1/8/2012 Asbury Park Housing Authority Battles Bedbugs

The newest consultant hired to help the city’s housing authority regain its financial bearings is taking on a series of challenges. One of them is bedbugs.

William Snyder, the interim executive director who works 20 hours a week, said the key is preventative maintenance and that he also will educate residents on what they need to do.

Snyder, who started about a month ago and has experience working with troubled authorities, said he knows some extermination bills were among many unpaid bills the authority owes, but he could not say if that was the cause of people’s bedbug complaints.

About 10 days ago, granddaughters of Christine Grant, 83, who lives in the Robinson Towers high rise adjacent to the housing authority offices, said her apartment was infested and she had to live in one of their homes. She wanted to be able to return home, one granddaughter, Kia Grant, said.

Snyder said plans were underway to get the bedbugs in the senior buildings under control. Bedbugs have been found in the community room at Robinson Towers where public meetings are held, he said.

“We will be more aggressive on it and tell residents they need to be proactive — we want them to tell us,” he said.

It is now seven months since former executive director Mark Holmes resigned suddenly just before an audit was released detailing misuse of state and federal funds. The audit said Holmes had diverted $66,000 in funds earmarked to train residents, boosted his salary without authority approval and spent large sums of authority money on food, entertainment and lodging.

A former mayor of Lawrence Township, Holmes is under investigation by the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office and that investigation continues, First Assistant Prosecutor Chris Gramiccioni said this past week.

When the dust settled after Holmes’ departure, authority offficials said they had close to $1 million in unpaid bills. The Department of Housing Urban Development field office in Newark classified Asbury Park as “troubled” and a HUD recovery team is working with the board of commissioners. The authority operates 589 family and senior housing units and administers 278 housing choice vouchers.

Snyder said he’s getting paid $125 an hour for his 20 hours a week. He previously helped both the Hackensack and Passaic authorities straighten out financial problems. He’s committed to work at least six months in Asbury and started in late November.

The audit that disclosed Holmes’ spending was for the federal housing fiscal year ending March 31, 2010, and Snyder said that after a private certified public accountant gets the authority books up to date, the audit for the year ending March 31, 2011 will be carried out.

Snyder said the authority went from a $200,000 surplus in the year ending March 2009 to a deficit of $1,021,825 for the year ending March 2010. He’s projecting the next audit will show a surplus of $250,000 but said that means about $800,000 of the previous deficit remains.

Going forward, the authority is paring down, he said. Staff has already been cut and more staff will lose their jobs. He said he will rebid many of the existing plumbing, electric, heat and ventilation, exterminating and elevator contracts.

Since Oct. 1, the authority is only paying current bills and is trying to come up with a plan for the money owed. One source could be selling off the Boston Way family project buildings and land. Many of those apartments are vacant and not being filled up. Tenants can apply for vouchers.

Originally, the authority was going to demolish the Boston Way buildings and sell the land for development. Now it cannot afford to demolish the buildings.

“We can’t pay our bills,” Snyder said. “The first week I was here, telephones were turned off twice and the water was threatened to be turned off.”

Still, he says “the housing authority is very recoverable and the housing stock really is not that bad.”

He will be helping the authority get a new director and will be training the commissioners. He teaches three of the five mandated commissioners’ courses at Rutgers University, he said.

The next board meeting is at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 17.

The current seven board members are the Rev. Lyddale Akers, who is the chairman, along with Jennifer Brooks, Angeline Brown, Diane Johnson, John Moor, Anthony Perillo and Kevin Sanders.

10/16/2011 Two NJ Schools Closed For Bedbugs: Woodbridge Matthew Jago Elementary and Avenel Middle School Being Treated

Two township schools, Matthew Jago Elementary School in the Sewaren section and Avenel Middle School, have been treated with chemicals designed to kill bedbugs after one of the insects was identified at the middle school.

And at least one parent, who has children at both schools, fears letting her children return to school until the district offers assurance that the bedbug problem has been eradicated and the children are not at risk of carrying the insects back to their homes.

Diana Mellett of Sewaren ,who has a son and daughter at Matthew Jago School and a daughter at Avenel Middle School, said she kept her children home on Friday.

“I don’t want my kids to miss school and fall behind,” said Mellett, who thought it was safer to keep her children out of school rather than risk them bringing an infestation of bedbugs into their home.

She’s afraid to sent her children back to school without 100 percent assurance that there are no bedbugs.

“I don’t want them bringing bedbugs to my home,” said Mellett, who has heard it is difficult, and expensive, to get rid of the insects once they get into your home and furniture.

