1/14/2012 Scientists Find New Ways To Kill Bedbugs

FEW things destroy the reputation of a high-class hotel faster than bed bugs. These vampiric arthropods, which almost disappeared from human dwellings with the introduction of synthetic insecticides after the second world war, are making a comeback. They can drink seven times their own weight in blood in a night, leaving itchy welts on the victim’s skin and blood spots on his sheets as they do so. That is enough to send anyone scurrying to hotel-rating internet sites—and even, possibly, to lawyers.

New York is worst-hit at the moment: neither five-star hotels nor top-notch apartments have been spared. But other places, too, are starting to panic. Hotel staff from Los Angeles to London are scrutinising the seams of mattresses and the backs of skirting boards, where the bugs often hide during the day, with more than usual zeal. But frequently this is to no avail. Bed bugs are hard to spot. Even trained pest-control inspectors can miss them. What is needed is a way to flush them into the open. And James Logan, Emma Weeks and their colleagues at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Rothamsted Research think they have one: a bed-bug trap baited with something the bugs find irresistible—the smell of their own droppings.

The reason the bugs are attracted to this smell is that they use it to navigate back to their hidey-holes after a night of feeding. To develop the bait for the new trap, Dr Weeks therefore analysed the chemicals given off by bed-bug faeces and attempted to work out which of the components were acting as signposts. She did this by puffing air collected from a jar containing bed-bug faeces into a machine called a gas chromatograph, which separated the components from one another, and then through a mass spectrometer, to identify each component from its molecular weight. Having found what the smell consisted of, she wafted the chemicals in question, one by one, at bed bugs that had their antennae wired up to micro-electrodes, to see which of them provoked a response.

The result, the details of which the team is keeping secret for the moment for commercial reasons, is used to bait a trap, designed by Dr Logan, that is about the size of a standard mouse trap and has a sticky floor similar to fly paper. And it works. To paraphrase the slogan of Roach Motel, a brand of traps aimed at a different sort of insect pest, bed bugs check in, but they don’t check out.

The new trap could be used both to assess whether a hotel room or apartment is infested and also to kill the insects without dousing everything in insecticide—which is, in any case, an increasingly futile exercise, as many have now evolved resistance. Ralph Waldo Emerson, a 19th-century American sage, is supposed to have said that if a man built a better mousetrap than his neighbour, the world would make a beaten path to his door. Dr Logan and Dr Weeks are about to find out if the same thing applies to bed-bug traps.

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1/11/2012 Indiana Woman Hospitalized Over Bedbugs

A Jeffersonville woman said her 81-year-old sister was hospitalized after receiving severe bedbug bites.Bedbugs are commonly found in apartment complexes,, and the Health Department said one Jeffersonville building has gotten several bed bug complaints.

“These people are actually paying to live with bedbugs,” said Mary Hanley, the sister of a bedbug victim.Hanley’s said her 81-year-old sister was just released from the hospital after suffering severe bedbug bites.Hanley’s sister’s back is red and splotchy and the family said she got the bedbugs at her apartment in the Claysburg Towers in Jeffersonville.“They’re terrible. We pulled it back and it’s like moving, the sheets are moving. It was terrible, horrible,” Hanley said.

The Health Department said bedbugs don’t actually transmit diseases, like mosquitoes, but they do draw blood and hospitals stays because of their effects aren’t unheard of.

“Some cases we have heard of people being hospitalized for secondary infections, not necessarily because of the bedbug and what it did, the bite and the scratching that happened later could’ve caused the issues,” said Doug Bentfield with the Clark County Health Department.The tower’s management declined to comment on the issue, but the Clark County Health Department said since 2009 eight cases of bedbugs have been reported at Claysburg Tower, a public housing complex which is home to low-income seniors and residents on disability.

“Me and my sister went over to her apartment and pulled her covers back and they were just crawling everywhere and we were so scared. We’ve never seen those before and then she had blood all over her sheets where she had just been laying there,” Hanley said.

“It’s got nothing to do with the cleanliness of the environment or anything. It’s got everything to do with, were you in contact with an area that just happens to have them?” Bentfield said.Hanley said her sister, who has Alzheimer’s, was one of the original residents in the building and that many family members have lived there in the past. She claimed they’ve never had a problem there before.“They weren’t on that floor yet. They’re going floor by floor evidently, but they should have been doing better than this. It should have never gotten to that point,” Hanley said.“The problem with apartment complexes is everybody has to get on the same page so if there’s a dwelling that has 40 different families in it, you can’t just treat one apartment. You have to actually treat the entire facility,” Bentfield said.Hanley said she was told management is taking steps to remove the bugs, but her sister plans on moving out.“She’s coming out of there. I’m taking her out. She can’t stay there,” Hanley said.Hanley said though her sister will move out of the Claysburg Towers, they’re too scared to bring her things with her.

