11/18/2011 Avoid Bedbugs During The Holidays

Bedbugs are making a comeback and can be a real nightmare to get rid of, because they’re tiny and can hide in places that are to clean. I met with an expert to find out what to look for, so bed bugs don’t hitch a ride home with you.”You can certainly see old dead bedbugs,” said Chad Gore, an entomologist with Ehrlich Pest Control, as he surveyed an infested mattress.Gore doesn’t leave home without a flashlight. He’s a frequent traveler and he uses it to search for bedbugs before he spends the night in a hotel.

First, he puts his suitcase in the bathroom, and then, he pulls back the sheets.”One of the first signs that you might see are the droppings,” said Gore.He showed me the disgusting-looking brown stains on the mattress, which are a tell-tale sign that bedbugs are living and feeding here.”So that’s a bedbug. They’re really pretty tiny,” I said after seeing one for the first time. It was an immature bedbug which looked a lot like a deer tick.

Gore told me full-grown bedbugs are about the size of an apple seed. They sleep during the day and feed at night, leaving welts that are similar to a mosquito bite.”So it bit somebody?” “Yea, that one fed,” said Gore as he showed me the dark-colored abdomen, which was full of blood.At the end of World War II, bedbugs dropped off the radar. They were practically non-existent in this country for 50 years, and then, for some reason bed bugs started making a comeback.”Bedbugs are an ever growing problem,” said Gore.He said bedbugs know no social boundaries. They’ve been found in luxury hotels, low-income apartments, dorm rooms, movie theaters, restaurants, even taxis.

Here at Target 11, we get a tip call about once a week about another high rise, or apartment complex, or hotel or motel that’s supposedly infested with bedbugs.About an hour before we shot this story, the bedroom had been treated for the pests, which made me feel a little bit better, because I didn’t want any bedbugs hitching a ride home with me.The professionals had used steam and an insecticide in the first of three treatments that will be spaced about a week apart.”If they have an Achilles’ heel, it’s heat. Anything above 122 degrees will kill a bedbug,” said Gore.

If you have bedbugs, everything that can be laundered should be washed in hot water and dried on high heat.If possible, throw out the mattress and empty out of the drawers, so every last crack and crevice can be treated.The first indication that you have bedbugs is often a bite.At that point, I would call in a professional, because they can be very hard to get rid of, especially if you live in a building where bedbugs can more move from one apartment to the next.

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10/9/2011 Dallas Apartment Residents “Bedbugs Eating Us Alive”: Residents Of ‘The Quarters On Melody Lane’ Say Management Not Taking Action

Some residents at a northeast Dallas apartment complex say the place is crawling with unwelcome critters. They say management isn’t doing enough to get rid of them.

We spoke with a single mom today who lives at the The Quarters on Melody Lane apartment complex. She says bed bugs have taken over her life and she and her neighbors simply don’t what to do.

Like any toddler, two-year-old Jordan Gray loves to play on his hands and knees. But his mom say inside their apartment it’s not safe.

“I have bed bugs that are tearing me and my son apart,” said The Quarters on Melody Lane tenant LaTisha Gray.

Gray says a bed bug infestation is eating them alive. She says even a doctor had to prescribe Jordan ointment for swelling and scratching.

“It leaves ugly sores and marks and sores and stuff on his arms and legs and his belly, he`s been bitten everywhere,” said Gray.

She says her complaints to management for the past five months have been ignored.

“When I called the office, they even are aware that it`s a bed bug problem here. She told me I`m aware of the bed bug problem here, we`re trying and that was it,” said Gray.

Dallas Code Compliance says, this year, one complaint about the complex was filed in June.

“We responded to that, we did confirm there was bed bugs infestation in this one unit,” said Dallas Code Compliance District Manager Bob Curry.

Curry says the management sprayed the unit and his office followed up. He says properties are only required to spray every six months.

