The Debates, Bed Bug Disputes Filling Our Courts and Bed Bugs on Broadway

Did anyone see last night's Presidential debate? I wonder where the candidates stand on the bed bug infestation in the U.S.?

I came across this story in the New York Sun about how bed bug disputes between landlords and tenants are piling up in the city's courts. One example offered was of a tenant paying $7K a month for an apartment on the Upper East Side who signed a lease without knowing that several floors in the building were undergoing a massive extermination of bed bugs. Now the tenant wants out of the lease, arguing he wouldn't have signed it if he knew about the bed bug infestation.

What I'm wondering is, why the hell hasn't this impacted real estate values yet? I mean, everywhere else in the U.S. the mass foreclosure of homes is driving real estate values down, but in New York, people are still being charged $7,000 a month to live in a bed bug-infestation building! Many New Yorkers I know are leaving the city to live in states and buying foreclosed homes to live in because they can no longer afford to pay so much money in NYC for so little space, and no free parking to boot.

All I know is that the sky-high rents in New York City will not stay that way forever, and be bugs will definitely play a large role in the devaluing of property.

In other news, I guess I was on to something when I started writing my bed bug haikus.

I just found about this new musical called Bedbugs! Here's the ridiculous synopsis from their website.

"80s rock excess meets the Creature Feature. It’s 2012 and Carly, an exterminator hell-bent on avenging her mother’s freak death, has accidentally mutated NYC Bedbugs into bloodthirsty killer Hair Metal Rock Gods. Sweet sidekick Burt has a plan, and troubled Canadian chanteuse Dionne Salon has stumbled onto the scene. But will Carly listen to them and save NYC—or be seduced by her own creation?"

It doesn't exactly sound like something I'd pay to see, but apparently it has sold out in the past, so someone must like it. I seriously doubt that anyone in 2012 is listening hair metal rock. I'm glad it died in the 80s.

I wish someone would write a musical about living with bed bugs in New York City. No shortage of drama and conflict in that story!

Bad news for Bushwick...

Leave it to the Brooklyn Eagle to give readers in-depth coverage of the bed bug situation in Brooklyn. Unlike the Daily Snooze and other New York dailies, the Eagle doesn't have their covers plastered with the Yankees or Paris Hilton.

That's the only good news here. The bad news is that according to 311, Bushwick is the "bed bug capital of Brooklyn", logging 550 complaints of bed bug infestations from that neighborhood only in the first six months of 2008. Stay away from those benches in Bushwick Park!

The runners-up for the title are Flatbush, Midwood and Prospect Park South. Other honorable mentions include Brooklyn Heights, Downtown Brooklyn, and Boerum Hill with Mill Basin and Flatlands coming in dead last in number of bed bug infestation complaints.

The article also contains a few personal testimonies and a few basic tips I'm sure we're all familiar with by now. Pretty well-written and reported.

The article made me wonder how my own neighborhood ranked in regard to bed bug complaints so I Googled bed bug 311 complaints. As a result, I came across this interesting bed bug blog which featured 311 bed bug complaints for every neighborhood in New York. Actually, the areas are not categorized by our city's vague neighborhood boundaries but rather by Community Districts, which may encompass more than one neighborhood (you have to scroll down a bit to find the chart).

According to the chart, which only tracks up to June 19, 2008, Bushwick, with 550 complaints logged, is not only the bed bug capital of Brooklyn but of all five boroughs as well. The runners-up citywide are Washington Heights/Inwood (477 complaints), Flatbush/Ocean Parkway/Midwood (364), West Harlem/Morningside Heights/Manhattanville/Hamilton Heights (332), and Central Harlem (330). Given these statistics it's hard not to determine that the bed bug infestation in New York is concentrated in Brooklyn and upper Manhattan.

But I have to question the accuracy of 311 complaints as an indicator of which neighborhoods are have the highest rates of infestation because I don't think that most New Yorkers think to call 311 about a bed bug infestation. I certainly didn't call 311 about my problems, but that's only because I don't expect the government to do anything about it. But I've had a lot of people suggest I write my Congressman or my Councilman or my Senator. As if that will do anything.

