9/18/2011 Bedbugs Invade Imperial County California

More than 40 years after bedbugs were eradicated in this country with the use of strong pesticides such as DDT, the infamous bedbug is making a comeback across the country and biting its way into Imperial County.  

Bedbugs are about the size of an apple seed, said Sandy Fishell, owner of the extermination company Terminix of Imperial Valley.

The insect is flat, has no wings, it can’t jump but it can crawl very quickly like a cockroach, Fishell said.

In Imperial County, “we never had bedbugs,” Fishell said, adding she received her first bedbug job here in 2003.

After that, bedbug calls became more common, she said, and started “ramping up” about three years ago.

The county Public Health Department also saw a rise in complaints associated with bedbugs, deputy director Jeff Lamoure said.

In 2008 the department received three complaints associated with bedbugs — two from El Centro and one from Holtville — according to a report by the county Public Health Department.

In 2011 this number rose to 24 complaints and came from all cities in the county except Calipatria, according to the same report.

Most of this year’s complaints came from low-income extended-stay motels in El Centro, Lamoure said, adding that the area of State Street and Adams Avenue seems to be the most affected by bedbugs.

In 2009, Terminix got four bedbug calls a year, Fishell said. In 2010 that number increased to about two calls a week, she said.

There has been a steady rise of bedbug incidents in the county since 2008, said Gabe Cordero, president of Pestmaster Services.

But even with the rising number of cases, Cordero said he doesn’t believe bedbugs are an epidemic.

Still, it is quite an effort to bring bedbugs under control and eradicate them, he said.

The first cases of bedbugs in the United States started to reappear about 13 years ago, said Micah Nix, executive director of the National Bedbug Association.

But mapping an exact location of where and how the incidents started is difficult, Nix said, because such data wasn’t collected.

Even though it is unclear why there is a resurgence of bed bugs after all these years, Nix said, foreign travel and tourism are considered the main factors behind the resurgence.

Nowadays, “We have our own native colonies,” he said, “so we are responsible for spreading bedbugs across the country.”

Bedbugs live by sucking blood from hosts such as humans and are excellent hitchhikers, Nix said.

The insect can “hitch a ride pretty much to any location,” mostly by inanimate objects such as bags, luggage and furniture, he said.

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8/28/2011 Disabled Las Vegas Man Deals With Bedbugs: Complaining For Months About Infestation At Siegel Suites Twain II

Lawrence Cabrera has been complaining for months to the management of the Siegel Suites Twain II location about bedbugs.

Finally, last week he called the Southern Nevada Health District, which found “significant bedbug infestation” at his studio apartment this week, according to a document he showed me. A Sun photographer documented the obvious infestation.

Cabrera, 62, said he was injured while working for the Union Pacific Railroad a decade ago and is on federal disability. He uses a wheelchair and suffers from nerve damage and asthma.

He’s a veteran of the U.S. Army.

Once the health department official told Siegel Suites management it had 14 days to eradicate the bedbugs, Cabrera was given a to-do list before the exterminators arrive Monday. He needs to bag his belongings, sweep, dust and vacuum his unit.

But of course, he’s unable to do so because of his disability. He says the management told him it will serve an eviction notice if he doesn’t do what’s required.

His family is in Colorado; he has a woman who comes by once per month to deliver groceries. Cabrera said that since he moved to Siegel Suites in February 2010, the ceiling of his bathroom collapsed, and he endured a break-in attempt while he was in the unit.

His rent is $650 per month.

When I alerted the health department about the threat of eviction, a spokeswoman said that on Monday morning she would be contacting Elder Protective Services and Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada.

Some background on bedbugs: As the Sun noted in 2008, they were mostly eradicated by the chemical agent DDT after World War II, but began to surface again in the late 1990s and are now thriving. They are six-legged, reddish-brown insects that are nocturnal, feasting on as much as three times their weight in a single human “blood meal.” They are famously difficult to exterminate, hiding in the tiniest crevices and surviving all manner of chemical agents. They are also highly mobile, so it’s possible they aren’t isolated in Cabrera’s unit.