” If we`re there the day after they sprayed and there`s bugs again, we`ll give them a notice on that, they`ll typically comply with it, but we can`t write them citations,” said Curry.

Gray says she’s already thrown out lots infested furniture.

“Next to go is the sofa set, but I know once I through that out they`re just going to get in the carpet and we`re already sleeping on the floor,” said Gray.

She sprays down the place every night

And she says it’s a chore to figure out where it’s safe to sleep.

“Once we get bit, we rotate where we sleep,” she said.

Gray she simply can’t afford to move. We were able to reach a person with MMQ properties who identified himself as a partial owner of The Quarters on Melody Lane. He declined to comment.

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7/20/2011 As Bedbugs Increase So Do Insurance Policies: More Insurance Companies Starting To Offer Coverage

Bedbugs are crawling the sheets in hotels, apartment buildings and college dormitories in surging numbers, which has spawned a new enterprise for insurance companies.

The tiny, reddish bugs, ranging to about 7 millimeters, or the size of Lincoln’s head on a penny, hide in dark places like vampires during the day and suck human blood at night. Unlike those other blood-thirsty parasites, head lice, bedbugs are extremely hard to wipe out once they infest, and the cost can be very high.

Infestations of any kind — bugs, rats or cockroaches —typically are excluded from commercial property insurance policies. The cost of eradicating pests was a maintenance expense, meaning it was not covered by insurance, up until recently.

Insurers, like most of us, didn’t want to get near the bugs.

But increasing pressure from lawmakers to require coverage, along with high demand from hoteliers and property owners to protect themselves from financial loss during an infestation, has created a new market.

Last month, bedbug insurance coverage was offered for the first time by two national brokerage firms, Aon Risk Solutions of Chicago and New York-based Willis North America; and also NSM Insurance Group of Conshohocken, Pa., an insurer.

“You’ve got legislators in the state of New York Assembly who are trying to make this mandatory that insurance companies do this,” said John Lafakis, senior vice president at Willis North America and program manager for the bed bug recovery insurance. “So we figured, ‘You know what, we’re going to beat everyone to the punch.’”

The brokerage firms are leaping into an area that has exploded after years when bedbugs were rarely reported, seemingly a forgotten annoyance from another era.

“Ten years ago it was considered a minor pest issue,” said Greg Gatti, a director at Aon Risk Solutions.

Bedbugs have grabbed headlines as more and more people report the telltale red welts after staying in hotels and living in apartment buildings.

Hotels could spend an average $600 to $800 per room to eradicate bedbugs, according to experts in Connecticut. That says nothing of lost income if an infestation becomes public knowledge — on websites such as bedbugregistry.com, or in the media.

Nutmeg State Plagued

The state office that fields questions from people asking about bedbugs, the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station in New Haven, had only two inquiries in 1996. Reports started coming in more regularly in 2003 in all major cities across the state, said Gale E. Ridge, an entomologist who specializes in bedbugs at the experiment station.

Ridge is also chairman of the Connecticut Coalition Against Bed Bugs, which brings together bug researchers, pest control services and other interested parties. She recorded more than 900 reports from people who suspected they had bedbugs in the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2010, and the numbers are double or triple that for the year that ended June 2011.

The insects are now in every corner of the state. “We have a very active population here,” Ridge said.

Bedbugs aren’t known to spread disease, but they can be an annoyance because of itchy welts from their bites and the loss of sleep they cause, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The Connecticut trend mirrors what is happening across the U.S. First, bedbug reports were coming out of larger urban areas. Now, they are more widespread, affecting every town in the state, Ridge said.

Occasionally, a person will mistake Eastern bat bugs (Cimex adjunctus) with bedbugs (Cimex lectularius), which are similar in the way they look and behave. Bat bugs typically signal that bats are living in the eaves or attic.

What’s the difference?

Bedbugs are small, flat parasites, retreating by day to hiding places in bed frames, floorboard cracks and other dark corners.