Despite all of its most expensive efforts, the government can't keep people from getting high, it can't stop racism or sexism in the workplace, it can't prevent gun violence, it can't combat poverty, can't bring democracy to Iraq, can't keep illegal aliens out of this country, it can't keep jobs from going overseas, it can't teach children basic skills, it can't provide health insurance for everyone who needs it, it can't respond to emergencies in a timely fashion, it can't rebuild Ground Zero even after seven years, it can't provide adequate health care for its soldiers, it can't help people who are losing their homes, it can't balance the national deficit, it can't prevent terrorist attacks, it can't adequately equip its troops, it can't find Osama bin Laden, it can't rehabilitate criminals, it can't keep politicians from accepting lobbyist "gifts", it can't control who or what passes through its borders, it can't keep teenagers from having sex, it can't guarantee its citizens guaranteed Constitutional civil rights, it can't keep prostitutes off the streets, it can't put out a bunch of forest fires at once, it can't protect the public from trans fats or second-hand smoke, it can't lower gas prices, it can't figure out whether or not a foreign country has weapons of mass destruction, it can't adequately protect its own nuclear energy facilities from terrorist attack, it can't facilitate a remotely democratic electoral system, and it can't protect the environment.

Given all the ongoing and historic failures of government, why the hell would I ever think my government could do a thing about a bed bug infestation?

If anything, government may actually be the problem. Two words: DDT ban.

Does the Media Hate Bed Bugs, Or Just The People Who Have Bed Bugs?

Sorry I haven't blogged in a while. I was recently in the hospital for six days due to a serious diabetes-related ulcer in my left foot. As a result, I lost my job at AM New York and am currently taking nausea-inducing antibiotics and am hooked up to a small machine that sucks out the infected tissue from the wound.

The good news?

1. My doctor reports that my infection is 75% healed.
2. I did not see one bed bug at the hospital where I stayed which was a great relief to me because while I only see dead bed bugs in my home and a live one rarely, I was still very afraid of carrying a bug to the hospital. I've experience a rise in bed bug paranoia ever since I found out an unused extension cord had become a nest for bed bugs.
   

I did find an interesting article regarding bed bug infestations in precinct jail cells and police cruisers, this time in New Rochelle, a small town in Upstate New York. It amazes me how ignorant most people are in regards to bed bugs. I've met many people (mostly Americans) who think that bed bugs do not exist outside of New York City. I don't quite understand the logic behind this theory (perhaps they are associating bed bugs with a particular ethnic group in New York City) but I am always pleased when I read about bed bugs infesting areas that are far away from New York City.

"Capt. Kevin Kealy said the issue first cropped up about three weeks ago, when some prisoners in the cell block complained of insect bites. There are no mattresses or cushioned surfaces, just a solid sleeping bench in the holding cells, he said, but bed bugs were discovered on the floor. The cell block was quarantined for three days of chemical applications to exterminate the bugs, Kealy said. "That seemed to have worked," Kealy said. But then bugs turned up in three radio cars from different tours, including a car used for a daytime tour of duty yesterday. The car was taken out of commission for 24 hours so it could be fumigated, he said."

Now some people might read that article and come to the conclusion that criminals spread bed bugs, or confirm some misconception that only poor people spread bed bugs, since most blue-collar criminals are poor. I think some people just like to equate bed bugs with a particular group to offer some logic or explanation toward the spread of bed bugs, or in some cases, their own bed bug infestation. For example, someone might believe that only people from the Middle East bring bed bugs to America and may think to themselves, "what Middle Eastern person have I been in contact with the past few days?" and use this mis belief to express their own real prejudice against people of Middle Eastern descent.

I don't know, I'm just babbling. Sometimes I feel like the media depicts people suffering from bed bugs in an unfavorable light, as if they're telling their audience, "This could never happen to you; these people are very different from you and I." In this particular article, only the inmates (and one cop) are reported as having suffered bug bites, and the inmates are directly blamed for having introduced the bugs to the cruisers and jail cells, even though the officers' locker room, which is obviously one part of the precinct a suspect would never be allowed to enter, is also fumigated.

The original bed bugs must have come in on a prisoner, he said. While the county jail said they did not have "a massive infestation," it only takes one person to carry in the bugs and create a problem, Kealy said.

"The concern is even if you exterminate every inch of the place, another prisoner could bring them in and they re-infest," Kealy said.

Myabe this is just isolated to American media or New York media. I know Bugged Out is visited by a lot of people from across the U.S.A. and around the world, so can anyone tell me about the quality of media coverage of bed bugs in their hometown or country?

Thanks.

One More Reason to Stand In the Subway

According to the New York Post, New York Daily News and one City agency, among other sources, bed bugs have exploded in population in our subway system, finding a comfortable home in the wooden benches on the subway platforms.