I went to the Siegel Suites office to speak to a manager Saturday to ask if this is an appropriate way to treat someone, especially a disabled veteran, but the manager was not in.

I left a message, and will update you when they get back to me.

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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.”
Continue Reading More: As Bedbugs Increase So Do Insurance Policies

7/3/2011 Top 10 BedBug Myths: The insects, making a comeback around the globe, cannot fly and are really not interested in hanging out on your body–but they do occasionally bite during the day

Once a pest of the past, bedbugs now infest every state in the U.S.. Cimex lectularius—small, flattened insects that feed solely on mammalian and avian blood—have been living with humans since ancient times. Abundant in the U.S. prior to World War II , bedbugs all but vanished during the 1940s and ’50s thanks to improvements in hygiene and the use of pesticides. In the past 10 years, however, the pests have staged a comeback worldwide—an outbreak after the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney was a harbinger of things to come. This revival may be the worst yet, experts say, due to densely populated urban areas, global travel and increasing pesticide resistance—something to consider as the summer travel season gets underway.

“By every metric that we use, it’s getting worse and worse,” says Coby Schal, an entomologist at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. Health authorities and pest control operators are regularly flooded with calls, and the epidemic may not have yet peaked. And because bedbugs are indoor pests, there are no high or low seasons throughout the year, he adds, only continual bombardment. “It’s just the beginning of the problem in the U.S.,” Schal says.

Spreading rapidly with the bedbugs is a mass of misinformation about their biology and behavior. Straight from the experts, here are the facts behind some of the most notorious myths about the diminutive bloodsuckers.

Myth 1: Bedbugs can fly
Bedbugs lack wings, and therefore cannot fly. That is unless you put a blow dryer behind them, says Stephen Kells, a bedbug researcher at the University of Minnesota. Then they’ll fly about 1.2 meters. On their own, bedbugs crawl about a meter a minute, he says.

Myth 2: Bedbugs reproduce quickly
Compared with other insects, bedbugs are slow to reproduce: Each adult female produces about one egg per day; a common housefly lays 500 eggs over three to four days. Each bedbug egg takes 10 days to hatch and another five to six weeks for the offspring to develop into an adult.

Myth 3: Bedbugs can typically live a year without a meal
Scientists debate this point, but evidence suggests that at normal room temperature, about 23 degrees Celsius, bedbugs can only survive two to three months without a blood meal. But because they are cold-blooded, their metabolism will slow down in chillier climates, and the insects may live up to a year without feeding.

Myth 4: Bedbugs bite only at night
Although bedbugs are generally nocturnal, they’re like humans—if they’re hungry, they’ll get up and get something to eat. “If you go away to visit a friend for a week and you come back and sit down on the couch, even though it’s daytime the bedbugs will come looking for you,” Schal says. Keeping a light on, then, unfortunately does not keep these tiny vampires away.

Myth 5: Bedbugs live exclusively in mattresses
“‘Bedbug’ is such a misnomer,” Kells says. “They should also be called pet bugs and suitcase bugs and train bugs and movie theater bugs.” Bedbugs spread away from beds into living areas and can be seen on any surface, he says, including chairs, railings and ceilings.

Myth 6: Bedbugs prefer unsanitary, urban conditions
“Bedbugs are terribly nondiscriminatory,” Schal says. Bedbugs can be found anywhere from ritzy high-rises to homeless shelters. The prevalence of the bugs in low-income housing is therefore not a result of the insect’s preference, but of dense populations and the lack of money to pay for proper elimination strategies. “Any location is vulnerable,” Kells says. “But some people are going to have a harder time getting control of them because it is such an expensive treatment.”

