www-bedbug.com

You like a little nibble in bed don’t you?

Sure you do.

So you must just love our fair city nowadays as the bed bugs are back!

The Times reports that a rise in used furniture sales, international travel (when in doubt, always blame dark, dark foreigners), and a ban on powerful pesticides have let the pests run wild in New York.

Last year, the city’s housing department received over 4,600 complaints about the little nasties, almost 5 times as many as in 2004.

The cure? Manhattan Councilwoman Brewer suggests banning the sale of used mattresses and creating an overpaid task force to study the issue and to make recommendations WITHIN ONE YEAR.

Sounds reasonable to us. What does the powerful mattress lobby have to say? Well, the International Sleep Products Association is all for a ban on reselling used mattresses and would rather you buy a bed-bug free (new) mattress. Shocking.

The piece also mentions that a lack of published standards on how to sanitize used mattresses has kept resellers from appropriately cleaning and debugging old beds.

But since no hard evidence exists to prove that sanitizing mattresses or preventing the sale of used ones would really lead to a decrease in the bed-bug population, the City has no intention of creating such unifying standards. Because you know, good old common sense (clean mattress = no bugs) can’t trump a pricey government study, or lack thereof.

So what should you do if you find yourself with some unwanted bunkmates of your own? Gothamist Health has garnered this sage advice from the article:

Do not soak your mattress in gasoline in an effort to get rid of bed bugs. Because while the itching can be unbearable, you always risk setting things on fire when you douse them with gasoline.

What do you really need to know about bed-bugs?

Read on.

You should know that:

+ Bedbugs are about 5-7 mm in length and are oval and reddish-brown. They can even have little wings (gross).
+ Infestation in the U.S. is pretty common but not as common as in rural parts of Gambia where up to 38% of children’s beds can be infested.
+ Bedbugs, despite feeding on human blood, usually do not spread disease. Despite the Times article, there have been sporadic reports of transmission of hepatitis B and a weird tropical disease in South America. A few people have even died from allergic reactions.
+ Bedbug bites are painless but itch like crazy. Bites on the face are common.
+ If the bite appears raised or looks like a fluid-filled bubble, it might be secondarily infected.
+ Bites often occur in lines of 3. The so-called, “breakfast, lunch, and dinner” configuration. We think that’s cool.
+ If examining a bed before lying down, carefully inspect the corners – for some reason they like to cluster there.
+ Treatment: Usually no treatment is necessary but an anti-histamine pill or cream (something with Benadryl (diphenhydramine) will do nicely) should help with the itching. More severe itching may require a steroid cream.
+ To prevent infestations or to clean infested beds, sprays made with permethrin work like a charm. A real problem may require an exterminator.

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.

Apartments, hotel rooms, private homes — nowhere is safe.

The numbers don’t lie. According to the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development, it received zero complaints of bedbugs in fiscal year 2003. A year later, the department recorded 79 complaints, and in fiscal year 2005, that leapt to 928. In the 2006 fiscal year that ended June 30, the department logged a phenomenal 4,638 complaints.

The hearing, which spanned four hours, included testimony on proposed legislation that would make it illegal to sell reconditioned mattresses in the city, currently a common practice at many stores.

Not long after the hearing began, though, members of the council’s Consumer Affairs Committee learned from a city official that a 10-year-old state law already regulates the sale of reconditioned mattresses, but the state’s Department of State failed to issue enforcement guidelines for the law.

As a result, no one is checking on whether stores are sanitizing mattresses before reselling them or whether they’re passing off old mattresses as new.

“Nobody seems to be paying attention. There isn’t any oversight,” said Councilwoman Gale Brewer (D-Manhattan), who said her office has received hundreds of complaints about bed bugs. Brewer co-chaired the hearing with Councilman Leroy Comrie (D-St. Albans).

A spokesman for the Department of State said the rules were not promulgated partly because 10 years ago, the process of sanitizing a mattress to meet standards may have been prohibitively costly. Reconditioned mattresses can be sold now if they’re labeled as such, officials said.

Richard Pollack, an entomologist at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston who has studied bed bugs, said the insects disappeared in the latter part of the 20th century but recently made a surging comeback.

