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.”

Continue Reading More: Meet The Women Who Battle New York’s Bedbugs

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.”

Continue Reading More: Brooklyn Public School Has Bedbugs For 33rd Time

7/22/2011 Bedbugs Triple In NYC Schools In One Year: Officials Prepare For That Number To Rise

Bedbugs were found in public schools three times as often last school year compared to the year before – and officials are preparing for even more of the pests when classes resume in the fall.

Some 3,590 reports of bedbugs at city schools were confirmed by Department of Education officials in the 2010-2011 year – up from just 1,019 a year earlier.

In most cases just one or two of bedbugs were found, but the consequences for students can be severe even when small numbers of the pests are discovered.

“Fumigation for the bugs destroyed four of our classrooms completely,” said Lucille Mauro, a gym teacher and union chapter leader at Public School 197 in Midwood, Brooklyn, where one or two bedbugs were discovered nine separate times last year.

Damage from chemicals used to exterminate the pests ruined classroom libraries and other teaching materials that the school is still struggling to replace.

“It’s been disruptive for the kids,” said Mauro, who is also the teacher’s union chapter leader at PS 197.

To prevent the return of the pests next year, teachers and students at the school are storing bookbags and jackets in plastic bags and containers.

Education officials said they’re working to better control the problem of bedbugs in schools across the city.

State laws compel public schools to notify parents when bedbugs are found, even if just a single pest is discovered.

DOE spokeswoman Margie Feinberg said that most incidents at city schools involved only one bedbug brought in by someone coming into the building.

“Schools are not hospitable environments for bedbugs,” said Feinberg.

But some experts think it’s likely that more of the bugs will turn up in city classrooms next year.

“More people have the bugs in their homes, so more will probably show up in schools,” said Richard Cooper, an entomologist who served on the city’s Bedbug Advisory Board.

Continue Reading More: Bedbugs Triple In NYC Schools In One Year

6/9/2011 BedBugs Strike Reebok Sports Club Second Time: Upper West Side Gym Has Another Infestation

These bed bugs are attracted to blood – and apparently fame too.

The parasitic insects invaded Manhattan’s posh Reebok Sports Club/NY where celebrities such as Chris Rock, Antonio ‘L.A.’ Reid and Taye Diggs work out.

The insects were discovered at the Upper West Side guym – where Jerry Seinfeld first met his wife Jessica – last Thursday in the men’s locker room.

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.

Continue Reading More: How NYC Became Americas Most BedBug Infested City

3/9/2011 Bedbug Victim At Bedbug Convention Confronts Bedbug Infestation: Evaluates Latest Bedbug Fighting Products

In 2008, my Brooklyn apartment got bedbugs. After two failed extermination attempts, I went insane and moved out after throwing away everything I owned except for a laptop, an iPod and two garbage bags of clothes that had been washed in antiseptic. I wrote about it for ShelterPop, and it was clear from the story that the bedbugs had left me on edge and generally not “OK”. More recently, ShelterPop asked if I would cover the National Bed Bug Prevention Media Showcase — yes, this is a real event — and I agreed. That was a poor choice.

I walked into a storefront in Soho and found five tables set up in a wide open room, every inch of which was painted bright white. Reps from various pesticide companies were on hand to present the latest in bedbug prevention technology.

I first met Steve Bessette, President of EcoSMART Technologies, the company sponsoring the bedbug showcase, and entomologist Dr. Gretchen Paluch. They proudly presented EcoSMART’s bedbug spray as a natural solution made almost entirely from essential oils extracted from plants like rosemary and thyme. In fact, they have a pesticide exemption from the EPA as there is nothing toxic to humans in any of their products. To stress the point, they had the plants displayed on their table.

Dr. Paluch explained that the oils attack the bedbugs’ central nervous system and are powerful enough to kill the bugs on contact. While being completely harmless to humans, applying the spray to a mattress can repel bedbugs for up to eight hours at a time. That seemed all well and good, but as someone who’s had bedbugs before and had great difficulty killing them, I would have much preferred if their table looked like this:

When I had bedbugs, I wanted them dead at any cost. Safety for myself and those around me became a very distant second priority; I wanted something that could kill me, but diluted down to a bedbug-killing level. So while the botanical spray from EcoSMART seemed like an effective way to keep bedbugs away from me when I stayed in a hotel, it wasn’t a weaponized solution for an infestation in your home. As I left the table, Dr. Paluch offered me a dead bedbug entombed in plastic. It now resides in my freezer.

At another table was a product made by a company called BugZip. They make plastic bags that you can put your luggage in while on vacation so that bugs from a hotel infestation can’t hitch a ride on your suitcase and follow you home. Smart.

