1/27/2012 NYC Ritz Carlton Crawling With Bedbugs

A room for a midweek night starts at $695 and can soar up to $4,500 for a suite, but this particular hotel on Central Park South may have a problem commonly, if unfairly, associated with more low-rent lodging — bedbugs. And it may also have a bigger issue — grumbling workers.

A worker at the hotel, the Ritz-Carlton New York, said that a guest in Room 1005 reported to the front desk on Sunday that she had discovered a bedbug in her room. The guest then checked out, but not before producing a specimen of the bug, a wingless six-legged bloodsucker.

The worker, Rosanna Polanco, a room attendant, said she was asked on Monday to service the room next to 1005 but was not told about the bedbugs. She found out only when she encountered a worker from Ecolab Inc., a company that supplies cleaning products and pest elimination services.

“He was the one who told me: ‘Be careful. There’s a lot of bedbugs in there,’ ” Ms. Polanco said, referring to Room 1005. “Management didn’t tell me. I found out myself.”

As is usual in cases involving bedbugs in hotels, guests in adjacent rooms and those above and below were moved to other rooms or upgraded to suites. And on Wednesday, workers were given training and shown a video on signs of bedbug infestation, like blood on sheets.

Although bedbugs are sometimes associated with fleabag hotels, they can thrive anywhere and are easily transported. There have been reports of bedbugs in office buildings like the Empire State, movie theaters and stores like Abercrombie & Fitch.

Ms. Polanco said she was worried about her family — in case she had unknowingly picked up a bedbug on her clothing and carried it home. “I haven’t checked my house,” she said. “I don’t know how to inspect my house.”

The hotel has offered to send professionals to her home to check for any infestation, though Ms. Polanco said no one had come as yet.

Scott Geraghty, the hotel’s general manager, confirmed that a bedbug had been found in the room. “Bedbugs are inevitable,” he said. “They’re brought in by guests and come in on luggage or things of that nature.” He said the problem had been remediated.

John Turchiano, a spokesman for the New York Hotel Trades Council, which represents about 30,000 hotel workers, said on Wednesday: “I’m told the hotel apologized for the delay in notifying the members. I can also tell you there was bedbug training this morning and afternoon for management and staff.”

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1/20/2012 Bedbugs Invade NYC Housing Court

City housing officials got so antsy over a bedbug invasion that they shipped off 5,000 boxes of files for fumigation, forcing Housing Court cases to be postponed.

The bloodsuckers turned up at the Department of Housing Preservation and development around Nov. 15, leading to the evacuation of the entire third floor, which contains the tax-incentives divisions and parts of the housing-litigation and IT divisions.

Officials said that even though the critters were spotted only in isolated areas, a top-to-bottom cleaning was ordered, meaning everything on the floor had to be temporarily relocated.

Boxes of documents were sent to a facility in Rockland County for treatment, which created operational headaches. Some paper files weren’t backed up on computers, and so they couldn’t be accessed temporarily.

12/4/2011 NYC Department Of Housing Preservation & Development, The “Bedbug Agency”, Has Headquarters Invaded By Bedbugs

Maybe these bedbugs are seeking revenge.

The pesky bloodsuckers are invading the Department of Housing Preservation and Development — the city agency charged with keeping them in check.

They were spotted on the third and fourth floors of the HPD building on Gold Street last week, and seem to be making their way to Commissioner Mathew Wambua’s fifth-floor office, a source told The Post.

“It’s disgusting,” said the source. “People are finding them on their desks and in their files. It’s an epidemic.”

The critters have descended on the building despite the acquisition of the city agency’s latest weapon last month — two bedbug-sniffing beagles named Mickey and Nemo.

HPD employees were told that dogs would be on high alert during an inspection planned for the weekend, the source said.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Citywide Administrative Services confirmed “sightings” of the critters in the building, but only on one floor. A follow-up inspection was to have taken place yesterday, but with bedbug-sniffing dogs from a private exterminator.

Nemo and Mickey are allowed to do only residential inspections, the spokeswoman said.

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11/27/2011 Meet The Women Who Battle New York’s Bedbugs

Beverly Ryce Brady travels the five boroughs wearing a bouclé blazer and jeans cinched with a rhinestone-encrusted belt. She flashes a broad smile when introducing herself, then listens intently to her clients’ concerns. After a brief tour of a home or workplace, Ms. Ryce Brady removes her jacket to reveal a ruffle blouse bearing the logo of her company: Two mice and a cockroach, crossed out.