Bedbugs, which hide in sheets and bedding, feed off blood, often while people are sleeping. Professional treatment might be needed to get rid of the insects.

Mellett said she’s reluctant to accept bedbug information from the school district as the truth because the district wasn’t as forthcoming about the situation as it could have been.

Telephone messages left Friday for Superintendent of Schools John Crowe were not returned.

Notices were sent home with students last week that the two schools were chemically treated to kill bedbugs after school on Oct. 7. The notices went home with students on Oct. 11.

The schools were treated after apparently one bedbug was spotted on a backpack belonging to an Avenel Middle School student. The bedbug was captured and identified. That student was sent to the school nurse, then sent home. Because the student has a sibling at Matthew Jago School, the sibling also was sent home, according to township officials.

The Woodbridge Health Department checked the school and determined the exterminator was licensed to do the proper job, according to John Hagerty, township spokesman.

Hagerty said the work was done by Woodbridge-based Bowco Laboratories Inc., which handles pest management.

He said the Health Department required, and the exterminating company applied, the legally required treatment at Avenel Middle School. As a proactive measure, Matthew Jago School also was treated, Hagerty said.

Mellett said she believes two classrooms, the gym and cafeteria were treated at the Matthew Jago School.

Township Health Department personnel also went to the home of the Avenel Middle School student on whose backpack the bedbug was spotted to further check for bedbugs, but none were found, according to Hagerty.

Mellett, however, still has concerns.

She said the notice her daughter at Avenel Middle School brought home on Oct. 11 indicated the pesticide with the trade name Phantom was sprayed in the school on Oct. 7. Mellett said some Internet research she did indicates the pesticide takes 10 days to kill bedbugs because the insects have to ingest and metabolize the chemical.

Students, who had last Monday off for Columbus Day, returned to class on Tuesday, only five days after the schools were sprayed.

“The kids went to school Tuesday without anyone knowing the schools were sprayed. Why didn’t they notify us before the kids went to school,” said Mellett, adding that the district regularly sends out telephone messages to the households of the district’s 13,300 students.

She said a telephone message from Crowe about the bedbugs didn’t come until Thursday. She said the message said one bedbug was found and the district took all the necessary precautions and followed protocol.

She said the message came the same day her daughter and all the eighth-grade students at Avenel Middle School were told to pack the contents of their lockers and take everything home.

“Why send it home and bring it into my house?” said Mellett, who understands that each grade at the middle school will have to haul the contents of their lockers home.

Continue Reading More: Two NJ Schools Closed For Bedbugs

9/24/2011 How New Jersey Universities Are Dealing With Bedbugs

As the host of Bed Bug TV, Jeff White has gotten nearly half a million hits on You Tube over the past two years.

“It’s the best way to reach college kids,” he said of the video blog.

As students return to school, officials want them to be on guard against the pest whose resurgence has affected hotels, offices, homes and dorm rooms.

There have been no widespread outbreaks at local residence halls but vigilance is key in preventing sporadic outbreaks from becoming widespread, experts say.

“The bottom line is information; you have to be proactive,” said White, who works for Bed Bug Central, a consulting information service used by Fairleigh Dickinson University. “Sticking your head in the sand is the worst thing you could do.”

FDU’s website contains a link to Bed Bug Central to give students and parents information about the pests.

The company has seen its business grow as the problem has spread. It has consulted for colleges, offices and summer camps.

“A lot of colleges are at least paying attention at some level,” said White. “A plan prevents problems from spiraling out of control.”

Area colleges and universities all say rooms have been cleaned and inspected and they have contingency plans ready — and exterminators on call — should outbreaks occur.

The bedbug was all but stamped out in the 1950s with harmful pesticides such as DDT that are no longer in use. But the pest has returned in a big way – and spawned an industry to deal with it. September has been dubbed bedbug awareness month, and White and other experts are heading to Chicago for a bedbug summit, which is expected to draw as many as 800 people.

There are different methods of eradicating bedbugs: steam, extreme cold, vacuuming and other chemicals. And just as many ways to prevent their spread, including bed encasements and bug interception devices.

“It takes time to do the treatment and there is no simple solution,” White said, noting that it can cost between $400 and $800 to de-bug a dorm room.

Local colleges advise students to notify their dorm directors and go right to the campus health centers if they suspect they’ve been bitten.

William Paterson University in Wayne had four cases out of more than 2,200 dorm beds during the last school year. The school is handing out literature on the subject to students and is ready to hire an exterminator if the bugs return, said John Martone, vice president of student development.