Bed bug sighting have been confirmed at the following subway stations:

• Fordham Road, Bronx
• Union Square, Manhattan
• Hoyt-Schermerhorn, Brooklyn
  

While only three out of the dozens of subway stations in New York City have had confirmed sightings, there's no doubt in my mind that the others are just as contaminated.

Apparently, a bed bug workshop held in Greenpoint, Brooklyn last Thursday by the Department of Housing and Preservation Development slipped my radar; sorry about that. It's detailed in most of the news articles and it seems this declaration by media is based on what was discussed at that workshop. Fortunately, a blogger in Greenpoint attended the event and provided details.

Just for fun I thought I'd start another poll asking readers to tell us which borough's subway stations they have encountered bed bugs, if they have done so at all. Please, join in on the fun.

Bed Bug Sniffing Dogs

Many of you may have read or seen on TV stories about dogs that have been trained to sniff bed bugs. Now, Advanced K9 Detectives, a company that boasts a pack of bed bug sniffing dogs that can quickly, cheaply-and most importantly, effectively-sniff a room for bed bugs following an exterminator's visit.

It amazes me how dogs' powerful sense of smell-which can be as much as 2,000 times stronger than that of a human-can be capitalized on to detect so many different things. There are even dogs who can sniff out bootleg DVDs!

But I am not interested in hiring Advanced K9 or any other similar company; I want to know how a dog can be properly trained to detect bed bugs. I would love to buy a beagle or any other breed that could accurately pinpoint the secret locations of the bed bugs in my home, because although I haven't been bitten in a long time, I do occasionally come across a dead bed bug or two, which makes me believe they're still out there, like Al-Qaeda, silently waiting to execute their next great attack.

Would anyone know if this is possible for a civilian to own a detection dog? M loves dogs and I know a trained bed bug sniffing dog would be an incredible bonus to having a dog living with us.

Lavender Oil?

Could something as simple and common as lavender oil help ward off bed bugs while you sleep? I've heard stranger things. An article from last July in the First Post, a British online magazine included a personal testimony from a Briton who encountered bed bugs while on holiday in Germany and recommended lavender oil spray, although he didn't specify whether to spray it on yourself or in your room or bed.

Don't think that booking into a five-star hotel will offer you protection. Earlier this year, a US lawyer sued a luxury hotel in London after he and his wife had been badly bitten. A better - and cheaper - alternative is never to go anywhere without a lavender oil spray: apparently, it's the one thing the little bastards can't stand.-unknown bloke

How did this guy know to use lavender spray? Was this discovery simply the result of dumb luck, as was the case with the invention of the microwave ovens and silly putty? Perhaps his wife was burning lavender oil candles (you know how women love that aromatherapy stuff) from an oil lamp or something and they noticed how the bed bugs in their hotel room reacted to the scent. It has been well documented that bed bugs can smell each other's pheromones, fecal matter and even dried human blood; they very well could have smelled the lavender oil as well.

I will try burning lavender oil in my own oil lamp (it's actually M's oil lamp) to see exactly how well this works. However, I don't have nearly as many bed bugs as I used to (I see maybe one or two live ones a month these days) so if anyone else could conduct this little experiment in their own bed bug-infested homes and share the findings with the rest of the class, I would very much appreciate it.

By the way, I did receive my new mattress from Sleepy's the day after ordering it, and to my surprise I did not have to wrap it in a plastic drop cloth. The mattress came sealed (with a small air pocket, unfortunately) in a tough plastic whose durability is similar if not superior to that of a plastic drop cloth. They really are the mattress professionals! However, I do remember the salesman telling me that all mattresses sold by Sleepy's have a 10-year warranty; I suspect that 10-year warranty is considered void if that protective plastic seal is broken.

I really did like the inflatable mattresses, but it's much nicer to have worry-free sex on a conventional mattress secure in the knowledge that the mattress won't spring a leak and break down.

Happy Valentine's Day, by the way!

On the Bright Side of Bed Bugs, Part 2

I found another reason to be happy to live with bedbugs. At least they're not the Chagas, a South American insect whose bites induce a parasitic infection which feeds on the host's heart muscle and intestines and kills 50,000 people every year. According to the Times Colonist in western Canada, the infection caused by a bite from a Chagas, also known as the "blood-sucking assassin" can also be transmitted from one human to another via blood transfusion. The symptoms take 10 to 20 years to develop and are usually fatal.

Did I also mention that they can fly?

So be happy that bed bugs is all you have, because there is a far greater menace out there that make bed bugs seem like Girl Scouts in comparison.