Myth 7: Bedbugs travel on our bodies
Bedbugs do not like heat, Kells says. They therefore do not stick in hair or on skin, like lice or ticks, and prefer not to remain in our clothes close to our bodily heat. Bedbugs are more likely to travel on backpacks, luggage, shoes and other items farther removed from our bodies.

Myth 8: Bedbugs transmit disease
Bedbug bites can lead to anxiety, sleeplessness and even secondary infections, but there have been no reported cases of bedbugs transmitting disease to humans. They do, however, harbor human pathogens: At least 27 viruses, bacteria, protozoa and more have been found in bedbugs, although these microbes do not reproduce or multiply within the insects. Canadian researchers announced (pdf) in the June issue of Emerging Infectious Diseases that bedbugs isolated from three individuals in a Vancouver hospital carried methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, aka MRSA. Still, there have been no reported cases that the bugs actually transmit human disease.

Myth 9: We should bring back DDT
When the controversial pesticide DDT was banned in 1972, most bed bugs were already resistant to it, Schal says, and today’s populations are even more widely resistant thanks to the use of a new class of pesticides. Pyrethroids, the main class of pesticides used against bedbugs today, targets sodium channels in bedbug cells, just like DDT. Consequently, as bedbugs develop resistance to pyrethroids, they also become cross-resistant to DDT.

Myth 10: You can spray bedbugs away
Thanks to pesticide resistance, those cans of spray at your local hardware store simply will not do, Schal says, adding: “Relying strictly on chemicals is generally not a good solution.” The most effective solutions are fumigation and heat treatments, but these can cost a cool $2,000 to $3,000 apiece for a single-family home. Scientists are diligently pursuing other strategies, including freezing and bait similar to that used for cockroaches. In the October 2010 issue of the Journal of Economic Entomology Schal and colleagues at the U.S. Department of Agriculture published a technique that employs inexpensive infrared and vibration sensors to track bedbug movement, which could be applied to the development of automated traps that detect the pests.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2/20/2011 How Not To Let The Bedbugs Bite: New BedBug Book Chock Full Of Information On Prevention & Treatment

Humans have been tormented by insects since we first entered caves, but the bedbug is in a class of its own. They’re tiny, tenacious and love to travel.

New York-based entomologist Ralph Maestre makes a strong argument in The Bed Bug Book(released this week by Skyhorse Publishing) that we shouldn’t let sleeping arthropods lie — even if our own sleeping quarters aren’t infested.

He wrote the book, he says, to “intrigue, horrify, entertain and be useful.”

It is chock-full of information on the bedbug, its history, its life cycle and its current place in our ecosystem. Most importantly, the book is a useful guide for prevention of bedbugs and treatment if they do show up.

The key, Maestre says, is vigilance — and to make simple changes to thwart them. He says one reason our forebears put legs on beds is to keep the bedding off the ground and away from the bugs. We’ve forgotten that, and today we often put bedskirts under our mattresses — providing a perfect ladder for bedbugs to climb up and move in.

What follows is an edited version of the Star’s recent telephone interview with Maestre.

You say there is no other pest like the bedbug?

Because of the fear it induces in the human psyche. Even when an infestation is gone, there’s a lingering psychological recovery period of up to six months. It brings a lot of deep nightmares to the forefront.

Maybe it’s because they’re in our beds while we’re sleeping?

It’s also how we perceive the bedbug. If you have them you feel shame — because at some level you think it means you’re dirty or you’re poor or you’re not a good housekeeper. And if you have an allergic reaction it can feel like you’re being bitten again and again.

These were long periods when they went under the radar and you didn’t hear much about bedbugs. Why?

There’s many reasons for that. Many people thought that DDT wiped them out, and that’s not necessarily the case. Our appreciation of the importance of sanitation and the proper disposal of garbage helped. We changed — our furniture changed, our lifestyle changed, the way we did things changed. Then when they went away, we changed back. Now that this pest has returned we have to start thinking along those lines yet again.

Is pest management busier now than ever?

