5/27/2011 How NYC Became Americas Most BedBug Infested City: Problem Has Plagued Hotels, Subways, Retail & Even NYPD Police Cars

It probably isn’t much of a surprise, but bedbugs are taking a bigger bite out of the Big Apple so far this year, according to one exterminator company.

For the second consecutive year, Terminix ranked the city first in the nation for bedbug infestations, edging out Cincinnati, Detroit, Chicago and Philadelphia.  (In better news for New Yorkers, a rival ranking by competitor Orkin ranked the city only the seventh worst for bedbug cases.)

Terminix’s city rankings are based on the number of customer complaints and infestations discovered by employees of the company’s 350 U.S. branches. The company wouldn’t release specific data on just how many bedbug complaints it gets, but it said the problem is multiplying.

Bob Young, an entomologist and Northeast and Midwest division manager for Terminix, estimated that he has logged two to three times more bedbug calls over last year, following high-profile cases in which bedbug invasions forced several Manhattan businesses to close temporarily.

Is any borough of New York more infested than the others?

“Manhattan,” said Young, who is based in New York. He the added: “Clearly, Brooklyn and Queens. The Bronx. Even in the rural areas. They’re all over the place. These things, they hitchhike.”

Business for bedbug exterminators boomed last year. Bedbugs start at $500 a room, and off-site fumigation of personal belongings can add another $1,000, Young told WSJ columnist Anne Kadet last year. High-end residential jobs involving art and antiques can cost as much as $20,000.

This summer projections for bedbug activity probably won’t help New Yorkers feel more at ease. ”It’s a larger and larger problem each day,” Young said. “College students seem to bring them home with them.”

Young, who has been with Terminix for 15 years, said he started seeing the critters hit New York in the early 2000s. Since then, complaints have risen ten- to fifteenfold, he said, as the public becomes more aware of their presence.

Last year, bedbugs shut down the flagship Niketown store on East 57th Street, the Hollister Epic store in SoHo and a Victoria’s Secret on the Upper East Side, among other locations. And the insects made a debut at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

This year? “They’re even in police-department squad cars,” Young said.

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5/25/2011 Bedbugs Found For Second Time At Washington DC Hospital: United Medical Center Dealt With Already This Past March

The D.C. Department of Health confirmed that United Medical Center is dealing with its second case of bed bugs since March.

DOH spokesperson Dena Iverson said a patient complained about being bitten on Tuesday, May 17. She said a pest control technician came to the hospital that day.

Iverson said bed bugs were found in two rooms. While those rooms were treated, “[the hospital] moved everyone out of that area,” she said.

According to a source who declined to be identified, as many as six rooms may have been treated as a precaution.

Just two months ago, on March 7, UMC said a patient was discovered with bed bugs in the hospital’s psychiatric unit. Extermination began on March 8. In that incident, hospital staff said bed bug sniffing dogs detected the bugs in only one patient room. However, four rooms in total were treated as a precaution.

According to Iverson, the rooms received a chemical treatment rather than a heat treatment. She said using chemicals is equally effective as using heat to kill bed bugs. However, chemicals take longer because they require a different application method.

Iverson also said the bugs were tested for MRSA. The test results are still pending.

Scientists in Canada recently found the pests are able to carry the dangerous staph infection MRSA or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.

It is unclear where in the hospital this latest outbreak was located. United Medical Center has not returned calls or emails for comment.

D.C. law does not require hospitals – or any business, for that matter – to disclose bed bug incidents to health officials or the public. However, DOH officials say they were notified by UMC.

DOH has also offered to train UMC staff on how to identify and respond to bed bugs.

Iverson said “hospitals are like hotels.” With frequent visitors and close sleeping quarters, environments like hospitals and hotels can create ideal conditions for a bed bug infestation.

According to Iverson, the rooms have received a chemical treatment to kill the bugs. She said using chemicals is as effective as the more traditional heat treatments. However, chemicals take longer because they require a different application method.

Iverson also said the bugs found last week were tested for MRSA. The test results are still pending.

After studying hospitals in Canada, scientists recently found that bed bugs are able to carry the dangerous staph infection MRSA or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.