“Actually, they’ll hide anywhere. I’ve found them in electrical outlets and … in TV remotes,” Ridge said. “They don’t like to be on you, your person. You are the food source, and they want to get off of you as soon as they can and get back to their refuge.”

The bedbug population is spreading, due in part to the fact that chemicals once used to kill them, such as DDT, are illegal because of the human harm and environmental damage associated with the chemical. DDT, for example, is a probable human carcinogen that damages the liver and reproductive system. It pushed bald eagles and peregrine falcons near to extinction decades ago before it was outlawed in the U.S. in 1972.

Modern-day bugs have mutated to become resistant to neurotoxins, helping the population to grow, though a pest control company can resolve an infestation if the colony of bugs is detected early.

Bedbugs also are spreading because more people are traveling internationally, unwittingly bringing back the nasty stowaways, Ridge said. Sometimes, people notice bites within a few hours, but, for others, it can take two weeks for the bites to show up, particularly the first time a person is bitten. That delay can exacerbate the spread.

Colonies of bedbugs are able to survive in condominium complexes and other multi-family housing arrangements because they travel from one home to another unless the entire building is treated.

Covering Bugs In The Covers

New lines of bedbug insurance announced last month by Willis and Aon, sold as separate lines of coverage, already have taken off, according to insurance brokers. Annual premiums for policies sold so far this range from $3,000 for a 100-room hotel in Oklahoma City to $150,000 for eight state colleges with 36,000 beds in New Jersey, said Lafakis, the Willis North America broker.

“People have been clamoring for this coverage for God knows how long,” Lafakis said. “It really didn’t exist.”

Whether the coverage sells well to hotel owners will depend on how it’s priced, but there is certainly a demand for bedbug insurance, said Joe McInerney, president of the American Hotel & Lodging Association. Bedbugs are a recent concern that hadn’t been a problem for hotels in decades, and with every new arrival at a hotel comes the possibility of unwanted guests.

“We don’t grow them in the basement and send them up for a midnight snack,” McInerney said. “Somebody brings them in.”

A greater chance of getting bedbugs and all the costs of casting them out may make insurance more attractive, he said.

The Willis coverage, for example, includes decontamination services, rehabilitating expenses, lost profit due to business interruption, crisis management — including a 24-hour/7-day-a-week hotline, coordination with regulatory authorities, risk control and prevention.

Willis North America is a broker for policies by Professional Liability Insurance Services Inc., of Largo Vista, Texas, and is joining with Orkin LLC of Atlanta for pest control services. Willis employs about 100 in Connecticut.

Aon Risk Solutions, which employs 641 people in Connecticut, is an insurance broker for Excess General Partners policies, and both are teaming with Memphis-based Terminix for pest control.

“We had immediate reaction, not only from our current and prospective real estate customers, but also from our hotel and hospitality customers and have had a lot of interest from our higher-ed practice, which includes the universities and colleges, and to date, we have 15 indications out to major corporations around the country,” said Gatti, the director at Aon Risk Solutions

Bedbugs have made hoteliers very anxious.

“Everybody freaks out,” Lafakis said of a hotelier discovering a bedbug infestation. “You’ve really got a problem. The landlords, and the property owners and the hoteliers, they’ve got to run a business, and now they’re freaking out that they don’t know how many rooms are infested, ‘What have we got to do, is this going to make the front page of the New York Times?’”

He added, “There’s hysteria, but it’s justified. People’s lives are turned upside down by this.”
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7/16/2011 BedBug Webinar To Discuss BedBug Insurance: Sign-Up Now For July 21st Event

Join us Thursday, July 21 at noon EDT (9 a.m. PDT, 11 a.m. CDT) for a live web chat to discuss bed bug insurance. Bed bugs are spreading in increasing numbers, infesting apartments, hotels and homes. The problem has gotten so bad that insurance companies recently started offering special coverage for hotels and property managers.

