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Thought Experiment: Why doesn't every NYC apartment have bedbugs?
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cmk4868
newbite
Joined: Jul '09
Posts: 26
Posted 3 months ago
Mon Jul 27 2009 10:48:20
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Still coming to grips with all this infestation info, and it occurs to me that with what we know about BB's, we should be insanely grateful that they are not MORE common than they are. Or are they really quite common and we just don't know?
Consider:
1) one can carry near-invisible eggs on one's clothing to other people's homes,
2) bb's (live and eggs) can be picked up from work or the subway, and
3) since bb's spread so quickly into adjacent space and
4) are so hard to eliminate, andgiven
5) that many landlords are negligent / parsimonious / tardy in responding to infestations,
it would seem speaking logically that many more people in New York or any other big city(especially those living in large apartment buildings) would have more bedbugs than have reported them.
Entomologists and other bug buffs: why aren't these infestations well nigh universal? Some of my possible answers:
1) problem is very common but unrecognized as many victims don't "show" bites or think they are caused by some other condition / pests.
2) infestation by egg is harder to achieve, more likely to be transmitted only by "live" bugs so one would have to have either a pregnant female or an "Adam / Eve" pair of buggies to get a high percentage chance of residential infestation.Thoughts and comments?
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According to Dr Potter at the U of Kentucky..... Roughly 30% of US household were infested during the late 1930s ... Just a few generations ago, bed bugs were a pretty common occurance
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DrFrank
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Joined: Jul '09
Posts: 122
Posted 3 months ago
Mon Jul 27 2009 11:21:00
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Reported infestation rates are increasing, every year. The culture of the United States ignores problems until they become crises.
Just give it a couple of years.
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Aris
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Joined: Apr '08
Posts: 62
Posted 3 months ago
Mon Jul 27 2009 11:23:35
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I suspect the reason is that not enough time has passed since the beginning of the resurgence.
Maybe the other factor is that some buildings maintain active pesticide treatment programs for roaches using the older high-residual sprays, which still have some effects on slowing down the spread of bed bugs even if not super effective at completely eradicating them, while other buildings use pesticides or growth inhibitors that are much less effective against bed bugs, while still other buildings have no pest control maintenance programs at all.
We may even learn eventually that some tiny percentage of human beings are somewhat immune to bed bug bites by virtue of their bodies producing a smell that bed bugs don't like, or through some other mechanism. (Consider how some humans are resistant to the detrimental effects of HIV, some die from strains of the common influenza while others don't even get a cold from them, some people are tortured by mosquito bites while others are spared being bitten.)
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Just itching to get rid of them
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Joined: May '09
Posts: 124
Posted 3 months ago
Mon Jul 27 2009 12:24:01
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The problem is much more common than is thought. People are in denial. I just put up a thread about my internist. He didn't know bbs suck blood though he has patients with bbs. My whole building is infested. So are other buildings on my block. Mattresses on the curb labelled "bbs" are a common sight. This is a culture of denial. Let's face it. Bbs are nasty, and expensive to deal with. It will take a massive epidemic (which is coming) to break the denial.
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Aris
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Joined: Apr '08
Posts: 62
Posted 3 months ago
Mon Jul 27 2009 12:48:19
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Hey, at least bed bugs are on the radar in NYC.
In some areas, not even PCOs know much about them.When I called my landlord to try to arrange for treatment, the landlord's agent first put me in touch with someone who I guess was a part-time maintenance guy for their buildings, who said he would come out and spray. (He also said that he really doubted I could have bed bugs because none of the tenants in my building had ever had bed bugs.) When I said I thought the job really would require someone with experience in treating this particular kind of pest problem, he in turn had me speak to a PCO they occasionally use. The PCO said he was going to spray down my bed and that should take care of it. I told him that from everything I had read and heard about bed bugs, that didn't sound right. What if they were in the floors or the walls or the furniture? So he then spoke to a more senior person at that PCO company, who told him to have me go to one of the major national chains because dealing with bed bugs could be a more difficult task than they were prepared to take on.
Even the PCO tech that eventually came out didn't seem to be very experienced with or particularly knowledgeable about bed bugs, based on some of the stuff he told me compared to what I have read here and from experts elsewhere. He actually said bed bugs aren't a problem in our area (despite the fact that there have been a few articles in the major newspaper here describing problems in our area, and the fact that this is a major tourist destination, with many travelers in particular visiting from NYC!).
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