The Health Department said the best way to avoid acquiring bedbugs is to use extra caution when buying used furniture. At hotels, keep personal items away from upholstered surfaces and walls and check the bed for signs of the bugs before getting in.

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1/7/2012 Do Bedbugs Hide In Used Furniture

That secondhand couch may come with a great price, but does the bargain come with bed bugs?

The tiny pests are a newly growing problem, and some good advice is to be careful when buying used furniture.

How can you spot bed bugs if you’re looking for an item at a yard sale or garage sale? Charities are dealing with the bed bug issue, too. They have some valuable advice to share.

“You look at the seams, and if the seams have little, tiny spots — usually that’s a by-product of bed bugs,” Goodwill’s Ramon Garza told Eyewitness News.

The local organization now trains all their managers and crews to be on the look-out for the insects.

Bed bugs are about one-fourth inch long, according to the California Department of Health Services. Other experts describe the insects as white to light tan, oval-shaped and flat.

That size and shape makes it easy for bed bugs to hide, and they’re hard to spot.

Garza also recommends looking at any furniture cushions. “Pick up the little binding around it,” he says. “You’ll see a little trail, or you’ll see the little, tiny bugs.”

At local Goodwill Industries facilities, any donation spotted with bed bugs is kept separate and then picked up to be destroyed.

And, starting this year the charity won’t even take in mattresses — because of bed bug concerns.

“Currently we’ve been trying to limit the amount of mattresses that are donated to us,” spokesman Ken Beurmann told Eyewitness News. He said they’ll put up signs at donation centers.

“Without a doubt (mattresses) are the number-one source of product that gets donated to us that have bed bugs in it.” Beurmann said.

He said Goodwill never sold mattresses or other bedding like futons. They would take in those items, but send them out to recycling centers. That will no longer be the case, thanks to the bed bug risk.

Beurmann said the organization will now tell donors with mattresses that they should dispose of them properly at some place like a landfill.

The state health department reports there has been a resurgence of bed bug infestations throughout the United States.

“Bed bugs, while a significant social problem, do not transmit disease to humans,” a DHS report says. “However, bed bug bites will cause red, raised, itchy reactions to the skin.”

Experts say the pests can turn up, no matter how clean an area is. The tiny bugs can spread by “hitch-hiking” on things like clothes, suitcases, and furniture.

“We look to see that there are, first of all, no bed bugs,” Garza said. He explained that crews at Goodwill now check donations. Anything found with bed bugs is never even brought into a Goodwill store, he said.

Beurmann said their organization helps local people overcome barriers to employment, and selling furniture is an important part of their stores.

He said it’s still possible to offer furniture — they just take the extra precautions. And consumers can still take advantage of used furniture deals, by taking some precautions of their own.

“We’d encourage the public to continue to buy second-hand furniture, as long as you feel comfortable that the organization has taken the necessary measures to get rid of the risk of bed bugs,” Beurmann said.

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1/5/2012 The Long Uncomfortable Relationship With Bedbugs

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12/22/2011 Traveling This Holiday? Be Aware Of Bedbugs

This holiday season, there may be more to worry about when checking off your Christmas list then packing, wrapping and reservations.

Suitcases, gift packages, car rentals and hotel rooms can all be sources of bed bugs – those sometimes hard-to-detect bugs that made headlines last year across the world when what experts called at one point, a preventable outbreak, seemed all of a sudden unstoppable.

“It’s the word you never want to hear because it’s just an ugly little critter,” said Nate Weare, general manager at the Holiday Inn Mansfield. “I say, let’s take a step back and know what we’re looking at.”

Alright.

Bed bugs, which the Center for Disease Control defines as small, flat, parasitic insects that feed on the blood of people and animals while they sleep, and most people describe as just plain icky, started showing up, it seemed, everywhere in 2010 causing, in some instances, panic among hotel guests and travelers who feared for their skin every time they checked in. Though news reports on the subject appear to have died down a bit since then, the problem has not gone away.

The 2011 Bugs Without Borders Survey, conducted by the National Pest Management Association (NPMA), reports that 80 percent of member respondents say infestations are increasing across the country and that nearly all professional pest management companies have received bed bug calls within the last year.

“We do get bed bugs here, and it’s just something we’re going to have to deal with,” said Tom DeJesus, service manager and director of training at Providence-based New England Pest Control. “It’s just incredible how it’s exploded.”

DeJesus, who’s been in the pest control business for 35 years, said in his first 25 years on the job he received in total less than a handful of bed bug service calls. Now, they’re much more common, coming in at times on a weekly basis.