“You can see that some of the best hotels and offices have them … it’s just the nature of people moving,” said Martone.

Montclair State University has opted for new mattresses with interior seams as a preventive measure. “That has really dramatically reduced them [bed bugs] living here,” said Terry Giardino, assistant director for facilities and services.

Last year, the university had one confirmed case and one suspected case of bedbugs. The key, the experts say, is to act quickly to limit the spread.

Awareness is one of the best tools for containment. “It can spider-web throughout a dorm so you need to make sure your residence life person knows what to look for, and what to listen for, if students are talking about it,” said White. “There’s no true way to prevent it from coming in the first place. It’s about learning how to identify it and get on it.”

Continue Reading More: How NJ Universities Are Dealing With Bedbugs

8/26/2011 NJ Senate Passes Aggressive Bedbug Bill: Overnight Facilities Would Be Required To Have A Plan To Combat Critters

 The state Senate passed a bill that would require facilities such as hospitals, hotels, nursing homes and assisted living facilities, boarding house and homeless shelters to have a bedbug maintenance plan in place.

The legislation (S-2543) is sponsored by state Sen. Robert Singer (R-Ocean) and passed by a 35-1 vote today.

“Any facility where people stay overnight should have a plan in place, ready to be carried out at a moments notice should bedbugs be discovered, ” Singer said. “Senior citizens, hospital patients and tourists throughout New Jersey all have a right to know that the bed they are sleeping in is clean, safe and free of bedbugs.”

“Bedbugs are a formidable pest problem that must be dealt with swiftly and efficiently, ” Singer continued. “It is in everyone’s best interest to have a comprehensive plan in place to keep people safe.”

Continue Reading More: NJ Senate Passes Aggressive Bedbug Bill

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

7/8/2011 Bedbug Surge In New Jersey Keeps Exterminators Busy: Population Larger Than Ever

Gregorio Lozano and his team pulled up to the target address and got ready for battle, donning white bio-hazard suits and off-loading silver tanks of cryogen.

They were on the hunt for bedbugs.

With the bedbug population larger than at any point in recent memory, exterminators are busier than ever, with infestations of the wingless red insect — no bigger than a pin head — increasingly being found far beyond homes and bedrooms. They’re now being found in stores, offices and the workplace.

“There really is a mass paranoia about the insects now,” said Steve Spinelli, owner of Titanium Laboratories in Nutley, which devotes 80 percent of its business to bedbugs, up from 15 percent in recent years.

Experts say labor lawyers have begun advising businesses on their liability and whether they should pay to treat not only their offices, but the homes of employees as well.

David Cassidy, a labor lawyer at Norris McLaughlin & Marcus in Bridgewater, expects to see the issue come up soon in new union contracts.

In rare cases, Cassidy said, bedbugs might warrant employee disability claims if someone is bitten at work. Even if no one is bitten, morale tends to drop after an infestation, he said. Some employees get labeled as “dirty” if their peers suspect they’re responsible for the bedbugs, Cassidy said.

“We’ve coined this harassment as giving someone the ‘Scarlet B,’” he said.

Despite increased concerns, experts say most people know little about bedbugs or infestation signs. Others try to remain ignorant, preventing the chances of catching the infestations at a small size.

“There are still people out there in New Jersey that are incredulous that it can happen in New Jersey, to them, said Peter Di Eduardo, an account manager at Bell Environmental exterminators. “They think it can only happen in New York.”

Americans once thought bedbugs were relegated to good-night wishes. Effective pesticides wiped out most U.S. bedbugs in the 1950s. But increased international travel to places like South America, Asia and Africa allowed bedbugs resistant to traditional pesticides to travel back to America, said Changlu Wang, a professor at Rutgers University’s Department of Entomology.

Outbreaks began to pop up in major cities, especially in New York, attracting media attention and scaring people about what lives in their mattresses.

At the same time, some exterminators were found to be equally ill-informed about how to deal with bedbugs. In January, the state Department of Environmental Protection fined a Newark company, TVF Pest Control, $860,000 and revoked its pesticide business license after spraying at least 50 residences and apartments for bedbugs in three counties with two banned chemicals during a six-month period, according to the DEP.

“If you’re spraying pesticides incorrectly, and besides the fact that you can make people sick, you wind up irritating the bugs, so you’re ending up spreading them to your neighbors’ apartment,” Di Eduardo said.

The state Legislature, meanwhile, has gotten into the act. The Assembly in 2008 set basic guidelines for landlords and tenants facing an infestation. Since then, the Legislature has passed seven more laws, including the establishment of 30-day warranties from exterminators and requirements for health care facilities and shelters to keep a standing agreement with a pest-control company.