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5/24/2011 2011 Most Bedbug Plagued Cities List: NYC Takes Top Spot According To Pest Control Giant Terminix

New York, for the second year in a row, according to a study just released by pest-control giant Terminix. Not really a surprise, since NYC is a populous metropolis with well-publicized infestations everywhere from apartment buildings to businesses such as department stores, magazine offices, even Lincoln Center.

Terminix reports an increase in bed bug infestations in most states during the past year, in part because consumers are more aware and on the lookout for the tiny pests, Terminix entymologist Paul Curtis told me.

The company’s list of most bed bug-plagued cities, based on customer complaints validated by Terminix and infestations discovered during pest calls:

1. New York
2. Cincinnati
3. Detroit
4. Chicago
5. Philadelphia
6. Denver
7. Washington, D.C.
8. Los Angeles
9. Boston
10. San Francisco
11. Columbus, Ohio
12. Dayton, Ohio
13. Baltimore
14. Louisville, Ky.
15. Dallas

This is the second year Terminix has put out a list. Baltimore, Dallas and San Francisco appear on it for the first time this year, replacing Indianapolis, Cleveland and Minneapolis.

Bed bugs have always been around, especially since strong chemicals such as DDT were banned, says bug expert Curtis. But today, “People are more aware and communicating” about the issue,” though “there’s still a stigma attached to having bed bugs,” he says. Businesses such as hotels are loath to let customers know about infestations, because that would deter potential clientele. So it can be very difficult to gather accurate information on the extent of bed bug infestation.

I asked Curtis whether it’s true that you can get bitten in seats on planes, trains and buses or in theaters. “There’s no question,” he said. “This is an insect looking for a dark place with a human host, looking to get a blood meal” And bed bugs are “consummate hitchhikers,” moving around easily on people and in bags, he says. Plus, they inject an anesthetic when they bite, so you may not feel it. Some people don’t get bite marks, he says. In other cases, a bite may not show up for a few days, making it hard to tell where you got it.

What to do? Be really careful bringing traveling bags and clothes into your home, he says. “When I get home I put my clothes in a plastic bag. They go into the washer and then the dryer on high (heat kills bed bugs). I vacuum my luggage.”

In hotels, Curtis always strips covers off the mattress and inspects it and the area behind the headboard and under box springs for dark spots (bed bug fecal matter), blood (from a feeding), the bugs themselves (which can range from head-of-a-pin size to appleseed-like), or for rows of tiny eggs.

He does not use hotel drawers and keeps his luggage on a rack as far away from the bed as he can. Bed bugs like to “harbor close to their food sources,” he says. So watch out for beds and upholstered seating. If you want to get extreme, you can place suitcases in big plastic bags that zip closed and you can leave luggage in the bathroom, which is less likely to harbor bed bugs. “But there is no silver bullet” for eradicating them, he says. Heat, cold and multiple treatments are often tried, especially since bugs can lie dormant for a long time.

Terminix has a bed bug learning center online, with answers to many questions about the critters. Other pest control companies, such as Orkin, have posted tips for bed bug detection and treatment.

The good news is that bed bug bites generally don’t cause harm and that “30%-40% of people never have a reaction to them,” Curtis says. Many never realize they were bitten.

Prevention is the key to avoiding extensive and expensive treatments of homes and businesses (which can mean throwing out mattresses and replacing carpets). You also can look at bedbugregistry.com, which contains about 20,000 user-submitted reports, to see if any infestations have been reported at hotels where you’re planning to stay. I checked out a couple of fleabags where I have stayed (and one where I refused to check in because the room looked sketchy), and both had client reports of bed bug bites. In those cases, I was surprised to see how unsympathetc and unhelpful users say management was in responding to the issue.

Continue Reading More: 2011 Most Bedbug Plagued Cities List, NYC Takes Top Spot

5/22/2011 Kansas At Start Of Bedbug Infestation: Experts Say

Some pest experts say Kansas is only seeing the beginning stages of a bed bug infestation.

Bed bugs are tiny terrors that can cause big problems.

“I thought it might be just a few, but I didn’t realize there would be that many of them,” said Howard, who didn’t want to provide his last name because he’s a little embarrassed about the bed bug infestation in his home.

The notorious hitchhikers made their way to Howard’s mattress by catching a ride on second-hand furniture.