The return, he said, “has been attributed to a supposed increase in international travel and immigration.” One council member rejected that characterization as unfairly blaming immigrants.

The city issues summonses to landlords after receiving complaints, but encourages them to hire exterminators to fight the problem before it takes other action, the HPD said.

It was clear during questioning at the hearing, however, that some council members hold misconceptions about bed bugs and their living habits, and that the general public needs education as well.

Andrew Eiler, the director of legislation at the Department of Consumer Affairs, expressed reservations about the proposal to prohibit reconditioned mattresses from the marketplace, as did Pollack of Harvard.

Bed bugs, said Pollack, live mostly in bed seams but they also live and deposit eggs on nightstands, dressers, sofas, picture frames, wall hangings and rugs, as well as metal frames with rust.

Pest control experts are best at tackling the problem, the experts said, because many over-the-counter products are not used properly or don’t work.

www.newsday.com

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Entomologists at the University of Kentucky report that some bed bug populations across the United States are resistant to pyrethroid insecticides.

Alvaro Romero, a doctoral student, and his co-investigators, Kenneth Haynes (project leader), Michael Potter, and Daniel Potter, found that adult bed bugs from four infestations collected from separate locations in Kentucky and Ohio were several thousand-fold resistant to deltamethrin and lambda-cyhalothrin compared to a susceptible laboratory strain.

This high level of resistance may compromise the efficacy of insecticidal products that have pyrethroids as an active ingredient.

Using a discriminating dose test with bed bug nymphs, the researchers further found that seven out of the eight field populations submitted by pest management firms across the country were well over 100-fold resistant to deltamethrin. These tests included bed bugs originating from California, Florida, Kentucky, Ohio and Virginia. Details of the study will be reported at the National Pest Management Association Annual Convention in Grapevine, Texas, in October, 2006.

While the results suggest that resistance to pyrethroids is becoming more widespread, the investigators emphasize that it is not yet universal and many firms are still reporting good control with these active ingredients. Nonetheless, the study findings are significant given that cancellation of most carbamate and organophosphate insecticides has left the industry with few effective alternatives.

Bed bug resistance to insecticides is not a new phenomenon. Resistance to DDT was first reported in the late-1940s and was so widespread a decade later that other products were already being recommended as alternatives. Extension Entomologist Michael Potter cautions that there are a number of reasons other than insecticide resistance why pest control professionals may have difficulty eliminating bed bugs.

Resistance, nevertheless, represents a major challenge to the management of bed bugs and may accelerate the need for alternative tactics. Pyrethroid resistance is likely a factor in the resurgence of this international problem, said Haynes.

“Insecticide resistance has occurred in the past and it will occur in the future,” observes Steve Burt, managing director, Professional Pest Management, Bayer Environmental Science. “As we’ve learned in the past, if you use insecticides properly and in rotation, you won’t have a problem. The key is all of us need to be good stewards of the products we have at our disposal, whether that be the PCO, the distributor or the manufacturer.”

When Florida resident William Orozco and his 12-year-old daughter snuggled into their beds at the Super 8 Motel in Wisconsin Dells they did not suspect anything was wrong, but they had trouble sleeping anyway.

They awakened early.

“We checked the bed, and there was something there. It was a lot of bugs,” Orozco said.

The insects proved to be bed bugs after environmental technicians from the Sauk County Health Department and the Wisconsin Department of Health and Family Services conducted an investigation.

The bugs were found on the box spring, at the bed’s base and behind the headboard, said Nick Oasen, environmental health technician for Sauk County who inspected the infested room on Aug. 18 after Orozco made a complaint about the bugs to the Wisconsin Dells Police Department.

According to the police report, the officer noted 50 bugs of different sizes crawling on the bed. The bugs were as small as the size of a pinhead to as large as an aphid. Some of the bugs that Orozco killed seemed to contain blood, the report stated.

The Sauk County environmental health technicians found the bed bugs in one room. The infestation had not spread to the laundry room or any of the adjoining rooms, Oasen said. The bugs found were in the adult stage, leading Oasen to believe that they were not reproducing yet and had been discovered in the early phases of an infestation.