Chat with the experts to find out more about bedbugs. Hartford Courant reporter Matthew Sturdevant will moderate an online chat featuring Gale E. Ridge, Ph.D., an entomologist who specializes in bedbugs at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station in New Haven and chairwoman of the Connecticut Coalition Against Bed Bugs, and Missy Henriksen,Vice President of External Affairs, National Pest Management Association.

Click Here To Sign Up For: BedBug Webinar To Discuss BedBug Insurance

7/14/2011 Bedbugs Found In Philadelphia Police Station: Second Northeast City Police Force To Be Infested This Week

Police officers across the city are being warned of a frustratingly stubborn enemy that has infiltrated their workplace: bedbugs.

An infestation was discovered last week in the building in Mayfair that houses the Second and 15th Police Districts and the Northeast Detective Division.

The bedbugs came to light after inmates in several holding cells were bitten, said Roosevelt Poplar, vice president of the Fraternal Order of Police, Lodge No. 5.

An exterminator treated the infested areas twice, and the department’s administration is closely monitoring the situation, said Lt. Raymond Evers of the Public Affairs Unit.

Joan Schlotterbeck, the city’s public property commissioner, said that one inmate had brought the bugs to the building and that an exterminator believed the infestation was confined to three cells.

Those cells have wooden benches that are different from those in other units, she said. They will be removed.

The cell block has been evacuated. Cells will be power-washed, crevices will be sealed, and the walls will be repainted, Schlotterbeck said.

“At this point, we believe we’re doing everything we can,” Schlotterbeck said.

Poplar said the entire building at Harbison Avenue and Levick Street should have been treated for bedbugs. About 500 officers work out of the building, he said, and the bugs may have hitched rides with inmates who were transferred.

“These bugs, they can be carried on people,” he said. “They can be carried in a car, to another district. The holding cells have people coming in and out all day long. We’re talking about potentially thousands of people who could be affected by this.”

Officers will be asked to report any signs of infestation. Employees who wish to take extra precautions can wash and dry their clothes as soon as they get home from work, Schlotterbeck said.

Poplar said several officers had told him that they might have unknowingly carried bugs home in their clothing. “These guys are under enough stress as it is without worrying about taking bugs home to their families,” he said.

The bedbug resurgence began about 10 years ago in hotels and apartment buildings in large cities nationwide. The bloodsucking insects are known for resilience. Clothes and other belongings must be heated to extreme temperatures to kill them, and the bugs can hide in wooden furniture or baseboards for a year without food.

Though New York City has been seen as the center of the scourge, the problem is on the rise here. Terminix, the national exterminating company, this year ranked Philadelphia fifth among U.S. cities for bedbugs, with New York still in first.

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6/20/2011 Bedbug Lawsuits Causes Concerns For Insurers

Jeffrey White, a research entomologist with Bed Bug Central in New Jersey, says the bed bug problem is worldwide, though he has seen a dramatic increase in the Northeast. “We use New York City as the barometer for what’s going to happen across this entire country over the next five to ten years.”

A simple review of the online resource, bedbugregistry.com, which shows real time reports of bed bug infestations, confirms the higher incidence of bed bugs in the upper Northeast.

White says he’s seen a rise in calls for expert advice and retention. The number of calls has increased dramatically in the past six months. “We are averaging at least one call a week.”

White notes the calls are evenly split between defense and plaintiff attorneys. The defendants involved are mainly hotels, group homes, apartments, and property management companies.

In White’s experience most lawsuits involving bed bugs settle prior to trial and he is only asked to review the case files and provide an opinion. He emphasizes taking proactive measures to identify and prevent bed bugs early on. Then, he recommends an aggressive action plan to treat the problem.

“Where people are finding themselves in a lot of hot water is when they stick their head in the sand about bed bugs. They don’t have any type of action plan created. They show up and don’t know how to react to the problem. Weeks go by and no action is taken, or they call the cheapest exterminator they can find and they come in and don’t do anything even close to a good treatment for bed bugs.”