Most recently, the Senate has proposed a $500 tax credit to offset the high costs of extermination.

Lozano, who first learned to battle bedbugs when his own house was infested, works in Bell Environmental’s bedbug division, created about two years ago to deal with increasing infestation. In the past year alone, bedbug calls have risen about 50 percent.

“How many calls have we been to? I don’t know — thousands by now,” Lozano said. “This is my second call today.”

At a home in Paterson, Lozano and his extermination team — garbed in white suits and latex gloves — moved through the downstairs, checking sofas, beds and drapes. This was actually the second treatment, and the team found some lingering bedbugs.

As they searched, Lozano stopped and pointed to the shoulder of Di Eduardo, who had accompanied the team.

“Look at that sucker!” Lozano said. A large bedbug had crawled up Di Eduardo’s suit, nearly to the neckline. Di Eduardo looked down, picked it up between thumb and forefinger and squeezed it, leaving a trail of blood on his latex gloves.

“You know, I’m most worried about taking them home to my wife,” he said. “She’d shoot me.”

Continue Reading More: Bedbug Surge In New Jersey Keeps Exterminators Busy

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.

Continue Reading More: BedBug Lawsuits Causes Concerns For Insurers

4/28/2011 Rising Temperatures & Summer Travel Will Worsen Bedbugs In Northeast: Entomologists and Pest Control Experts State

The Northeast’s bedbug problem is expected to worsen this summer as temperatures rise and vacationers increase traffic in hotels, entomologists and pest-control experts say.

Hotels and summer camps are among the businesses seeking information about policies and procedures for dealing with bedbugs from BedBug Central, a Lawrenceville-based website offering products and services aimed at eradicating the blood-sucking insects, said Jeffrey White, an entomologist with the site.

“They understand that it’s inevitable at this point,” White said. “There’s really no true prevention for bedbugs other than education.”

Bedbugs’ recent spread may be boosted this spring and summer as temperatures rise, potentially increasing challenges that have already been faced by North Jersey businesses in recent years – such as a YMCA branch in Hackensack and senior living facility in Paramus.

At 65 degrees, it takes three months for bedbugs to become adults, said Susan Jones, a professor of entomology at Ohio State University. At 86 degrees, it takes only three weeks for them to go from eggs to adults.

One pregnant female bedbug can produce up to 300 bugs in about six weeks, said John Kane, an entomologist and technical specialist with Parsippany-based Western Pest Services.

“We do get more (reports of bedbugs) during the summer,” though not a sharp spike, said Kane, who handles service calls in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. “I definitely expect more (reports) than last year.”

A more important factor in seasonal bedbug surges may not be temperature changes so much as the travel schedules of their hosts, Jones said.

“You see big spikes after vacation periods,” she said.

Statistics to verify reported increases of bedbug infestations are hard to come by. That’s because homeowners, landlords and businesses typically are not required to report infestations to local or state health officials. Hackensack, for example, typically receives reports of bedbugs only from residents whose landlords are slow to address the problem, health official John Christ said.

In Paramus, CareOne at the Cupola, a senior housing facility on Ridgewood Avenue, treated one resident’s room for bedbugs last fall.

While bedbugs were found only in one room, the center’s management implemented a plan to have 20 rooms per month inspected as a proactive measure, according to health records The Record obtained from the town.

CareOne’s management declined to comment, but spokesman Peter Ward said in an e-mailed statement: “Local health officials were notified and upon their review, confirmed this was an isolated incident and addressed by the center to their satisfaction.”

In the fall of 2009, the YMCA of Greater Bergen County in Hackensack faced a bedbug infestation involving eight of the 28 residential rooms the Main Street facility rents out. Some of the pests also were found in the Y’s lobby.

“As soon as we recognized we had it, and we knew it was becoming an epidemic in the Northeast, we reached out to our members and informed them of what was going on,” said Keith Zebroski, the Y’s senior program director.

The Y then embarked on a months-long treatment plan to eradicate the problem. Y officials hired an exterminator and replaced mattresses and lobby furniture. Zebroski said the cost, excluding new mattresses and furniture, was $11,568.

The Y is ready to face the problem this summer, should bedbugs appear again, he said.

“We’ve been through it,” he said. “We know how to handle it.”

Continue Reading More: Rising Temperatures Will Worsen Bedbugs In Northeast

4/7/2011 EPA Gives $550k Grants To Fight Bedbugs: 5 Grants To Be Given To State Organizations In Texas, Michigan, New Jersey, Maryland, & Missouri

Targeting social service agencies that serve low-income, minority and immigrant neighborhoods, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has awarded $550,000 in bed bug-control education and prevention grants, the agency announced Thursday.

