Those Craigslist crazies are at it again, this time in Bushwick/East Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Check this out:

CURB ALERT: 2 nice couches (Bushwick/E. Williamsburg)

Two very nice couches have been thrown out in front of 15 Thames St, in Bushwick/East Williamsburg. One is red velvet, the other is a floral pattern. They both have signs that say BED BUGS on them, but I’ve slept on both these couches in the past week and haven’t noticed any bedbugs. Please take these great couches and save them from someone else’s wastefulness.

Now, why would someone who is throwing out a sofa say that it had bed bugs, if it did not have bed bugs?

We know it is possible to be bitten by bed bugs and not react to bed bug bites, and we know it’s possible you won’t see bed bugs when they’re around.

If someone advertises that something has been exposed to bed bugs, by all means, please stay away!

If you ever doubted that we need a widespread education campaign about bed bugs, which includes a focus on how easily they spread, how difficult they can be to spot, and how many people do not react to bed bug bites, consider this ad.

Consider also it was posted in Brooklyn, New York City, where even the USA Channel’s fake detectives know what bed bugs look like.

The recent Law and Order: Criminal Intent episode featuring hipsters with bed bugs got some things wrong, but it was set in the same neighborhood (Bushwick/East Williamsburg).

The address listed in the ad, 15 Thames St., is in a neighborhood with many infested buildings, according to the Bed Bug Registry. (And we don’t know which building the sofas came out of, of course.)

Keep in mind, all infested buildings are not listed on the Bed Bug Registry.  Not by a long shot.

Needless to say, I would not take in a curbside sofa, at this point in time, whether it declared itself bed bug-free, or had no signage at all.  I certainly would not take in a sofa with a bed bug warning.  Sheer lunacy.

Caveat dumpster. That’s all I am saying.

The original ad is here, while it lasts.

A screenshot is here.

(The ad is PostingID: 1152996959 and it is copyright 2009 Craigslist.)

Thanks to KillerQueen for finding this one.

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• The Bed Bug Registry adds new features
• Another Craigslist bed bug story
• “On the bed bug list” in Brooklyn
• New York City Housing Authority: “bed bugs = emergency” + “wait a month” do not compute

Bed bug blogger Unlucky in Bugs tells us that Law & Order: Criminal Intent will feature bed bugs tonight (April 26, 2009).

Interestingly, UiB tells us,

The entomologist is played by the husband of a good friend of my sister’s, who is one of the first people I heard of to get bed bugs way back in 2005… so there’s some nice bed bug karma for you. It’s his television debut!

Sounds good!  We always like to hear about bed bugs on television.

Friend to Bedbugger Dr. Lou Sorkin is a forensic entomologist who has been consulted about New York City crime scenes.

Because bed bugs contain the blood of their recent hosts, they could potentially produce evidence relevant to a crime.

This episode of Law & Order could be a very interesting show!

Update (4/28): Did anyone else catch this? I was excited to see bed bugs on television, but the bedbugged aspects of the plot left me with some questions. I preface this by saying, I am not an entomologist.

The episode is called “Rock Star.” It’s about the death of two hipster musicians in an East Williamsburg loft (an open-plan one, with nooks rather than apartments, no one seems to have four walls and a closed door).

The detective played by Jeff Goldblum places his portfolio on a bed his partner earlier identified as having bed bugs — she saw one crawling around. (The loft owner’s response “I have a fumigation certificate right here!” Fumigation certificate?!? Huh?)

Later, Goldblum’s character casually bends over to collect about 5-6 bed bugs off the floor (they look like pre-adult stages) which are ostensibly just hanging out near his feet in broad daylight. And he does so without the occupant he’s chatting with noticing that he’s collecting them — and produces them later dead in a tissue.

That was easy!

From these squished samples, a forensic entomologist (who rightly declares NYC to be in the middle of a bed bug epidemic) extracts blood that’s up to two months old, and suggests that the current occupant and past occupant had the same female lover.