Documentation is just as important, White points out.

“That is where a lot of cases have had to settle. People claim they did everything they could have done, but the paperwork does not reflect their claims.”

Pest management records and documentation is equally important. White hasn’t seen many pest control companies named in lawsuits; however, they can get pulled in at any moment.

While most of the lawsuits White has seen involve bodily injury and property claims for medical bills, scarring and furniture replacement, he has noticed a number of plaintiffs also claiming emotional distress.

“We’ve seen a lot of people that are claiming psychological trauma.”

Emotional distress claims range from not being able to sleep at night to having problems at work as a result of the lack of sleep.

During a breakout session of the Orkin-sponsored virtual bed bug summit held in April, Michael Weisburger, president of the PlanetPCO Insurance Group, emphasized that media attention is playing a major role on how bed bug claims are perceived.

“In the event of a highly publicized claim situation, the public will dictate whether or not the damages are “real”. What’s overstated and sensationalized is real! Insurance companies have to contend with all of this hysteria. Insurance companies are having a difficult time getting their arms around how to measure what losses exist and what potential losses exist in claims involving bed bugs.”

While typical property policies don’t cover damage or treatment of bedbugs, general liability policies do come into play. When investigating a bed bug claim and the potential for subrogation, adjusters should check to see if the insured is a named additional insured on the pest management company’s policy.

The NPMA’s Web site has a section devoted entirely to bed bugs. The NPMA recommends visual inspection as the preferred method of determining whether a bed bug infestation exists. The size and color of an apple seed, bed bugs like to travel hiding in suitcases, boxes, and shoes.

“Bed bugs can be very hard to detect until their levels of infestation get to be large,” says Henriksen.

A bed bug hatches from an egg and has five nymphal stages where it will shed an exoskeleton. Each time the new shell will harden and in the final stage it will become a male or female. The bed bug enjoys a blood meal at each stage and will feed multiple times as an adult. The lifespan of a bedbug is typically three months, though they can live up to a year if food is limited. The female will go through multiple reproductions, laying approximately five eggs at a time and between 20 and 100 in her lifetime.

Henriksen recommends watching out for itchy bumps or welts. Bed bugs tend to bite in a pattern or line. When changing sheets it’s a good idea to inspect the bed, mattress, headboard, box spring, and dust ruffle. Pepper-like flakes can be a sign of bed bug excrement or blood debris.

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3/29/2011 New York City Launches Bedbug Website: Tells Bedbugs “We’re Biting Back”

New York City to bedbugs: “We’re biting back.”

The City Council and Bloombergadministration officials will announce stepped-up rules today targeting landlords who neglect bedbug problems in their buildings.

Under the new rules — which take effect immediately — building owners must inspect and treat apartments next to, above and below any unit that has bedbugs. They also must notify all tenants when bedbugs have been detected and distribute a plan on eradicating them.

Property owners who repeatedly fail to take care of bedbug infestations will be required to get a licensed exterminator to fill out a sworn affidavit indicating the problem has been handled.

“We’re sending the message that we’re taking this seriously,” Council Speaker Christine Quinn said. “People are very nervous about bedbugs.”

The Department of Health will be empowered to send landlords who ignore bedbugs to the city’s Environmental Control Board, which can issue fines. Presently, only the Department of Housing Preservation and Development can issue violations to landlords for bedbugs.

In a last-resort move, the city would sell liens on properties whose owners ignore those fines.

City officials will also unveil a Web site — www.nyc.gov/html/doh/bedbugs — to arm residents with information on eradicating the pests.

The Web site will provide pictures and detailed descriptions of the critters and tips on how to prevent them from entering homes, such as keeping suitcases off floors and beds while traveling, sealing cracks in your home with caulk and washing clothes and bedding on hot settings if you suspect the presence of bedbugs.

The site also advises against bringing home any used furniture off the street.