On Tuesday, Oasen participated in a follow-up investigation and inspected 20 percent of the hotel’s rooms, finding no more bed bugs.

The infested room was closed for several days while an exterminator serviced it, said Super 8 Motel manager Jignesh Jagaria.

“The situation is not good for anybody, for the business, for the people, for the building,” Jagaria said.

The motel’s pest control service has been visiting the motel every month, Jagaria said. There were no bed bugs reported in the motel before, so Jagaria believes one of the motel’s customers transported the insects that measure 3/16 of an inch, the size of an apple seed.

Symptoms of bed bug bites include redness and swelling, similar to those of mosquito bites. They are not known to carry diseases.

Even so, Orozco said he and his daughter have made an appointment with a doctor as a precaution.

“My daughter, she was scared bad,” he said.

Orozco said he is considering contacting a lawyer to see if he can sue Super 8 Motel.

Orozco had been on vacation in Chicago with his daughter before visiting Wisconsin Dells. He said they probably won’t come back to the area.

He said he’ll take precautions before staying in the next hotel room.

“I’m just going to make sure everything is fine before I go to bed,” he said.

Bed bug infestations are rare in Sauk County.

“This is the first one we’ve had in a hotel,” Oasen said. “We’re hoping it’s the last one.”

Joe Lally, Sauk County environmental health specialist said in the 14 years he has worked with the department, the discovery of bed bugs at the Super 8 Motel is the fourth case. Two of the cases surfaced in the last two years, he said. Three of the four cases involved apartment rental property.

Reports indicate that bed bugs are making a comeback after a period of low activity. According to a March news release from the National Pest Management Association, bed bug cases were documented in 47 states and the number of infestations rose 63 percent in the past four years.

The bugs are nocturnal. They hide in cracks and crevices during the day and emerge at night to feed on animals or people. Their diet consists solely of blood.

“They usually go to the beds because they’re looking for that blood meal,” Lally said.

According to Oasen, the bugs depend on a blood meal before they can shed their skin and advance to the next growth stage.

They travel well in luggage, clothing, bedding and moved furniture. Bed bugs can flourish in environments regardless of sanitation.

“Unlike cockroaches, infestation has little to do with cleanliness. You can find bed bugs where ever there are vulnerable people,” Oasen said.

Clutter, by providing more nooks and crannies to shelter the bugs, contributes to the likelihood of an infestation, but clutter was not a problem at the Super 8 Motel where Lally suspects the bed bugs were carried in by a guest.

“I think they just exist and with opportune circumstance they spread out and multiply,” he said.

Jagaria believes the public should take precautions against transporting the bugs.

Minimize spread of bugs
Dr. Mohammed El Damir, an entomologist for Guardian Pest Control Inc., outlined certain steps travelers can take to minimize the chance that they spread a bed bug infestation: inspect closets and drawers for bugs before placing clothes inside, wash sheets and clothes after traveling, dry items in a dryer at 120 degrees fahrenheit for 20 minutes to kill the bugs, vacuum luggage, being sure to dispose of the vacuum cleaner’s bag by sealing it in a plastic bag and throwing it in the dumpster.

Attempting to “starve” the bed bugs by leaving an infested room vacant for a period of time may not be successful because bed bugs can survive for more than a year between meals.

Hotels need plans
Karen Brock, public health inspector with the Wisconsin Department of Health and Family Services said hotel managers should work with licensed pest control operators in removing a bed bug infestation and have a plan in place.

A plan should include the correct identification of the insect. Managers can capture the bugs in a vial filled with rubbing alcohol or in a tightly sealed plastic bag and take the specimen to the county health department to be identified, Brock said.

Clutter should be removed from the infested room, and the room should be cleaned and treated with insecticide. Follow-up insecticide treatments should be conducted to ensure no recently hatched bugs survive. Infested furniture should be labeled as such, bagged and defaced to deter people from reusing it.

Brock, who said the case of bed bugs at the Super 8 Motel is the first one she has encountered since she began working for the state in 1988, said the public should not panic. Bed bugs can be isolated and conquered.

“Once they get established, they tend to stay in the area where they feed,” she said.

http://www.wiscnews.com/wde/news/index.php?ntid=97244&ntpid=1