing out rooms, drawers and closets, and washing or dry cleaning all clothing and linens.

“We don’t have any easy method of elimination,” says Michael Potter, a professor of entomology at the University of Kentucky who has observed an increase in bedbugs through his research and work with pest-control companies. “We are looking for the silver bullet.”

And so far, there isn’t one.

More expensive options can be very successful.  But the amount of money you pay does not necessarily correlate to the most effective treatment.
Vikane gas can be very effective if applied to a single-family home, but we’ve heard of one case where it had to be repeated (and, of course, we don’t know what went wrong in that case). Having one’s belongings professionally gassed and moving can also be effective, but be cautious: if everything isn’t gassed and a bed bug gets moved, or the new home has bed bugs, or one is still being exposed to bed bugs, then you’ve spent a lot of money only to re-treat later.

Of thermal and freezing, two other professional options that are on the more costly end of the spectrum, WSJ said:

Another solution is killing the bugs and their eggs by heating a room to between 120 and 140 degrees Fahrenheit for several hours. ThermaPure uses infrared heaters to uniformly heat the room, says President and Chief Executive David Hedman. Treatment costs between $500 and $1,000 per room. (Easily melted items like candles and lipstick must first be removed.)

At the opposite end of the temperature spectrum, Cryonite, made by CTS Technologies, a unit of Venteco PLC in London, aims to eradicate the bugs by dousing them with a snowy spray of carbon dioxide. A drawback: Some bugs can survive if they aren’t directly hit by the spray. Treatments cost between $600 to $700 per room, or as much as 50% more than a conventional chemical treatment, says Douglas Stern, managing partner of Stern Environmental, one of the companies using the method.

Different options are better for one person vs. another, one living situation vs. another, but the bottom line is: if the provider is claiming their method works well, ask to see research studies, and ask for a guarantee.

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This article from Monday’s Jersey Journal describes yet another infested NJ apartment building (277 Bergen Ave. in Jersey City) that is going to tent and Vikane the whole structure, even though (as management remind the Journal’s readership) only some of the 44 units are infested. Smart move. Would you really want to wait until all your tenants were suffering?

“… on the advice of our exterminator, we intend to do the entire building,” Jackson said.

The fumigation will take place on three separate dates in June, he said. While the extermination is going on, tenants will have to vacate the building for several hours; those who have health conditions, such as Quinlan, who has emphysema, will have to vacate the apartments overnight.

“We are doing this at our own expense, at the cost of $8,000,” Jackson said.

“The extermination company said if we don’t handle the problem this way, and do the entire building, it could end up costing us a lot more later,” he said.

But some tenants, including Davina Waring, say the building management’s action comes too late.

She said she had to chuck her living room furniture after it became infested with the creepy crawlers nearly a year ago.

Strike one: if residents chucked furniture and other residents picked it up, that probably contributed to the spread.

Waring said she reported the problem to management, which brought in an exterminator to spray the couch. “After he sprayed the couch, the exterminator told me to vacuum it, but it didn’t do any good,” she said. She eventually threw it away.

“People used to come to my apartment, sit on my couch and start scratching,” she said. “One person thought she was allergic to my couch. I was too embarrassed to say what was really wrong.”

Strike two: not talking about the problem spreads the problem.

The building, located on Bergen Avenue between Grant and Orient avenues, is owned by the New Jersey Housing Mortgage Finance Agency and provides affordable and low-income housing.

It is subsidized through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Section 8 program.

One tenant, who did not want her name used, said she was able to get the building’s management to respond to her complaints about the bugs only after making calls to both HUD and the NJMFA.

However, Jackson said his office has responded to the problem whenever tenants called to complain. In fact, he said some tenants haven’t cooperated with their extermination efforts.

Strike three: education and cooperation are not extra bonuses. In the bed bug war, everyone needs to be on board with the problem, the treatment, and the follow-up.

“We even called a building meeting to explain what we are going to do about the problem but only 19 tenants showed up,” Jackson said.

Jackson also said bedbug infestation is becoming a problem throughout the state.

“The reason we have to wait until late next month to exterminate 277 Bergen is our exterminator is so backed up with similar jobs we have to wait for him to train more men to handle it,” he said.

I don’t mean to sound like I am blaming individual tenants–and certainly not the one quoted in the article. And I do understand the resistance of tenants to listening to what management tells them. This is why tenants need to organize and educate one another about bed bugs, with the help of management, in order to help prevent this happening again (more on that in a moment).