Councilwoman Gale Brewer (D-Manhattan), who worked on the Web site and new regulations, said many New Yorkers are in a constant state of fear over picking up the critters.

“The numbers of complaints, in rental buildings in particular, are continuing,” she said.

Visit NYC Bedbug Website

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3/25/2011 Why Montreal Is Losing The BedBug Battle: Number Of Inspections And Money For Pest Control Is Insufficient Experts Say

MONTREAL – The city of Montreal and regional public heath officials have a new plan to combat bedbugs, but tenants’ rights groups and landlords say it lacks some serious bite because there is no extra money allocated to enforce it.

An estimated 2.7 per cent of dwellings in Montreal – that’s 22,000 homes, or 44,000 people – had bedbugs in 2009, according to a study done for the city last year. Although the situation has not reached the epidemic levels seen in some cities on the East Coast of the United States, the problem in the Montreal area is growing, city executive committee vice-president Michael Applebaum, the mayor’s point man for housing, said Thursday.

“For us this is a priority,” Applebaum said. “People cannot live in this situation (with bedbugs). We want to catch it before it gets out of hand.”

Although exterminators and landlords say the bedbug problem has grown exponentially in the past five years, Applebaum said the current number of inspections and money allocated for pest control is sufficient.

An information campaign to educate the public and a new bylaw compelling exterminators to report bedbug jobs they do in multiunit buildings are the main thrusts of the new action plan. The city of Montreal, health officials and Montreal Island suburbs will also have access to a new, confidential databank compiling infestation cases, best extermination methods, complaints by individuals to the city’s 311 phone service and the addresses of problem buildings.

A motion to adopt the plan will be presented in May and the council is expected to approve the bylaw in June, right in time for the July 1 moving day when many people switch apartments and transport or inherit bedbugs.

Richard Lessard, director of Public Health at the Health and Social Services Agency of Montreal, said people should not be afraid to report bedbugs.

“The more people hide it, the more it spreads,” he said. Having bedbugs is not an indication of personal hygiene. “Everyone is susceptible.”

Frank Pulcini, who runs Central Extermination, a Montreal company, said he saw no problem reporting his jobs to the city. But he doubted the system would truly beat bedbugs if there is not more public money injected.

“It’s just like with roaches 15 years ago; They have the same number of inspectors doing all these jobs.” Bedbug infestations are now much bigger than other pests, he added. Five years ago he got two to four calls a day about bedbugs. Now he gets up to 50 calls a day.

Nathalie Blais, spokesperson for the Association des propriétaires du Québec, representing 11,000 landlords, said the city is kidding itself if it thinks a databank won’t require additional funding. People should realize the bedbug issue is, as touchy as it is, often brought in by tenants, she said.

“Do people realize bedbugs can live in an uninhabited apartment for one year?” Blais asked. “And about 30 per cent of people do not react to bedbug bites, so some people may have them in their place without knowing it.”

France Émond, of the Regroupement des comités logements et association de locataires du Québec, a coalition of 45 tenants’ groups, said the new plan is toothless. “It has zero budget,” she said. “We asked for the new information pamphlets to give out to our members, and we were given 1,000. When we asked for more they said they had no budget to print more.”

3/22/2011 Tips From ‘The Bedbug Survival Guide’: New Book By Jeff Eisenberg Gives Tips For Avoiding Bedbugs

Here’s the good news: Bed bugs are not known to spread diseases, writes Jeff Eisenberg, author of The Bed Bug Survival Guide, out April 4. It’s already available for $9.17 on amazon.com.

The bad news: They can lay eggs in the zipper of your briefcase and fit into a crack the size of a business card, says Eisenberg, whose New York City company Pest Away has treated more than 100,000 spaces in the last 15 years. Bed bugs are once again an epidemic, Eisenberg says. They can live up to 18 months without a meal and can lie dormant until they do damage. Eisenberg says victims include a NYC fashion editor who had to toss her Vera Wang wedding gown and other possessions to get rid of them.