The 49-year-old resident of Rosedale, Queens, is an exterminator.

“I have a passion for what I do. I like making people’s homes a place where they can be happy,” said Ms. Ryce Brady, who founded Brooklyn-based Pro Service Pest Control with her then-husband more than a decade ago.

Throughout the country and particularly in New York—a city as famous for its rats and roaches as for its hot dogs and pretzels—women are pursuing careers in pest control in greater numbers than ever before. The appeal: competitive salaries, flexible hours and, they say, a job that’s as varied as the invaders they encounter.

Sherry Carlson, 55, an inspector with Bug Doctor Termite & Pest Control, will be on the Upper East Side assessing a bedbug infestation one day, and in a suburban New Jersey laundry room, wielding a glue board to catch a flying squirrel, the next.

“I opened the dryer, and it flew out,” Ms. Carlson said of the squirrel. “I did scream, but then I just went for it. I was very proud of myself.”

Pest control is more than just about managing bugs and rodents; it’s about managing customers’ anxieties, which some women in the field say gives them a leg up on their male counterparts.

“I listen to their fears,” Ms. Carlson said, noting that some clients have intense phobias of the invading pests. “When you see someone cry, whether it’s over a mouse or the death of someone, you have to be sensitive to that emotion. I’ve walked away hugging people.”

Until April, Ms. Carlson had been working in collections at Bug Doctor, a Paramus, N.J.-based company whose clients include Yankee Stadium and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Then, lured by the opportunity to earn more money—Ms. Carlson works partly on commission—she became an inspector.

While men still make up the vast majority of pest control professionals, women are steadily gaining ground, said Missy Henriksen, the vice president of public affairs for the National Pest Management Association. In doing so, they’re fighting not just pests, but also the perception that women are too squeamish to be exterminators.

In New York state, the number of females working as licensed pesticide technicians or certified pesticide applicators rose about 50% in the past decade. Of New York’s more than 25,000 licensed pest control professionals, at least 1,500 are women, according to a registry provided by the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation.

Recruitment of women into the field has been buoyed by the efforts of the NPMA-affiliated Professional Women in Pest Management. Rollins, the parent company of Orkin and HomeTeam Pest Defense, established its Women’s Leadership Council in 2007 with a goal of “hiring and developing women in non-traditional roles,” such as inspectors and field technicians, said the group’s chairwoman, Jean Fader.

Working with the public is a big part of the job, but so, too, is working with bugs. And some women admit it isn’t always easy.

Iliana Figueroa, 44 years old, said becoming an exterminator was a major adjustment.

When she first started working as a bedbug specialist at Manhattan-based Assured Environments four years ago, she often found herself unable to sleep.

Ms. Figueroa said that some nights she was haunted by what she witnessed during the day—apartments so infested that she had to walk sideways to avoid brushing up against a wall covered in bedbugs—and other nights, she was convinced that her own Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, home was infested. (It wasn’t.)

“I was this close to quitting because it got so bad,” said Ms. Figueroa, a former medical assistant.

The sheer physicality of the work can also be a challenge, she said. Ms. Figueroa and her partner, James Hunt, travel to jobs with about 150 pounds of equipment, and together they are constantly moving furniture to inspect for signs of infestation.

But Ms. Figueroa said she has grown to love what she does.

“People think, you’re just walking in, putting down pesticides, and walking out,” she said. “It’s not that easy; it’s not that mindless. There is an investigative part of it.”

For trained pest control technicians like Ms. Figueroa, there’s no shortage of well-paying jobs—even in a slow economy, industry observers say. In the Northeast, hourly rates average $13.88 for an entry-level technician, and $21.20 for an experienced technician, according to NPMA statistics.

Most would-be technicians need to complete 30 hours of coursework or work a minimum of two years as an apprentice to sit for the New York state licensing examination.

A licensed technician with two years of field experience is eligible to become a certified commercial pesticide applicator, a designation indicating a higher level of competency in the industry.

Shweta Advani, the owner of Pest Management Sciences Inc. in Elmhurst, Queens, has been training aspiring exterminators for more than two decades—and said she has seen an uptick of the number of women enrolled in her classes. On a recent Tuesday evening, women comprised three of the eight students who came to hear Mrs. Advani discuss the safe application of chemical pesticides.