This article answers one question which came up in the comments on Jess’s post: the management paid $8000 for a 44-unit building. That’s only $182 per unit. That’s extremely economical. But sadly, unless at least 1/4 of the units are infested, the management is unlikely to see it as cost effective compared with traditional sprayings. And they should, assuming they feel they can prevent a repeat (again, more in a moment–bear with me).

My baseball metaphor is weak. The management company made a hit, a palpable hit, by using Vikane. I applaud the management for using Vikane and I hope other companies will do this when needed. But now comes the real test. As the comments on Jess’s recent post about another Jersey building undergoing the treatment suggested, education is most important–before people get bed bugs, while they’re fighting bed bugs, and perhaps most of all, once the bed bugs are entirely eliminated by Vikane.

Tenants need to feel some shared responsibility about not bringing in “found items” like used and secondhand furniture, found or bought. Even things given away by social service groups, relatives, or friends can be unknowingly infested. Tenants also need to be educated about signs to look for–I’d venture a guess that even more tenants had bed bugs than knew they had bed bugs (remember, many people do not react to bites). Still others knew and did not speak up. In order to make this bed bug-free situation persist, the management company, PCO, and tenants need to realize the precarious position that brought bed bugs into the building still exists, and they can come back. And this can be prevented (at least for a while), if everyone takes responsibility. Everyone.

If I were a tenant in 277 Bergen, or any other building using Vikane, and I were reading this, I would organize my fellow residents and work with management to bring an expert like Winston in to give a talk about how to prevent bed bugs coming back. Despite the fact that they are going to be wiped out, there is much to be learned. Otherwise, Vikane will only wipe the bed bugs out temporarily.

I know management can’t force people to attend, but residents should be the ones encouraging others to go. If I were a manager, I’d offer an incentive, say a free buffet meal, or a pair of movie tickets, to encourage attendance by residents at an educational session. It would be money well spent. Similar Posts:

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Hopelessnomo was kind enough to pass along this article from Pest Control Technology online, which highlights the successful fumigation of a “highly infested” apartment building in Northern New Jersey. The article gives some insight into Vikane fumigation procedures:

The team of professional technicians spent approximately 12 hours sealing the building. Then the area was cordoned off and the gas was shot in for an exposure period of 24 hours. At the end of the exposure period, [the fumigation company] completed a nine-hour aeration with fans.

After a two days, the building was turned back over to the property manager, who brought in professional cleaners to clean before allowing tenants entrance to the property. So, that’s a grand total of less than a week to rid an entire building of a heavy bedbug infestation. Nice.

Two things amaze me about this fumigation. First is the level of caution taken by a multitude of interested parties, including Royal Fumigation, the company hired to tackle the task; representatives of Dow Agrosciences, the company which manufactures Vikane; the State of New Jersey EPA; and of course, the tenants and property manager of the building:

“Planning is critical,” noted John Achzet, Royal’s Vice President of Operations. During the preparation process, the company communicated with local police, fire departments, emergency aid workers and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. “Marty Morgan of Dow Agrosciences was right there with us, providing [us] with the kind of experience and knowledge about the fumigant that made this a precision operation.”

Sounds like Vikane fumigation is a little more complicated and involved than I had imagined. It’s comforting to know that so many groups were able to collaborate to orchestrate a successful extermination. They’re paving the path for the future.

The second thing that amazes (and inspires!) me is the attitude of the property owner, who, apparently, showed incredible compassion and concern not only for those involved in the fumigation process, but for his tenants:

“Getting all the components together to make this work was a challenge,” said George Milyo, manager, Royal Fumigation. “A great help to us was the property owner’s cooperation. The property manager went out of his way to take care of the tenants and support us, from arranging for tenant housing to educating them on how to prepare their apartment units for the building fumigation.”

It’s so important that property managers, building owners and landlords get educated about bedbug infestations and actively involved in treatment efforts. And it’s high time to get over the “blame game,” folks. At this point, it doesn’t matter WHERE the bedbugs came from or WHO brought them in. It sounds to me like this building owner sucked it up and took responsibility for his property, which is probably the smartest and most financially sound decision he could have made. While others are refusing to pay for relatively cheap PCO treatments (and allowing bedbugs to spread throughout their buildings), this guy played it smart: Vikane the building, solve the problem, game over. Good for him, and good for his (lucky) tenants.

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