Here are some of Eisenberg’s tips for avoiding the critters, who are back causing problems since the powerful chemical DDT was prohibited.

*Having dinner out? Put your handbag on your lap instead of on the back of the chair or, worse, at your feet.

*The more house guests you have, the better your chances of being infested.

*On a plane? Decline a pillow and blanket.

*Checking into a hotel? Put your bag in the bathroom, where critters are less apt to crawl (they like wood and upholstery).

*Flying? Take a carry-on in the overhead bin rather than check a bag that goes in the luggage compartment.

Eisenberg shatters some myths. “You are just as likely to be bitten at a five-star hotel as you are at a place that rents rooms by the hour.”

Eisenberg offers up more interesting info. First, men are less likely than women to show evidence of being bitten (or more correctly, sucked) by bed bugs. Also, bed bugs inject you with an anesthetic,so it can take up to 12 hours for a bite to show, making it harder to know where you got one.

His tip: Use a high-powered flashlight to examine both sides of a mattress, plus the headboard and box springs for blood and fecal matter that would indicate the presence of bed bugs.

OK, now I’m really going to scare you. Eisenberg says hotels are “the perfect (bed bug) storm.” Why? Because there’s a transient population, because hotels don’t have regulations for dealing with bed bugs, and housekeepers are under pressure to turn rooms over quickly without inspections. Eisenberg says hotels should have someone on staff to inspect rooms regularly for bed bugs, take rooms out of service immediately if bugs are found or suspected, treat the room and have bed-bug-sniffing dogs confirm all is OK. He also suggests calling a hotel’s housekeeping department directly before a stay to find out if they’ve treated rooms for bed bugs in the past six weeks (sorry, but I don’t think you’d necessarily get a straight answer by doing that).

He also suggests using bedbugregistry.com to see if the hotel you booked or the apartment building you’re interested in has any reported bed-bug sightings. Check the registry, and you will be surprised how many big-name luxury hotels are mentioned.

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1/14/11 New BedBug Study: One in Five Americans Have Been Infested Or Know Someone Who Has With Bedbugs

NEW YORK — One in five Americans has either had an experience with bedbugs themselves or knows someone who has and a majority say the tiny blood-suckers are a source of worry for them, according to a new survey.

Seventy eight percent of respondents were most concerned about infested hotels, while others said they were wary of picking them up at work, at the doctor’s, at the movie theater or on public transportation.

“I was surprised just how pervasive the problem is,” said Missy Henriksen, a vice president at the National Pest Management Association, which commissioned the online survey of 504 adults.

Bedbugs, which are about the size of a grain of rice and flat-shaped, like to nestle in furniture and bedding upholstery and are notoriously difficult to get rid of.

Exterminators use powerful chemicals to rid apartments of bugs, an invasive process that forces tenants to temporarily move out.

Young renters who live in cities are most vulnerable to bedbugs, the survey showed.

Some respondents said they changed their routines to minimize the likelihood of encountering the bug.

A quarter of respondents have checked a hotel room for bedbugs and 12 percent have changed or canceled travel plans for fear of the pest. Others said they checked second-hand furniture and store dressing rooms.

Having a bedbug infested home can also hurt people’s social lives. A third of respondents said they would not invite friends who had the infestation into their homes, as people can carry bedbugs around on their clothing.

But the poll also found wide-spread misinformation about bedbugs. Nearly half believed, incorrectly, that bedbugs transmit disease to humans and more than a quarter thought they are more common in lower income households and dirty homes.

“The truth is that bedbugs do not discriminate in regard to cleanliness, nor do they prefer one socio-economic class to another,” Henriksen said.

“Bedbugs are found in penthouses and five-star hotels as well as in low-income housing and budget motels.”

Continue Reading More: New BedBug Study: 1 in 5 Americans Have Been Infested