Among them was Winsome Pendergrass, a 53-year-old home health-care aide, who is studying to become an exterminator—with the hopes, she said, of shifting from one helping profession to another.

“I bathe people, feed them, and keep their home clean,” the Brooklyn resident said. “So why not take it one step further, and make sure they’re safe from insects and rodents who carry diseases?”

As in the health-care industry, compassion and discretion are key to the business of pest control. And that makes women particularly well-suited for the job, Ms. Ryce Brady said.

“When people come to the door, they are surprised to see ladies, but they love to see ladies,” she said. “They feel safer; they feel more comfortable having a girl in their home.”

But the humaneness with which Ms. Ryce Brady, a vegetarian, approaches her clients does not extend to bedbugs.

“I do whatever it takes to get rid of them,” she said. “I see what they do to people; I would kill off every last bedbug in the world if I had the power to.”

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11/17/2011 NYC Calls In The Bedbug Dogs: Mickey And Nemo Are 2 Beagles Being Used Department Of Housing Preservation & Development

The city has unleashed its newest tools in the battle against bedbugs: Mickey and Nemo, beagles trained to sniff out the scourge.

The dogs and their handlers will be deployed to apartments for inspections when requests are made through the city’s nonemergency 311 line. The Department of Housing Preservation & Development could send out each dog and handler to perform about a dozen inspections a day, though city officials cautioned that the two teams won’t be able to meet citywide demand.

On Monday, their first day on the job, the dog and handler teams made nine visits that resulted in three landlords being hit with violation notices.

“Within minutes of bringing the dog into the apartment, the dog sat down and signaled that there were bedbugs,” said Vito Mustaciuolo, deputy commissioner of Housing Preservation & Development. “That’s incredible.”

The cost of purchasing the dogs, training, kennel charges and veterinary care is $69,000 for the first year, most of which was covered by the City Council.

Nemo and Mickey will spend their nights in an Upper East Side kennel, where they will receive frequent grooming. Visits to the veterinarian are covered under a pet insurance plan and the two even have their own uniforms and Housing Preservation & Development badges.

The bedbug-detecting beagles are part of a coordinated, multi-agency effort that began in the summer of 2010 in response to an epidemic of bedbug infestations—from bedrooms to offices to movie theaters.

The city convened a special advisory group, created a website specific to bedbug prevention and education, provided training to Housing Preservation & Development officers and tightened regulations for landlords.

“We’ve all seen the commercials of the beagles you could hire to come to your house to get bedbugs out of your home,” said City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. “By bringing Mickey and Nemo on board, we’re sending a message that all New Yorkers, regardless of their income, will get the best bedbug attention money can buy.”

New York follows city agencies in Seattle and Milwaukee in purchasing bedbug-detecting dogs.

Because of wide-spread concern surrounding the proliferation of bedbug-sniffing dogs and their effectiveness, the National Pest Management Association and several certification agencies have stepped up efforts to develop industry protocols on dog and handler training.

“Unfortunately, there is very little research that’s been done on bedbugs and even less on bedbug scent detection canine teams, though we do know that these teams, when properly trained and certified, can be very effective,” said Missy Henriksen, vice president of public affairs for the National Pest Management Association.

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11/13/2011 Brooklyn Public School Has Bedbugs For 33rd Time: PS361 In Flatbush Notifies Parents

A Flatbush public school’s latest rash of bedbugs is the 31st time the school has dealt with the pesky insects in a year, the Daily News has learned.

Officials at Public School 361 sent a letter home to parents on Oct. 31, telling them that once again, the unwanted crawlers had been found in a classroom – the 31st incident since last October.

“It’s terrible,” said Darlene Rice, 45, whose son Jared is in the first grade at the Newkirk Ave. school. “We’ve been hearing about it for over a year. They should be exterminating the whole building.”

The letter warned parents that bites from the blood-sucking bugs are “initially painless” but could become swollen and itch.

“Even though it is unlikely for bedbugs to spread in schools, the Department of Education will conduct an inspection and, if indicated, treatment of the area where the bug was found,” read the note addressed to parents.

Rice said she just dealt with a rash of bedbugs at her apartment across the street from the school and was nervous about another unwelcome visit.