It’s a growing industry because the population continues to grow. But world travel is also allowing all sorts of new invasive species to enter the country, and bedbugs are just one.

So what are we doing wrong and what are we doing right?

What we’re doing wrong is panicking. There is absolutely no need. What we’re doing right (and it’s started in this past year) is that there are many people in the pest-control industry and government who are performing the research necessary to control these pests and educate the public. It’s vigilance that’s going to be the key to all of this: education, learning what they are, what they look like. Slowly but steadily, government is coming into the picture and realizing what steps are going to be needed to really help society.

You recommend checking for bedbugs everywhere. Do you really check every seam of your coat and every seat before you plant your butt?

I’m not talking about taking 15 minutes, but as you’re putting your coat on take a look-see on the outside, on the inside, stick your hands in the pockets and pull them inside out. And just that little bit, which takes maybe 10 to 15 seconds is probably going to be enough. If you know the location has had a bedbug problem then you want to be more thorough. If you’re staying in a hotel absolutely go through everything. If you go into a movie theatre, go through everything a little more thoroughly than you normally would. If you’re taking the train or the bus, take just a quick look-see.

Travel seems to be a big culprit.

One person may introduce the bedbug into a hotel room and then the next person is in the hotel room the next night. They may pick up one or two of them and then leave. Then a third person checks in. The exposure becomes exponential. That’s why vigilance in that situation is so important. It may take several days before the hotel itself becomes aware that there’s a problem in the room and reacts to it.

So there’s still much to learn about these guys.

They’re doing so at university levels all the time, learning about the behaviour. One example: There are 10 to 12 different pheromones that will attract bedbugs. Most males and nymphs (young ones) will congregate in and around that area, and so do females that aren’t pregnant. But for those females already pregnant, it acts as a repellent. That’s why no one has been able to come up with some sort of trap, like a roach motel, to attract bedbugs. You’ll catch some, but you’re not going to catch all of them.

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2/6/2011 Minnesota Home Worst BedBug Infestation Exterminator Has Seen:  Minneapolis Bungalow Needs $6,000 In Extermination Services

It is in many ways an all-American home.

Well kept and tidy, with the Stars and Stripes fluttering near the sidewalk.

It could belong to your grandmother, but inside the Minneapolis bungalow, trouble scampers beneath the sheets.

“We’re seeing all types of adults, nymphs, basically all stages of bedbug activity here,” says Chris Garcia of Adam’s Pest Control as he lifts a mattress to expose dozens of crawling creatures, some as large as pencil erasers.

The elderly owner of the home sleeps in one of the bedrooms, her head just inches from an electrical outlet swarming with bedbugs.

At night they feed on her.

Blood stains have soaked into her pillow.

“This is definitely the worst I’ve seen,” says Garcia, who works with the efficiency of an exterminator who has seen a lot.

“This is fecal matter,” Garcia points out as he lifts a stained mattress in another bedroom used for sleeping by an elderly man.

Bedbugs scamper.

The woman and her housemate have tried for more than two years to gain control of the infestation, ripping up carpets and spraying over-the-counter pesticides — but it is obvious their efforts failed. In a bedroom closet, hundreds of bedbugs crawl over each other inside a running shoe.

The infestation is extreme, but it is hardly isolated.

Once nearly wiped out by strong – but now banned – pesticides like DDT, bedbugs have waged an aggressive comeback.

“Bedbugs are hitchhikers so they spread by getting on your luggage and on your clothes,” explains Todd Leyse, the president of Adam’s Pest Control. “Every year we’re seeing 30 to 100 percent more bedbug jobs than the previous year, for about the last 11 years.”

Leyse and his crew are using portable furnaces to heat the Minneapolis house to 135 degrees – a temperature lethal for bedbugs.

It’s a costly procedure.

The owner of the home was given an estimate of more than $6000 to rid her house of the pests. It was more than she could afford. She would have been lost without a new program called “Project Good Night,” launched by Adam’s Pest Control and the non-profit group Bridging Inc.