Bed Bug Sunday News Spread

Happy New Year, everyone!

I did a lot of drinking, dancing and eating for New Year's Eve and was too busy preparing for the festivities to read last Sunday's New York Daily News, despite the fact that I had bought it. I finally got a chance to go through it today and in it was a two-page spread about bed bugs in New York City. Obviously it's too late to buy the Sunday Daily News if you haven't already, but you can still read the online version of that story. The article includes two personal accounts from New Yorkers living with bed bugs, including that of Caitlin Heller, a fellow bed bug blogger who has been reading my blog since its inception two years ago. Caitlin is also the founder and moderator of the Yahoo! bed bug support group, Bedbugger. Here's a brief excerpt of her bed bug woes:

"I was getting 15 to 20 bites a night, and it was driving me crazy," said Heller, who runs Yahoo's Bedbug Support Group where sufferers commiserate. "I suffered mentally. I couldn't sleep at night, and I couldn't focus during the day because I had itchy, painful welts all over my body."

Scary.

The article emphasizes the fact that New York City's poorest and wealthiest dwellings are equally vulnerable to bed bugs, listing recent breakouts of bed bug infestations in such locales as Ralph Lauren's design studio, the Thomas Jefferson Housing Projects, the Helmsley Park Lane Hotel, and the Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft law firm.

Check it out; it's a pretty good read, and check out Bedbugger as well.

Later.

"Don't Let the Bed Bugs Bite"

Hoo boy. If you're like me and have perused the web endlessly for news on bed bugs, you've no doubt read "Don't Let the Bed Bugs Bite" ad nauseam by clueless reporters who no doubt assume they are the first to ever use this adage in an article involving bed bugs. I am quite sick of hearing this saying in news stories about bed bugs, and I have no doubt in my mind that 2008 will be full of news stories that contain "Don't Let the Bed Bugs Bite" in the lead paragraph if not the headline.

I came upon a news story about colonial America that actually tells from where this notorious adage originates. It's from the Norwell Mariner/Patriot Ledger in Marshfield, Massachusetts. The article focuses on MA state Senator Robert Hedlund, who accompanied a class of fifth graders on their field trip to a New England colonial museum. Apparently Marshfield is a microscopically sleepy town or this article was the byproduct of an extraordinarily slow news day. In any case, the origin of the phrase is revealed in the following quote:

It was later learned that colonists often had to cope with bed bugs because mattresses were made of straw; bed supports were tightened with a special device: hence the expression, “sleep tight and don’t let the bed bugs bite.”-Mary Ford, "Oldest Fifth-grader Joins School Field Trip"

The fact offers some perspective when you consider all the technological advancements made since the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock in 1620, and despite all these advancements we still itch for the same reason the Pilgrims did. The bed bugs must've annoyed the hell out of the Native Americans.

Happy New Year, by the way. Next month will be the second birthday of Bugged Out.

Speaking of New Year, do any native New Yorkers actually go to Times Square anymore to watch the ball drop? It was all the rage when I was a kid, and by the time I was old enough to go by myself (since no adult I knew was interested in going), the whole hanging out at Times Square got real lame, especially after 9/11 when security was beefed up and everything from liquid containers (no booze?!?) to backpacks were banned from the area during the New Year's Party.

As far as I know, most New Yorkers attend private New Year's parties where they are free to eat, drink, smoke, snort, inject and swallow whatever the hell they want without being hassled by the fuzz. Times Square at New Year's is for squares, a.k.a. tourists. Let them be herded like cattle into a potential terrorist target area.

So be sure to stock on the alcohol tomorrow, especially if you have bed bugs. And for those who don't have bed bugs, you are cordially invited to my house for a slumber party! Then you can go home and watch your furniture and your sanity disappear.

Cheers.

Sniff, Sniff

Hi,

I must be really desensitized to the disgusting concept of bed bugs as I am blogging while eating a sandwich of leftover turkey. Are bed bugs a good source of protein?

Came across this article in the Knox News Sentinel in Tennessee that describes the odor that bed bugs emit as smelling like coriander. For those who don't know what coriander is, it is an herb more commonly (at least in the U.S.) as cilantro. The article claims to have gotten this and other bed bug factoids from bedbugresource.com and the University of Tennessee, but I couldn't find any mention of a coriander-scented odor coming from bed bugs on either website.

I personally think the odor that bed bugs emit are like a musk, the scent created by an animal's (deer musk is used in many fragrances) stink gland between their stomach and their genitals.