“The adult bed bug is about the size of an apple seed,” said Kent Foley, owner of Arrest A Pest, Pest Solutions.

If the insects are old enough, they’re big enough to see, but usually they’re too young and too small.

“One of the things that makes control of bed bugs so difficult is because of their size and the early stages,” said Foley.

Foley suggests checking your sheets and around the box spring and mattress for bed bug feces and blood — signs that you have bed bugs.

“The blood stains are an indication of where the bites have happened on the person,” said Foley.

Recent research shows the blood-sucking bugs carrying the dangerous staph infection MRSA, but at this point, the pests have not been known to spread any diseases.

The best tool for controlling bed bugs in your home is the washer and dryer.  Exterminators suggest that when you come home from a trip or your child comes home from college to take the luggage directly to the laundry room.  They say washing and drying your clothes on the hottest setting will kill the bed bugs and their eggs.

It’s a precaution many college students are taking.

“When it comes down to it, you have easily hundreds of people in your room throughout the year and you don’t know what they’re bringing in and what they’re taking out,” said Martha Close, a student at Kansas State University.

If bed bugs do make it inside your home, early detection and treatment are key.  Experts advise against over-the-counter products to kill bed bugs saying they can actually make the infestation worse.  They suggest calling in the professionals.

Continue Reading More/Watching Video: Kansas At Start Of Bedbug Infestation

5/20/2011 Ohio Bedbug Complaints Double In Public Housing: Lucas County Parqwood Apartments Amongst The Worst

Bed bug complaints in public housing have doubled since last year, according to the Lucas County Health Department.

It’s so bad at one apartment complex that residents have been displaced and now crews are doing routine inspections with a specialized dog! However, it’s a problem that can easily be prevented.

Bed bugs are such a problem at Parqwood Apartments that special dogs were brought in to inspect each unit. Paul Bollinger, regional manager of Lucas Metropolitan Housing Authority, says, “Very similar to a drug dog or a cadaver, very same concept. There taught to sniff certain things, and the bed bug has a unique smell that’s only picked up by a K-9.”

This is the second time in less than a year that dogs have been used to inspect every apartment. “Been dealing with them for the past 24 months. The last 18, we’ve gone exclusively to doing heat treatments as opposed to chemical,” says Bollinger.

Since September, nearly 70 apartments have received heat treatment. During that time, residents were displaced. According to the Lucas County Health Department, complaints have gone up 50 percent since last year!

“It’s an issue of re-entry. We’re comfortable that when a unit is heat treated that it’s pest free, so our problems come back from reentry.”

In many cases, bed bugs are carried into a home after vacation, but authorities from lmha aren’t blaming hotels. “If they’re shopping at second hand stores, garage sales and getting used items from friends and family, if they’re not diligent in inspecting those items, they’re not bringing them back in, then we’re working against each other.” For those of you second-hand shoppers out there, simply putting clothes in the dryer on high heat will kill bed bugs. Experts also suggest getting a steamer, which will allow you to kill them on furniture.

Continue Reading More & Watching Video: Ohio Bedbug Complaints Double In Public Housing

5/18/2011 Ohio Politicians On Bedbugs: Legalize Propoxur; Pair Is Advocating The EPA To Allow Product Back On Market

Two politicians from opposite sides of the aisle teamed up to fight bed bugs in a press conference held Tuesday morning.

During the press conference, Republican Congresswoman Jean Schmidt and Democratic State Representative Dale Mallory called on the EPA to solve the problem.

The pair is advocating that the EPA allow a product called Propoxur back on the market. It was taken off the market in 2007 because of potential health risks.  But Schmidt says Propoxur could have prevented fires like the one Sunday in Carthage, when heaters used to kill bed bugs burned the house down. At that house, exterminators used a technique that heats a home to 135 degrees in order to kill bedbugs. In this case, the heater destroyed this family’s home.

So what do the experts think about Propoxur, is it the solution to bed bug woes?

Glenn Sherzinger of Good Thing Pest Control says, “No matter what product you use its good treating technique and understanding the insect and knowing exactly where to place the product that is key to solving the problem.”

Propoxur was pulled from the market a few years ago because of health concerns caused by exposure to the chemical, like nausea and vomiting.