“I’m scared. I just spent so much money washing my clothes,” said Rice.

The city’s anti-bedbug policy instructs school officials to send the bugs to a lab in Long Island City for testing. If the lab results are positive for bedbugs, then the city is supposed to dispatch exterminators to treat the trouble spots.

“The school has been inspected eight times and there have never been signs of infestation,” said city Education Department spokeswoman Marge Feinberg. “Every time we find a single bedbug, we are required to report it. Schools are not hospitable environments for bedbugs and are brought in from the outside, usually in a bag or on clothing.”

Parents said they were not taking any chances.

“I’m getting my apartment exterminated – I am not playing,” said Shavonne Wingate, 24, whose daughter, Michelle, is in the first grade.

Adriane Hobbs, 41 whose son Jalen Perez is in the first grade, said she can’t stand roaches – let alone bedbugs.

“I think it’s nasty – I don’t like bugs,” Hobbs said.

“If there’s one, then they’re all over the building,” said Hobbs.

Paris World, 31, from Crown Heights, said she makes her first grade daughter Jadaya take her clothes off at the front door before she walks into their apartment.

“Bedbugs are not roaches,” said World. “If you see one you know there’s a whole bunch somewhere else.”

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11/4/2011 NYPD: Phony Bedbug Exterminator Robbing Queens Homes

The search is on for a man burglarizing houses in Queens — with the homeowners inside.

CBS 2’s Hazel Sanchez spoke to a couple of the victims about how he gets in the door by promising a much-needed service.

On Wednesday night a mother of three was too afraid to reveal her identity. She’s terrified the man who posed as an exterminator and burglarized her home right underneath her nose will return.

“He’s real. He really acts real,” the woman said when asked how persuasive his masquerade is.

The woman said she was alone with her 1-year-old daughter, when the phony exterminator showed up at her apartment on 41st Street in Astoria, Queens.

“He said he was actually [looking] for the bedbugs. I said ‘bedbugs?’ Usually my exterminator comes for, like, roaches. So I said, ‘Okay … be safe,’” the woman said.

Investigators said the suspect then went to another apartment in the same building and victimized a 71-year-old woman with the same scam.

Police said the fake exterminator was wearing a blue uniform, what appeared to be a valid ID badge and was carrying a white spray tank, spraying what he claimed was an insecticide.

Police said the suspect was so believable he was able to convince the superintendent of another building to allow him into the super’s apartment to spray. But he took nothing.

Police said the suspect did take jewelry, including a wedding band, from an elderly couple in the super’s Astoria building. Sanchez spoke to another victim who was also afraid to show her face.

“Now, I’m scared to open the door for you,” she said.

Tenants are petitioning to their landlords to install security cameras to prevent other residents from being duped.

Continue Reading More/Watching Video: NYPD Phony Bedbug Exterminator Robbing Queens Homes

10/25/2011 NY Artist Works On Bedbug Street Art: Mini Hotel Structures Doubles As Public Service Announcement On Front Of Buildings

Earlier this year, Hunter Fine and his friend Jeff Greenspan gained some viral notoriety for their street art: starting with “Hipster Traps” (where PBR and goofy sunglasses were set as bait inside a cardboard bear trap) in New York City, the two soon expanded their repertoire to include “Tea Party Traps” and “Bridge and Tunnel Traps.”

Now Mr. Fine is working solo on a new kind of public service, one that alerts new residents that their LES apartment may actually be a front for a bed bug hotel.

Inspired by a friend who suffered the plight of New York’s most notorious bugs, Mr. Fine — who works in advertising but declined to elaborate — began setting up these mini-hotel structures just this weekend on the Lower East Side. So far he has nine built, and a Tumblr for the project, encouraging others to make their own “Bed Bug Hotels” and place them outside residents that are infected. If you email him a photo, he’ll even put it up on the site.

“It’s not a viral marketing campaign,” Mr. Fine told us by phone. “It’s an art project.” But not one meant to humiliate those renters who have to walk past a structure declaring their apartment bug-riddled every day. It’s to shame the landlords into doing something about their infestations. “There’s laws against landlords not alerting tenants to bug problems…they’re obligated to care of it. But it hardly ever happens.”

As for using street art to get the message out, Mr. Fine gives all the credit to the Internet. “Using a street for a canvas, something about that’s really cool. But with the Internet…with Reddit and other sites…it’s entirely changed how many people can be reached. You get a much larger audience: that’s what’s cool about social media.”