Reports have attributed the outbreak to increased international travel, policies that banned some pesticides and limited knowledge, among other things.

Travel almost certainly has something to do with it. The CDC says bed bugs are experts at hiding in luggage, folded clothes and bedding.

People then can carry bed bugs without even knowing – to hotel rooms, where the next guest can pick up the bugs and carry them on and so on and so on.

That’s where the problem starts with hotels where, 80 percent of NPMA members report having treated for bed bugs this year, compared to 67 percent last year.

“People think of bed bugs and they think of sanitation, and that has so little to do with it,” Weare said. “People have such a negative connotation.”

DeJesus says it’s almost a question of odds.

“Everybody travels and people just go,” he said. “You just have to be careful.”

In fact, the American Hotel and Lodging Association (AH&LA) said the increase in bed bugs has had “a minimal impact on the vast majority of hotels.”

AH&LA urges consumers to remember that bed bugs are brought in by guests and that hotels are not to blame.

The New York Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has set guidelines for hotels, including the recommendation that they hire a licensed pest control company to regularly inspect the premises.

Often, though, a hotel doesn’t know there’s a problem until a guest comes down to the front desk pointing to a bite on their ankle – if even then.

“Some people get a bite and go to bedbugs.com,” Weare said.

Weare’s hotel was listed on bedbugreports.com, one of several consumer-watch type websites that have sprung up since last year promising a reliable source for which hotels have had bed bug problems.

He said the Holiday Inn in Mansfield hasn’t had a bed bug issue, but that they did have a dog show take place there over the summer.

“If it’s not a bed bug, it’s generally a flea issue,” he said. “We haven’t had bed bugs in years and years and years. But that doesn’t mean we won’t have them tomorrow.”

The Days Inn in Attleboro was also listed on bedbugreports.com.

A general manage there, who asked not to be identified, said the hotel did have an issue over the summer but it has been taken care of since.

She, too, said the panic of the general hotel visitor is misplaced.

“It’s everywhere in the world,” she said. “People travel and you don’t know who brings them in.”

DeJesus cautions that many of the bed bug websites could be misleading. Instead, he points people to visit the NPMA Website and those of pest control companies.

“I’m sure some of the sites are legitimate,” he said. “But anybody can post something to one of those things.”

The CDC says identification of bed bug bites is difficult without finding other evidence of bed bug infestation, including the actual bugs or their exoskeletons, because bites can take as long as 14 days to appear and may resemble those of a mosquito or flea.

It’s also important to note that the CDC says bed bugs shouldn’t be considered a medical or public health hazard.

DeJesus recommends, when traveling this holiday season, to keep your cool and do your best to keep the bed bugs away by examining mattresses, headboards and other easy hiding places as soon as you arrive in a hotel room, keeping your suitcase on a table instead of the floor, and unpacking your dirty clothes while still in the garage into a trash bag and directly to the washing machine.

“I used to be one of those people who would unpack my suitcase,” DeJesus said. “I don’t do that anymore.”

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12/20/2011 Bedbugs Found At Greenwich CT School: Officials Confirm Hamilton Avenue School Has “Isolated Incidents”

Greenwich Public Schools officials are dealing with “isolated incidents” of bedbugs at Hamilton Avenue School.

“They’ve had four isolated incidents,” said school spokesman Kim Eves. “They found a dead one at the end of October, give or take (a few days), one last week, one the week before and one a week before that.” She added, “It’s not necessarily a health hazard … but we’re trying not to spread them. It’s not a concern in terms of disease.”

According to EverydayHealth.com, “Bedbugs are not thought to transmit diseases,” however, they can bite and cause skin irritations.

The existence of the bugs was discovered “in the carpet on the floor. A class was sitting on the floor for a discussion … they bagged it and brought it to the health department,” Eves said.

As of last night, the school district administration had not decided whether it will proceed with a plan to steam-clean the school during the winter break that begins Friday afternoon, according to Eves. In the interim, when a bug has been found and sent to the Greenwich Health Department for testing, the affected classrooms were treated after an inspection from Parkway Pest Services which uses trained dogs to sniff out the bugs, according to Eves.

The inspections and treatments were conducted after students left the school, Eves said.

School officials held an informational meeting with parents on Dec. 15 and have them sent notification via the ParentLink information system. “The parent forum on Thursday was to tell parents how to deal with the situation at home,” Eves said. She said about 30 to 35 parents attended the session

“It’s one or two families involved,” Eves added. Two, possibly three classes are involved, she said.

One of the incidents involved finding a bed bug on a student backpack. Eves said that since the first incident in October, school personnel check each student daily before they’re admitted to classes. The students in the affected classes must place their belongings — coats, hats, gloves — in plastic garbage bags. The rest of the students in the school at 360-plus student school on Hamilton Avenue, must keep their belongings in their backpacks. It was unclear whether the mandate also applied to school personnel and teachers.