My question is, if the smell is in fact a musk, and deer musk and pig pheromones have been used in perfumes for thousands of years, could the bed bug odor be bottled as a perfume? Could those of us living with bed bugs be sitting on a gold mine?

Probably not.

My other question is, what do you think the bed bugs' distinctive odors smells like? Please participate in the new poll located in the sidebar. I've already asked six friends and family members and no one has given the same answer. Their responses as well as mine are listed as poll responses, but feel free to select "Other" on the poll if you don't agree with any of us and then write in the comment area of this post what you think the bed bug odor smells like to you.

Happy Thanksgiving by the way.

Later.

Time For a Stiff Drink

Sorry for the delay. Thanksgiving is just around the corner, and all my professors felt that loading me down with pointless busywork to complete over the four-day weekend was a great idea. Spent much of the past weekend working on it while looking for more work. Thank God I'm graduating this semester. Man, I hate college. Finals are coming up and I am not my usual cheerful self. If things weren't depressing enough, check out the crap I scooped up off the Web.

The first item of discussion is an article from 7 Online New Jersey's Department of Health investigating a bed bug infestation in an apartment complex. The story itself isn't that noteworthy, but here comes the kicker. One tenant's infestation in her family's bedrooms was so bad she moved their mattresses out to the hallway (presumably a hall in the apartment and not the hallway on the other side of her apartment door) because they were too scared to sleep in their bedrooms.

Is this lady a complete idiot, or am I losing my mind? What part of BED bug does she not understand? They're not called bedroom bugs; they're called bed bugs, and for a pretty damn good reason. It's because they love beds, and if you have a bed bug infestation, chances are the bugs have first settled inside the bed, namely the mattress. So this mental midget basically dragged her mattress and the mattresses of her two children out to the hallway, along with all the bed bugs inside the mattresses. Soon, the hallway will be full of bed bugs and so will the living room with its comfy sofas. Smooth move, ex-lax.

Speaking of stupid, 7 Online made two embarrassing grammatical errors in their article. I understand this was probably a script that ran off a teleprompter for the on-air people (a.k.a., news puppets) to read aloud on camera, so maybe I'm just nitpicking.

I also want to rant about a good number of the insecticides out there on the market (mostly in aerosol spray form) that are allegedly good to use on bed bugs. These spray cans are never exclusively intended for killing bed bugs, but rather for a host of insects as well such as mites, roaches, spiders, water bugs, termites, etc. I, like many of you, have purchased one or two of these bug sprays if for no other reason than to satisfy my personal curiosity. These sprays usually offer mixed results, which make me wonder if they're effective against bed bugs at all.

What really bothers me about these sprays is their inclusiveness, the fact that their labels claim they can be used to kill an array of pests including bed bugs. But we've been told over and over and over again (and some of us have learned through trial and error) that the pesticides that kill other insects do not really work on bed bugs. Therefore, the claim made by these sprays are an outright lie to me and gives me the impression that the spray was originally intended for those other pests but the spray's manufacturer added bed bugs to the label regardless of whether or not the spray is effective in killing bed bugs. It's 5am, so I'm not sure if what I'm saying is 100% coherent. Maybe the spray's claims do make sense, and I'm the one who's lost touch with reality.

In The News

Hi,

I couldn't decide which news item to write about, so I figured I'd write about both. First up, a New York Times article from November 2005. It illustrates the dramatic increase of numbers of bedbug reports in New York City.

Last year (2004) the city logged 377 bedbug violations, up from just 2 in 2002 and 16 in 2003. Since July (2005), there have been 449. "It's definitely a fast-emerging problem," said Carol Abrams, spokeswoman for the city housing agency.

wow is all I can say.

In other news, Cincinnati, Ohio's Department of Health has accomplished something New York Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) could not, despite all the token gestures made and lame duck hearings held by the New York City Council last year: form a bed bug task force.

According to WLWT Cincinnati and WCPO Cincinnati, the Ohio State Legislature formed the Bed Bug Task Force after Cincinnati's Council On Aging logged 500 different clients in one month who had complained about a bed bug infestation in their homes. The task force held their first public meeting last Monday with residents, politicians and exterminators to discuss the city's bed bug problem. The task force has already lobbied members of the Ohio state legislature for stricter guidelines in a bed bug eradication strategy.

So Cincinnati has their act together, but what about New York? Well, there's this quote from the 2005 New York Times article to keep our spirits up:

"People come in here and cry on my shoulder," said Andy Linares, the owner of Bug Off Pest Control, in Washington Heights. "They feel ashamed, even traumatized, to have these invisible vampires living in their home. Rats, even V.D., is more socially acceptable than bedbugs."