According to a news release, the five grants will be used in communities where the plague of “bed bug pressures are significant but resources to address the problems are limited.”

Over the next 24 months state organizations from Texas, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, and New Jersey will facilitate programs aimed at helping prevent widespread bed bug infestations.

For example, the EPA website lists the Maryland Department of Health and Hygiene as receiving $142,440. The money will go to develop and provide training as well as technical and material support to residents, service providers and retail firms that combat bed bugs in the 12 poorest ZIP codes of Baltimore and as well as county health offices throughout Maryland.

The grant would include training for the migrant workers of Caroline County, who are extremely vulnerable to bed bugs, the EPA said. The educational outreach programs seek to reach groups that serve transitional housing managers, vendors of second hand goods, healthcare providers, and local pest product providers, the EPA said.

Also listed on EPA website is a grant for New Jersey’s Rutgers University of $99,688. Rutgers will lead a statewide bed bug educational outreach program for low-income communities. The effectiveness of anti-bed bug programs will be measured through monitoring of all apartments in those communities and documenting pesticide usage over one year.

Due to the influx of bed bugs around the United States last year, the EPA hosted a national bed bug summit in early February.

The grants are a step to further educate the public about bed bugs. Last summer in New York several high end hotels, clothing stores Abercrombie and Fitch, Hollister, Niketown, and Victoria’s Secret, as well as an AMC movie theater in Times Square shut down due to a serious invasion of the insects.

The goal is to seek new approaches in managing bed bug problems. EPA spokesman Dale Kemery said, “Lessons learned from the grants will be available for use by other communities.”

Bed bugs, according to the EPA, are brown insects about 1/4 to 3/8 of an inch long that feed on the blood of humans through biting. They are known to live up to a year without feeding.

Typical steps for ridding and preventing bed bug infestations include correctly identifying the bugs, and then physically removing the bugs through cleaning, applying appropriate pesticides, and reducing clutter.

Continue Reading More: EPA Gives $550k Grants To Fight Bedbugs

3/20/2011 Bedbug Education For NJ Residents: Seminars Prepare Residents For Summer Jump In Bedbug Infestations

Marc Stepper is an electrical subcode inspector who works in Morristown and lives in Old Bridge. He enters and examines a couple thousand homes each year, and lately he has been worrying about taking his work home with him.

“I’m certainly going to come into contact with bedbugs eventually,” he said.

“I don’t want to bring them home to the kids.”

Stepper was one of several dozen people who attended a bedbug seminar Wednesday at Morristown’s town hall. Stepper said he learned some tell-tale signs that can keep him clean, like checking for eggs or fecal matter, which is dried blood.

“I got an education,” Stepper said. “That’s the best weapon I can have.”

Information sessions like these are becoming more common throughout the state. Peter Di Eduardo, an account manager from Bell Environmental Services, the Parsippany-based pest control company that headlined Wednesday’s event, said he also has engagements in Atlantic City and Bridgewater, as well as throughout New York and Pennsylvania.

From Vineland to Clifton, several communities, counties and businesses are trying to prepare for what is expected to be a busy summer.

As the temperatures rise, so do reports of infestations, and experts say 2011 will be even worse than 2010.

“The graph shows an upward trend,” said Craig Hollingsworth, an entomologist at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. “It is just like a disease. More people are spreading them around, and they are infesting more places.”

That’s a scary thought for Mark Colicchio, a health officer in Plainfield, who has spent 20 years on the job and teaches a public health class at Montclair State University.

“There has been a significant increase in bedbug complaints,” Colicchio said. “I’m deeply grateful Morristown held this event.”

Colicchio said he would try to arrange a similar seminar for Union County.

The state Assembly passed a bill last May intended to help address the problem. The bill, which is stuck in the Senate, would allow $300 in fines to be levied on landlords for each infested apartment and $1,000 per infested common area if the landlord fails to act once an infestation has been reported. The bill would also require the Department of Health and Senior Services to create an informational pamphlet to educate renters about bedbugs.

“They are hitchhikers,” Di Eduardo said. “They eventually go to the next unit and the next unit and the next unit.”

Di Eduardo said he has seen bedbugs in homes, schools, hospitals, nursing homes and offices. Anywhere there is food, which means anywhere there are people. “This is very real,” Di Eduardo said. “Bedbugs are everywhere.”

Continue Reading More: Bedbug Education For NJ Residents