Then I met Genma Holmes, or “The Bug Lady,” a former model and now head of a pest control company in Atlanta. Terrible nickname, awesome lady. She had set up a number of diagrams showing some of the most common bed bug hiding places: Behind bed boards, under the seam of a mattress, in your FREAKING ALARM CLOCK. Also, the alarm clocks pictured in the diagrams were all cleverly displaying times such as 1:00 and the infamous 2:25 A.M. moments at which one is likely to wake up scratching themselves. The Bug Lady and I had a good laugh about that, and we’re now Facebook friends.

At the last table were two brothers, Daniel and Scott White. Like the others at the show case, they had bedbug prevention products like a ClimbUp Insect Interceptor and a bed bug proof mattress cover. But, unlike the others, these guys had actual experience in extermination, and Scott had even been through an infestation himself.

Excited to finally be talking to people with an actual bedbug eradication background, I launched into questions about other rumored bedbug exterminating tactics. They had answers.

“What’s the deal with bedbug sniffing dogs?” Apparently, the dogs can be effective in locating bedbugs, but they’re only as good as their trainer.

“How about the freezing option?” Freezing bedbugs can also work, he said, but it only kills on contact; if you miss a spot where bedbugs are hiding, they will remain there. “And heat?” Heat can be a good option too, but it’s expensive. A treatment where they heat your whole apartment in order to kill the bedbugs can cost up to 50 percent more than a regular extermination. “And is it appropriate to freak out when you get bedbugs, throw away all your belongings and stay crazy for the next three years?” Maybe not so much.

I left the showcase with mixed feelings. It’s encouraging to see that there are people working to fix the ever-expanding bedbug population. But here’s the scary truth: If I ever got bedbugs again, there is not one singular and surefire way to get rid of them. The consensus of all the experts at the showcase seemed to be that bedbugs aren’t going anywhere any time soon, and until there is a better solution, containment is about the best we can hope for. In other words: Take a deep breath. Bedbugs just might kill us all.

Continue Reading More & To Watch Video: Bedbug Victim At Bedbug Convention Confronts Bedbug Infestation

3/4/2011 Bedbug Burglar Strikes In NYC: Instead Of Killing Bugs, He Cleans Out The Jewelery Box

Police are hunting for a phony exterminator wanted in at least five burglaries in Brooklyn.

The smooth-talking con artist allegedly knocks on doors in Brighton Beach pretending to have been sent there to get rid of bedbugs. But instead of killing the bugs, he cleans out the jewelry box.

Leora Handlersky was one of his victims.

“I said, ‘I don’t have bugs,’ and he said, ‘It’s not about bugs, it’s about bedbugs,’ and that the co-op sent him,” Handlersky said.

Handlersky said the suspect told her she didn’t personally have bedbugs, but he wanted to spray for prevention and she should wait leave the apartment for two hours while the work was done, to avoid ill effects from exposure to fumes.

She followed the man’s instructions, but when Handlersky returned, “I saw my jewelry box was moved and everything in it was gone,” she said.

Police say the same man has scammed at least five people in the neighborhood in the last two months. He always uses the same simple excuse to get the person out of the house.

The co-op board at 2525 West Second St. had a meeting about security. They’ve also posted signs warning residents to be alert.

“It’s about making sure our doors are closed and that keys aren’t given out just like that to people. Security can only be as secure as they allow it to be,” the board president said.

Police are passing out a sketch of the fake exterminator. He’s described as a black or Hispanic man between the ages of 28 and 35 with a stocky build and a thin moustache. He wears a dark-colored uniform and carries a canister.

Continue Reading More & To Watch The Video: Bedbug Burglar Strikes In NYC

2/8/2011 Bedbugs In Brooklyn Car: Owners Leave Note Stating Infestation & Asking Not Be Ticketed

No criminal would think of stealing this car — but nothing stops the city’s traffic agents.

A note on the windshield of thisJeepparked on Pacific Street in Boerum Hill said the vehicle was infested with bedbugs — and begged, to no avail, that it not be ticketed.

The owner, who asked not to be identified, told The Post that he noticed bites recently and “we were trying an experiment.”

“We wanted to see if we had them in the house by not using the car at all for two weeks.

“They still ticketed us, though.”

Continue Reading More: Bedbugs In Brooklyn Car

11/30/10 NYC: New Mattress Disposal Rules Aimed At BedBugs Catches Nora Jones

Starting Dec. 3, singer Norah Jones — along with all other New York City residents — will have to help fight the bedbug infestation crawling through the city by following new rules enacted by the New York City Department of Sanitation. Jones, who recently was alleged to have brought bedbugs to the Brooklyn neighborhood of Cobble Hill, will be required “to fully encase within a sealed plastic bag all mattresses or box springs being discarded for DSNY collection.”

Jones, the platinum-selling indie singer and daughter of international superstar sitarist Ravi Shankar, has been accused of bringing a bedbug infestation to the neighborhood when she moved her furniture into her brownstone.

11/21/10 Bedbugs On New York City Subways: MTA Fumigating Ninth Street Station In Brooklyn After Recent Siting In Subway Booth