When approached outside the school Monday dismissal, school personnel said, “We can’t talk.”

Well, talk is what a few parents said they hope school officials would do. “They need to be more informative. It’s on the school website,” said one mother, who would not give her name, as she waited for second-grade daughter. “There are so many rumors … it’s the same family bringing in something. It’s coming from home. They have to help those people whose house it’s coming from,” the woman said.

Another mother, with two children in pre-K and first-grade, said, “Hopefully it will be controlled soon. … We are concerned about what they’re using.” Her daughter’s pre-K class was one of the groups affected, she said. “Obviously you want it to be treated but we are concerned about the children. We are worried about what they use to treat it,” she added.

As Mark Mantione waited for his two sons, he said, he received the pre-recorded informational calls from the school administration. “We looked but we didn’t find any” bed bugs.

Eves said, “the only thing parents can do is check their kids before they leave home in the morning and check them when they come home.” Eradicating bedbugs from the home include thorough cleaning, vacuuming of bedrooms, furniture and linens which should be treated at temperatures of at least 112 degrees, according to EverydayHealth.com.

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12/19/2011 The Bedbug Body Hair Study

Hairy skin helps stop bed bugs biting, according to new research from the University of Sheffield in the UK. Apparently, not only does the fine hair that covers our bodies help us feel the presence of parasitic insects on our skin, it also acts as a barrier to stop them biting us. The findings of the study appeared in an online before print issue of the Royal Society journal Biology Letters on 14 December.

Although humans seem relatively naked compared to other primates, our bodies are covered in a layer of two types of fine hair. One type is called vellus, which is short and nearly invisible, and the other is called terminal hair which is longer and more visible. The follicles are also quite close together on the skin.

The researchers note there are “relatively few explanations for the evolutionary maintenance of this type of human hair,” so they wanted to test the idea that perhaps it acts as a defense against ectoparasites or bed bugs.

First author and Sheffield Zoology graduate Isabelle Dean picked the study as the subject of her honours project, which she carried out under the supervision of co-author Professor Michael Siva-Jothy, of the University´s Department of Animal and Plant Sciences.

For the study they recruited 29 healthy volunteers who had one arm shaved and one arm left with hairs on, and then allowed hungry bed bugs to be placed on the skin of both arms.

The results show that the fine body hair acts to our advantage because it helps us detect the presence of bed bugs in two ways: by increasing the time it takes for the parasite to find a suitable site to start sucking blood, and by helping us feel their presence on our skin.

They also showed that this advantage was greater for those participants who had more layers of hair: the insects took longer to find an ideal feeding site on their arms.

The study helps explain why bed bugs and other parasites such as mosquitoes, midges, ticks, and leeches, seek out the less hairy body sites such as wrists and ankles.

Siva-Jothy explained to the press:

“The hairs have nerves attached to them and provide us with the ability to detect displacement. By forming a barrier and providing detection these hairs prolong search time and make detection more likely because the bug has to spend more time clambering over them.”

The authors suggest the findings also help explain why we have lost the thick coat of our primate cousins, but still retained some body hair.

“For example, if you have a heavy coat of long thick hairs it is easier for parasites to hide, even if you can detect them. Our proposal is that we retain the fine covering because it aids detection and if we lost all hair, even the relatively invisible fine hair, our detection ability goes right down,” said Siva-Jothy.

Siva-Jothy leads a team that is investigating the biology of blood-sucking insects, how they reproduce and retain immunity. They want to discover new ways to control these parasites, which can help us develop better ways to reduce transmission of insect-borne diseases.

He said men have more body hair than women, a result of their increased testosterone at puberty. But this does not mean women are more likely to be bitten:

“Blood-sucking insects are likely to have been selected to prefer to bite hosts in relatively hairless areas,” said Siva- Jothy.

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12/18/2011 Bedbugs Leave Iowa Family Without Beds

12/16/2011 Are You Prepared For Bedbug Holiday Exposure?

12/14/2011 Body Hair Keeps Bedbugs Away

Finding hairs in your food can be disgusting, and it seems that blood-sucking insects feel just the same.

Scientists have discovered that hairy people are better protected from parasites, as the hair makes it harder for the bugs to reach skin.

Bed bugs and other parasites such as mosquitoes, midges and ticks prefer relatively smooth areas, such as the wrists and ankles.

But as the insects search for somewhere to dive in, the nerves in hairs also increase the chances of them being felt on the skin and swatted away.

Researchers studied 29 brave volunteers who had one arm shaved before hungry bed bugs were placed on their skin.