The problem with all this, is we’re talking about the floor of a converted sausage factory with something like 27 young tenants all sharing the larger space, with doorless rooms rather than separate units (Goldblum’s character uses the phrase “rabbit warren”).

How could you be sure that blood from two months ago, extracted from a bed bug, represented someone bitten in the same room in a high-turnover open-plan loft, where the occupants come and go and hang out on the same sofas?

And then, how would you determine they were having a relationship, as the detectives do? You can’t of course. (To be fair, it isn’t a lynchpin for the plot.) Sue could have simply been bitten when she came to give Teeter back his copy of On the Road. (Yes, I am embellishing; no actual books were spotted in the loft.)

Moreover, those did look like some awfully young bed bugs… if they were living in a loft full of hipsters, feeding regularly for two months, would they not have reached adulthood?

I hope some of our entomologist friends will weigh in on the science behind “Rock Star.”

If you missed this show on USA, you can TIVO it when it repeats at 9 am Sunday (EST). Or look for it in the schedule of repeats on the Criminal Intent site.

Update #2 (4/28/2009):

I suspected this artists’ loft was modeled on the McKibben Lofts, and it appears Curbed blogger Lockhart thought so too.

McKibben Lofts have allegedly been no stranger to the bed bug.Similar Posts:

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caution – bed bugs!

Originally uploaded by Shira Golding

Bed bug warning sign in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, June 2008.

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I know the NYC Housing and Preservation Department’s bed bug seminars are not perfect.  But wouldn’t you rather your neighbors had access to one, rather than not?

I say yes, especially if you live in Greenpoint.  Greenpointers and their Williamsburg neighbors are seriously bedbugged.

So, Miss Heather of newyorkshitty.com and her friend Ann Kansfield (the Co-Pastor of the Greenpoint Reformed Church) worked together and got HPD to agree to come to Greenpoint.  So far, this is the second HPD bed bug seminar to be announced in Brooklyn.  (The first to happen will be on 3/12, next Wednesday, in Bushwick.)

The Greenpoint bed bug seminar will be on May 6th from 6-8pm.  This announcement comes from Ann Kansfield, via Miss Heather’s blog, so I would not call HPD to sign up just yet.

But just so you know, the location will be:

Greenpoint Reform Church
136 Milton Street
Brooklyn, NY 11222
(718) 383-5941

And if you want to thank Miss Heather for helping rid her ‘hood of crazy bed bugs, visit her blog and leave a comment.  There’s a request for people to put up flyers for the event in the neighborhood too, so if anyone local wants to vounteer, go and let Miss Heather know.

To thank Pastor Ann Kansfield for making this possible, Miss Heather says you can email her at pastor (at) greenpointchurch (dot) org.

I hope that others will consider lobbying for bed bug seminars in their neighborhoods, and help publicize those that are happening.   Thanks to Miss Heather and Ann Kansfield for their hard work!Similar Posts:

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Bed bugs in Brooklyn. Well, I’d guess they were. You can never be sure. But I have lived in New York for many a year, and one did not used to find the sheer volume of mattresses one does today.

Many of them look shiny and new,
Others are streaked with bed bug pooh!

(These kinds of scenes just put me in a poetry kind of mood.)

Two Williamsburg mattress photos courtesy of Miss Heather, our Brooklyn native informant.

What’s the opposite of eye candy?

Miss Heather directs our attention to the luxury condos in the background. For itchy young urban professionals.

Or there’s this one, on North 11th Street, Williamsburg:

Okay, the futon on the far right looks like something peed on it. But the mattress second from right, in the bag, looks new.

Bucolic with the snow, no?
I thought so.

Mattress photos above courtesy of Miss Heather of newyorkshitty.com, who does not run a bed bug blog, though, being in Greenpoint (also next door to Williamsburg), the topic does come up again and again.Similar Posts:

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