How the Mighty Have Fallen

I recently saw a blog post from Gothamist detailing the demise of the famous Hotel Pennsylvania. For those of you either new to New York City or not from New York City, the Hotel Pennsylvania is one of the most extravagant hotels in a city known for extravagant hotels.

My brother, father, uncle, and both grandfathers found steady employment within Manhattan's hospitality industry, and although none of them were ever lucky enough to work at the Hotel Pennsylvania, I grew up hearing how grand and high-class this famous hotel was.

The Hotel Pennsylvania's glamorous history, however, has become just that as law suits from guests being bitten by bed bugs have forged a new reputation for the 88-year old hotel. Check out this lead (of what should've been the lead!) from the New York Observer:

ONCE A GLAMOROUS DESTINATION where jazz standouts Count Basie and Duke Ellington performed in the grand ballroom—a place immortalized (along with its phone number) by the Glenn Miller tune “Pennsylvania 6-5000”—the 1,700-room hotel has since devolved into a cheap, decrepit tourist trap more commonly associated with reported bedbug attacks than big-band nostalgia.

The company who owns the Hotel Pennsylvania is preparing to tear down the historic hotel and replace it with a skyscraper. Obviously the pending law suits and the hotel's tarnished reputation have proved to be too much to merit the continued existence of the hotel. Some preservationists are trying to make the City declare the hotel a landmark, which would outlaw its demolition, but I think this movement is too little, too late.

I stated back in April 2006 and to two reporters who interviewed me that this bed bug problem, and the city's unwillingness to adequately address the epidemic would ultimately affect the hospitality and real estate industries, which are huge in New York City. The City Council has chosen to do nothing aside from token gestures about this problem and now this city is losing one of its most historic venues.

Bed Bug Tortilla/Pest Control Orgy

I came across this old CBS story from New York City in which a woman living in a Brooklyn slum complains to her super of, among other things, a bed bug infestation. Check this out:

As for her complaint to the super about the bedbugs? "What you can do with the bed bugs is put them in a tortilla and feed them to your family and then get rid of the bedbugs," she said the super told her.

Yikes. Seems like bed bugs are just one more complaint for slumlords to ignore.

In other news, PCT Online had a very interesting article exhibiting just what it took to destroy a full-scale bed bug infestation in one New Jersey apartment building. People often drop comments on Bugged Out asking how to effectively get rid of bed bugs from their apartments or apartment buildings, and the answer is never a simple one. Because apartments are attached to each other, simply fumigating the affected apartment doesn't help, as bed bugs can escape to adjacent apartments and return when the coast is clear.

Royal Fumigation, however, has devised a fumigation strategy even more comprehensive than President Bush's invasion of Iraq. Keeping constant communication with local police precincts, fire departments and New Jersey's Department of Environmental Protection, Royal had the property manager evacuate all tenants from the building for the duration of the bed bug fumigation, arranging temporary housing for the displaced tenants. Royal then spent the next 12 hours sealing off, I presume, every nook and cranny in the building.

After that, a pesticide called Vikane was sprayed in the building for about 24 hours. A consultant from Dow Agrosciences, the manufacturer of Vikane, was on hand to help Royal with the proper application of the pesticide. The actual fumigation period was followed by a nine-hour aeration of the entire building using fans. Though the aeration was over by 9 pm, Royal didn't want anyone re-entering the building until the next morning. The next day the property manager brought in a cleaning crew to make the building ready for the tenants to move back in.

I found this to be the most coordinated and thorough bed bug fumigation I've ever heard of. I can't even imagine how much this all cost. The article itself leaves out several facts that I and others would love to know, including:

1. How many people were actually involved in the fumigation?
2. How much did this all cost, and was the cost covered by the landlord or by the tenants?
3. How many apartment units were in the building?
4. How much time did Royal spend preparing this very thorough operation?
5. What logistical issues, if any, did the crew face while planning this operation?
   
6. Were the apartments unlocked in order for Royal to properly fumigate them?

I certainly wish these questions were answered in the article, but the story had enough information to keep me interested. Wouldn't it be an absolute bitch if the bed bugs still survived in that building after all that?

Have a good weekend.

New York, the Perfect Scapegoat

Even in a post-9/11 world, Americans love to talk trash about New York City. This LA Times article on bed bugs is no different. While I didn't find anything of significance in the article that I haven't already blogged about, I did find this particular passage interesting:

They used to be associated with cramped and dirty living quarters, grimy motels and high-rise living in places like New York.-Los Angeles Times

Because cramped and dirty living quarters and grimy motels can only be found in New York, right? Right.