“Is it a harmful product? I don’t believe so but any chemical used improperly can be harmful,” said Sherzinger.

So Sherzinger says if Propoxur were brought back to the market to fight bed bugs, it should be left to the experts, and not stocked on the shelf at a hardware store.

The Ohio Department of Agriculture has also asked the EPA to allow the use of Propoxur by exterminators.

Continue Reading More & Watch Video: Ohio Politicians On Bedbugs: Legalize Propoxur

5/17/2011 Bedbugs May Cause Anxiety Paranoia & Mood Disorders: New York Langone Medical Center Doctor Evan Rieder Tells MedPage Today

The media frenzy surrounding reports of bedbug infestations in New York may increase acute anxiety and mood disorders.

Although the numbers of cases are few — just 10 in the study reported here — Evan Rieder, MD, of Langone Medical Center, and colleagues are urging colleagues to be aware of the risk associated with the current bedbug outbreak.

“They’ve occurred in patients with a history of psychiatric illness and without,” Rieder told MedPage Today during an interview at his poster at the American Psychiatric Association meeting here.

Among the 10 patients diagnoses included anxiety, depression, and relapse of controlled bipolar disorder. Others were diagnosed with monosymptomatic delusional disorder — imagining that one is crawling with pests, even though no infestation exists.

“If you’re always struggling with seeing the world as an unsafe place, its easy [for something like this] to bolster your delusions,” said Kenneth Silk, MD, of the University of Michigan, chair of APA’s scientific program committee, who was not involved with the study.

Silk relayed the example of working in an emergency department in Michigan the morning after September 11 and seeing a series of bipolar disorder patients — a greater number than usual, he said — with exacerbations of mania: “We felt the event definitely had something to do with the exacerbations of illness.”

As the prevalence of bedbug infestation has risen considerably in New York City and globally in recent years, so has worry about the insects, Rieder said.

Some savvy pest control companies have coined the term “bedbug psychosis” to describe the paranoid feelings that often accompanying a confirmed infestation.

Rieder and colleagues presented detailed review of six of the 10 cases, who ranged in age from 21 to 75. Two of the patients — 21- and 23-year-old women — who relapsed after their bedbug ordeal had controlled bipolar disorder, while a 75-year-old woman had a schizophrenia.

“Any doctor seeing patients [with bedbug infestation and preexisting psychoses] should be on alert,” Rieder told MedPage Today. “These people can decompensate even if they’ve been medically stable for a significant period of time.”

Two others who developed some form of psychiatric illness only had a history of depression or anxiety — including a 39-year-old male patient who developed delusional disorder — and one, a 22-year-old woman, had no prior medical or psychiatric history.

Most of the conditions resulted from increasing anxiety and depression, tied to various factors including greater social isolation and financial distress due to the expense of fumigation, the researchers said.

Rieder and colleagues also conducted a review of the literature and found that bedbug-related psychiatric issues have not been addressed. Thus, more research is needed into the mechanisms underpinning the association, they said.

Rieder speculated that bedbugs create a unique problem compared with other pests such as cockroaches and mice because their effects are felt a bit more personally, as the latter don’t have such a close, physical effect on humans.

Bedbugs are also much harder to detect and exterminate, which could reduce a patient’s ability to feel confident about being secure in their space, Rieder said.

Similarly, he said, the bed is associated with comfort and protection, and not knowing whether the pests are there can undermine that.

“There’s something about the sanctity of the bedroom and the fact that bedbugs are attracted to warmth and blood that violates something that’s really personal,” Rieder said. “Mice and rats aren’t taking a blood meal from human beings.”

Silk agreed, noting that does seem to be a personal intrusion compared with other pests — “especially if it involves a place that you retreat to for comfort.”

It’s also unclear why certain patients develop psychotic symptoms in response to real or threatened infestations, while others do not — an area that also needs further review, the researchers said.

They concluded that physicians who diagnose bedbug infestation or those who treat patients already dealing with an infestation should screen those patients for new psychiatric symptoms.