Bridging hopes to raise $150,000 in private donations to help others who don’t have the means to eradicate bedbugs from their homes. Adam’s has pledged another $150,000 in matching funds.

“I thought that we would meet the needs of everyone in a very short period of time, but the need continues and it’s getting worse,” said Jim Elfering, operations manager for Bridging.

Garcia says the Minneapolis home will likely need follow-up visits to kill every last bedbug, but even in the midst of the worst infestation he’s ever seen, he is optimistic.

“We’re going to save this house.”

Continue Reading More: Minnesota Home: Worst BedBug Infestation Exterminator Has Ever Seen

11/21/10 Bedbugs Take A Bite Out Of Paris: French Exterminators Say Phones Ringing Off The Hook With Complaints

Bedbugs – the pesky blood-sucking insects wreaking havoc with New York’s global image since 2009 – have arrived in the French capital.

After having infested New York City landmarks such as the Empire State Building, Carnegie Hall and even UN headquarters, bedbugs are becoming increasingly common in the City of Light, French fumigators say.

Known in French as “punaises de lit,” bedbugs were thought to have more or less disappeared in the 1950s. But they seem to have taken advantage of the ban on certain insecticides, such as DDT, and the international travel boom to make their reappearance.

The tenacious critters, brown and barely 5mm long, often hitch rides in suitcases and then take up residence in mattresses, box-springs, bed linen and clothing. They tend to attack at night, leaving itchy, uniform bites.

One fumigator told France Info radio that his phone has been ringing off the hook with calls from bedbug victims “in tiny, unhygenic apartments but also from amazing lofts in beautiful neighbourhoods”. Monsieur Marcel pointed out that “bedbugs affect everybody. I’d say that Paris, and even France, is under invasion.”

Maybe not yet, but Smash (Municipal Service of Health and Hygiene) has already responded to 600 bed bug calls this year. The City Council has downplayed trhe bedbug threat. But a technician who answered the phone at one local council told France Info they were “doing nothing but” dealing with the little pests.

Continue Reading More: Bedbugs Take A Bite Out Of Paris

11/5/10 Why We Can’t Kill Bedbugs:  Why There’s No Easy Bed Bug Cure

NEW YORK  — In the old days killing bedbugs was easy. If you saw one of the critters you’d waltz down to the local pharmacy, drop few bucks on a box of DDT, and zap, problem solved.

Today — in a DDT free country — exterminating the bugs can be expensive.

A professional extermination to deal with a problem that all too often won’t go away costs somewhere between $200 to $1500 — per room.

It’s not that DDT should come back. First off, most bedbugs are immune to that now, too. And second, the chemical and those that followed it are largely responsible for the near-extinction of birds like the bald eagle, and who knows how many terminal illnesses in humans.

But it’s the 21st century. Can’t we come up with some other safe yet affordable means to kill these critters from hell?

The answer, for a variety of reasons, appears to be no.

Start with the chemical companies. Most pesticides people use around the home have their roots in chemicals developed for the agriculture industry.

Chemical companies like BASF, FMC and Bayer, are testing and tweaking their products in search of an effective poison against the pests.

But unless there is some agricultural application — where the big money is made — many say just targeting bed bugs doesn’t make much economic sense.

“The returns aren’t there,” said Ron Harrison, director of technical services for Orkin Pest Control.

It’s not that the market isn’t big: Exterminators made $258 million last year on bed bug treatments, according to the National Pest Management Association.

But the costs of developing a new line of chemicals is even greater — hundreds of million of dollars and up to a decade of research.

Even the chemical companies say that unless a new product has uses outside the home, it will be harder to bring a bedbug poison to market.

“It makes sense that if an active ingredient can provide uses in urban pest management, agricultural solutions, public health, etc. that the costs are much more easily recovered,” said Bob Davis, a development specialist in BASF’s pest control division.

Continue Reading More: Why We Can’t Kill Bedbugs