If you click on the second page of the article, you will find some interesting bed bug trivia to share with your friends when you're up at three in the morning because you're too paranoid to go to sleep. But if you don't feel like making that extra click, I copied and pasted the factoids below:

Bedbugs are established members of the global community. Archaeologists in Europe have found bedbug fossils dating back 3,500 years, the University of Kentucky's Potter said, "and they go way back before that." They arrived in the New World with the first colonists and were plentiful until about the 1940s, when DDT seemed to do away with them.-Los Angeles Times

By the way, someone has already posted in the comment area four bed bug haikus. They're really good, but as promised, I would only post my next ten bed bug haikus when you guys submitted ten of your own. So try and send in six more, and only then will I unleash to the world my next ten bed bug haikus.

Later.

Who Wants To Laugh?

With all the crying many of you are doing as you throw out your beloved bed bug-ridden furniture, I'm sure you can all use a good laugh.

The following is an article I found in The Spoof!, a publication featuring outrageously made-up news, kind of the British version of The Onion. This particular article showcases a new strain of bed bug that resembles a lobster.

Here's one hilarious quote:

These super-bugs thrive on crisps and of course the lower orders are always eating food in bed, and as they always buy shite for their kids and that, then it's no surprise that this plague is getting totally out of hand."

In case you're wondering, "crisps" are what English people call potato chips because "chips" are what they call french fries. "Feckers" is, well, replace the first e with a u and you'll figure it out. "Shite"? Remove the e and you will have the American translation. "Council estates" I imagine refers to public housing, and the "lower orders" means lower-class people.

Enjoy!

Bed Bugs Just Won't Co-op Erate!

I’m always happy to write about bed bug-related info that’s relevant to New York City as opposed to writing about bed bugs in general. I came across an article this afternoon in The Cooperator, a New York City-based trade publication for “the co-op and condo community” (not exactly sure if that refers to building management, individual owners, or both) about bed bugs, aptly referring to them as “domestic terrorists”.

I was pleased to found some myths dispelled that have previously flourished among the general public, a sign that as time has passed, our knowledge of bed bugs and how to deal with them have been better researched and documented, resulting in a higher quality of information concerning the subject. I found the article to contain some very interesting facts, such as:

According to the National Pest Management Association, complaints of bed bug infestation increased by 71 percent between 2000 and 2005, and the city's exterminators are reporting record numbers of calls about the problem.

...and..

Bed bugs get the signal to forage when they taste the scent of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the dark. Nighttime typically means increased production of CO2 while we sleep, and that's when the pests emerge to sip drops of blood from their host.

...and even tips on hiring exterminators that I’ve never read before…

"If [an exterminator's] pre-treatment checklist is detail-oriented, you probably have a good exterminator," says Pearlman. "If he doesn't have a checklist, don't hire him. If the bugs aren't exterminated, you will be bitten again within three or four days."

My only complaint about this particular piece is that one exterminator interviewed in the article claims that bed bug bites do not itch. Anybody out there think bed bug bites don’t itch? I sure think they do.

The article is an interesting read, so feel free to check it out if the above excerpts seem interesting. And if you find any helpful information out there about bed bugs, please, share it with the rest of the class, okay?

Bugged Out in the News!

Last month a reporter from the Queens Tribune left a comment on Bugged Out saying she wanted to interview me for a story about bed bugs in Queens (where I live) and left her number. So I called her, did the interview and yesterday picked up this week's copy of the Tribune and found the article.

Check out the article. It's pretty good.

Bedbug or Bed Bug?

I've often wondered, as I write this blog, is the proper spelling bed bug or bedbug? Sure, it's a minor concern in the face of all the crap we must worry about, but it's still a question to which few have the answer.