Continue Reading More: Bedbugs May Cause Anxiety Paranoia & Mood Disorders

5/16/2011 Cincinnati BedBug Treatment Sets House On Fire: Propane Heaters Linked To Problem

Exterminator Richard Tyree was six hours into a heat treatment meant to kill bed bugs in a two-family home Sunday afternoon when a neighbor spotted black smoke pouring from the house.

Tyree called for help – but the ensuing fire destroyed the home in the 300 block of West Seymour Avenue.

The treatment had just 30 minutes left.

“As far as I know, we had an equipment malfunction,” Tyree said. “It can happen. It’s very unfortunate, (but) we’re not a company that runs from a problem.”

Tyree said that until Sunday, his company, Carthage-based R.S. Tyree Pest Control & Bed Bug Be Gone, never had an issue with the treatment, which he finds more effective than chemical methods. To kill the bed bugs, he uses propane convection heaters to raise a home’s temperature to 135 degrees. He requires residents to leave during the 6½-hour treatment and removes any flammable items from the home.

“We do up to 20, 25 apartments at the same time,” Tyree said. “We’ve never had a problem.”

Cincinnati Fire District Chief Glenn Coleman said one of the six heaters Tyree was using ignited carpet in a living room, a fire that went unnoticed in the empty home until flames could be seen through the windows. Coleman estimated the damage to the house at $90,000, a total loss.

A firefighter suffered a minor arm injury and was treated at University Hospital and released, Coleman said.

No residents were injured in the blaze, but Deborah Owens of Clermont County said the loss is a big one for her family. Owens and her husband own the house, and Owens’ sister lives on one side of the duplex with her boyfriend. Two other tenants, who are friends of the sister, reside on the other side, Owens said.

“We lost basically a family home,” she said. “Most of our family has lived there and the woman we bought it from, all of her family lived there for years.”

The fire was reported at 2:07 p.m. Tenants had been told to be out of house from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

A house next door sustained about $1,000 in damage.

Tyree said his small company has insurance.

“I would do anything I could to fix it,” he said.

Continue Reading More: Cincinnati Bedbug Treatment Sets House On Fire

5/13/2011 NYC Bedbug Season Heats Up: Landlords, Retailers, Hotels Fear Summer Will Spur New Frenzy Of Activity

5/12/2011 Scientists Discover Bedbugs Carrying MRSA Bacteria: Concerns Could Be Raised In US Urban Areas

A finding of a dangerous, drug-resistant bacteria in bedbugs in western Canada could raise concerns in U.S. urban areas that have experienced a resurgence of the blood-sucking insects in the past decade.

The actual findings of the study, however, are less frightening than they might initially sound.

“It’s not time to push the panic button. It’s a very small study,” said Marc Romney, one of the study’s authors and a medical microbiologist at St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver.

Doctors at the inner-city hospital had noticed two things happening in their neighborhood— a boom in bedbugs and a boom in cases of MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, a bacterial infection highly resistant to some antibiotics.

To see whether there was a connection, the researchers took five bedbugs that patients had brought in and crushed and analyzed them.

The researchers found MRSA on three of them. On the other two they found VRE — vancomycin-resistant enterococcus faecium, a less dangerous form of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Bedbugs, known to scientists at cimicidae, are small parasitic insects that feed on human or animal blood.

Their bites can cause itching, red welts and can lead to excessive scratching which can break the skin. They are not known to spread disease.

Since 1995, bedbugs have experienced an upsurge in growth in many urban areas, invading apartment buildings, hotels and dormitory rooms. The infestations have led to almost-hysterical fear in some neighborhoods.

Romney said it is not clear whether the bacteria originated with the bedbugs or the bugs picked them up from people who were already infected.

Both germs are often seen in hospitals. And experts have been far more worried about nurses and other health care workers spreading the bacteria than insects, Romney said, which is why the finding is disturbing, if inconclusive.

The possibility exists that if an infected bedbug were to find its way onto the skin of a human who already had bites and had broken skin from scratching, the infection could be transferred.

Not that the researchers found evidence of this.

“It’s an intriguing finding” that needs to be further researched, Romney said.

He said he has been swamped with phone calls from the United States because of the growing concern about bedbugs.

The study was published Wednesday in Emerging Infectious Diseases, a publication of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Continue Reading More: Scientists Discover Bedbugs Carrying MRSA Bacteria