If others start jumping on the project, Bed Bug Hotels may start being as ubiquitous as the little critters themselves.

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9/8/2011 Did NYC Dept Of Education Cover Up Bedbugs? Inspection Last December Showed Evidence In PS 70 Astoria: Parents Were Not Notified

Parents and elected officials are furious at Astoria’s P.S. 70 for failing to notify them of a bedbug infestation that has been ignored since last winter.

An inspection was performed at the school in December, in which several bedbugs were found in one of the school’s closets with signs of breeding. No notification was given to the parents, students or teachers. Even Principal Donna Gellar was left in the dark; she was unaware an investigation took place to begin with.

Elected officials are concerned for the safety of the students upon returning to the school, as the new academic year has officially begun this week.

“The Education Department’s failure to notify parents and school officials about the bedbug infestation in a P.S. 70 classroom is outrageous,” Assemblymember Aravella Simotas said. “This type of negligence puts students and teachers at risk, and prevents families from taking necessary steps to protect their children.”

Students who come in contact with bedbugs from outside sources usually cause school infestations. That was the case with most of last year’s bedbug reports, which more than doubled: a whopping 3,590 to the previous year’s 1,019. At P.S. 70, the bugs were found within the school and were allowed to continue reproducing, earning the school the title of the worst bedbug infestation in the five boroughs.

“In the past, when bedbugs were discovered in a New York City public school, the parents of the affected child would be notified along with the parents of the affected student’s classmates,” state Senator Michael Gianaris said. “This policy seems to have been overlooked at P.S. 70.”

 This story leads many to wonder how many other schools have been discovered to have bedbugs but were never notified.

According to the Department of Education pest control unit, there was no law requiring them to notify the school at the time. However, Gianaris passed a Bedbug Notification Law in August of 2010 in “an effort to stop bedbug infestations from becoming an epidemic by requiring all families in an infested school to be notified of any bedbug cases”. The senator is requesting an explanation from the Department of Education on their failure to comply with said regulations.

“Parents of New York City school children deserve notification from school officials upon detection of bedbugs in their child’s school,” he said. “Children must be able to learn in an environment that is not hindered by bedbug infestations.”

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9/1/2011 NYC’s Worst Bedbug Infested School: PS 70 Astoria Queens: Parents Furious

This is one grade a Queens elementary school wished it hadn’t scored highest in the city.

Astoria’s Public School 70 has the worst bedbug problem in the five boroughs, and this time the Education Department can’t blame the students.

There were some 3,590 reports of bedbugs at schools in the 2010-11 year – up from just 1,019 a year earlier.

Each time officials said the bugs were brought in from outside, but at PS 70, inspectors found the tiny pests were reproducing on the premises – the only school where the Education Department has admitted that the problem came from within the school.

“There was evidence of breeding last winter in one closet in one classroom in a school system of 1,600 schools. The bedbugs were removed,” said department spokeswoman Margie Feinberg.

Education Department inspectors found an infestation of the bloodsuckers in December but didn’t tell anyone what they had discovered.

The inspectors kept the school in the dark because they weren’t under orders to notify anyone, agency officials told the Daily News.

Parents are furious they weren’t told about the pests.

“I’m disappointed in the school – parents have a right to know these things,” said Amy Palacio, 26, of Astoria, whose 6-year-old son is entering second grade at PS 70.

An Education Department pest control unit on a routine inspection discovered seven bedbugs in a closet at the school, along with evidence of breeding, officials said.

Until February, there was no directive to notify schools when bedbugs were found, so PS 70 administrators weren’t informed of the infestation.

“I never heard anything about this,” PS 70 Principal Donna Geller said in disbelief. “I was never told that inspectors visited our school.”

Agency officials said they did not know how many other schools were discovered to have bedbugs by the pest control unit.

The schools wouldn’t necessarily know, either, because Education Department protocol didn’t require their notification until the rules were changed in February.

New department regulations require pest control units that find evidence of bugs or infestations to “notify the school principal and schedule treatment.”

Parents of “students in the entire building must be notified if there is an infestation,” the regulations read.

City Councilwoman Gale Brewer (D-Manhattan) told the Daily News of the bedbug infestation at PS 70 after learning about it from a junior Education Department staffer.

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