Well, I came across an article in the Village Voice by Mara Altman that seemed to clear things up. Here's a quote from that feature article, which by the way is an interesting read if you have the time (you know how long those Voice feature articles can be, and this is no exception). And if you don't have the time, you can read the fun excerpts below:

"Sorkin went to the Bug Off convention the next day as part of his ongoing
efforts to ensure that his information is the latest. As Branscome strode up,
the male exterminators whistled and clapped as if she were their favorite
comic-book hero come to life. The first issue she addressed is one that has
mystified us all: Is it bedbugs, or bed bugs? According to this expert, it's two
words in the United States and one word in Europe (in direct opposition to
Village Voice style). With information like that, the $100 entrance fee has
already paid for itself. "

Here the article focuses on the stigma caused by bed bugs:

"In a city where people already depend on Ambien for a good night's sleep, the
thought of bedbugs has wreaked havoc on circadian rhythms from homeless shelters
to $2 million loft apartments. The thought of them is making people itch—not the
bedbugs themselves, whose numbers don't even quite live up to the media hype.
What has yet to be quantified—but what has become an urban infestation of its
own—is the paranoia that the bedbug craze has produced. It turns out, perhaps no
surprise in a city as neurotically obsessed as New York, that something as small
as a bedbug can grow colossal in the minds of millions.
The stigma alone is enough to make hardened city dwellers cringe and cry on Eisenberg's shoulder. He begins each office visit by walking new clients over to a sliver of mirror around the corner from his desk. "Repeat after me," he says as he forces the victims to study their reflection. "I'm not a dirty person." Then he offers them a shot of scotch from a bottle he keeps in his filing cabinet. It's an equal-opportunity bug, he explains. The bugs find a 40-year-old pediatric neurosurgeon on the Lower East Side equally appetizing as a 27-year-old comedian in midtown. In the world of bedbugs, a big-time entrepreneur on the Upper East Side has nothing on a twentysomething unemployed actor. A successful movie director on the Upper West Side shares equal ground with a 22-year-old starving grad student. All the bugs are looking for is a drop of blood, and each of us has about five liters. In a city of 8 million, that's 10,566,882 gallons of bedbug food. Is it any wonder we're terrified?"

The article also covered an exterminator's convention where among the topics discussed there was creative, chemical methods of rendering bed bugs unable to mate and therefore reproduce.

"Anti-Viagra: That's what Linares calls one of his most promising bedbug-fighting pesticides. The pesticide was originally used for cockroaches; it freezes them in an adolescent phase so they never could mate. But Linares found the substance does something different to bedbugs. It shrinks their appendages, making them unable to harden up and penetrate. I didn't ask what the substance does to bipedal mammals."

Enjoy!

Bed Bug Hearing News Search

As promised, I have done a quickie search of local news sources for stories about last week's hearing. So here I have links to each story along with what I found to be that story's strongest passage.

Also, I received an eyewitness report from fellow bed bug blogger and faithful reader The Caitlinator. Apparently City agencies are trying to pass the buck (as usual) as to whose responsibility it should be to deal with bed bugs in New York.

I went to the hearing. There were a lot of experts talking about bedbugs, but
probably the height of the debate centered around whether or not bedbugs pose a
health concern. The Department of Health wants to pass the buck to Housing,
claiming that bedbugs pose no health threats. Of course, anyone who has had
bedbugs would disagree, since mental health is certainly health, and it causes
severe mental distress to discover and then live with bedbugs over any period of
time.Many experts spoke, an entomologist from the Museum of Natural History as
well as another from Harvard University, a representative from some council on
mattress sellers, lawyers and representatives from the Housing Department,
exterminators, the Department of Health, and members of the public who are
dealing with bedbugs. All in all, there was a lot of repetitive information and
the bill itself wasn't discussed in much detail. What was clear is that bedbugs
are a problem that the city has to address in some way or another, either
through education or licensing exterminators for bedbugs, or legal means to
protect both homeowners and tenants. Hope this helps.

The Caitlinator also provided her own list of links to news stories covering the hearing.

"City Council Working To Stomp Out Growing Bed Bug Problem" - NY1

Councilwoman Gale Brewer introduced the bill and says they can affect any
New Yorker. "I have received calls from personal experiences from friends living
in brownstones on the West Side of Manhattan, and we have received calls from
individuals living in single room occupancies in residential hotels," she said.
"It does seem very clear to me that bed bugs do not discriminate based on
socio-economics."

"Losing sleep over boom in bedbugs" - Newsday

After hundreds of complaints, the City Council held a public hearing yesterday
during which a Harvard University entomologist, pest-control experts and
officials with the Bloomberg administration agreed the bedbug population is
exploding across the city and throughout North America, Europe and
Australia. Apartments, hotel rooms, private homes - nowhere is safe.

"City takes aim at exploding bed bugs problem" – Newsday

After hundreds of complaints, the City Council held a public hearing Monday during which a Harvard University entomologist, pest-control experts and officials with the Bloomberg administration agreed the bed-bug population is exploding across the city and throughout North America, Europe and Australia.