1/27/2012 NYC Ritz Carlton Crawling With Bedbugs

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Continue Reading More: NYC Ritz Carlton Crawling With Bedbugs

1/20/2012 Bedbugs Invade NYC Housing Court

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

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

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

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

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

Maybe these bedbugs are seeking revenge.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Continue Reading More: NYC “Bedbug Agency” Headquarters Invaded By Bedbugs

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Continue Reading More: NY Artist Works On Bedbug Street Art

9/13/2011 Avoid Bringing Bedbugs Home From School: 5 Tips To Prevent InfestationBed Bugs are on the rise in schools in New York City and towns nationwide. The Bed Bug experts at Bell Environmental Services offer five practical and important tips for students, teachers, and staff to avoid bringing bed bugs home from schools.

Pens? Check. Notebooks? Check. Lunch? Check. Bed Bugs? – Wait a Minute!

While they’re not on any school’s list of items to bring to class, it is inevitable that some students, teachers, and staff will unwittingly carry bed bugs into schools. Others will unfortunately take these hitchhiking insects home in their backpacks. Some bed bugs will even decide to make classrooms their new homes. As the bed bug epidemic worsens, these insects have spread to elementary, middle and high schools in towns nationwide. In New York City, bed bug incidents in public schools rose to 3,590 last year, more than triple the 2009-2010 school year.

As parents prepare their kids for the new school year, giving students the knowledge of how to prevent bed bugs coming home from school is just as important as getting them the right supplies.

“Vigilance is the best, ongoing defense against bed bugs in schools and at home,” said Glenn Waldorf, of Bell Environmental Services, a leading pest control company and bed bug specialist. “Bed bugs are great hitchhikers that crawl into backpacks, bags, and jackets to get to and from school. Once present, a pair of bed bugs can multiply into a large infestation in a short period of time.”

The entomologists at Bell Environmental Services offer these five tips to help students and teachers avoid bringing bed bugs home:

• At school, place backpacks and jackets inside large, resealable plastic bags, and don’t let them sit on the floor in a closet or in pile with other coats and bags.

• Upon returning home from school, empty backpacks completely outside the home, if possible, and inspect bags and items inside for bed bugs.
• At home, keep backpacks in plastic bags or closed storage bins. At minimum, do not leave backpacks in or near bedrooms.
• If bed bugs have been found at their school, have children disrobe immediately upon coming home, and place clothing in sealed plastic bags. Place clothing in a dryer (medium-high heat for 20 minutes) and throw out the plastic bags. Bed bugs can’t survive high heat.

• Engage the school administration. Ask them what precautionary and proactive measures they are taking to prevent the introduction and spread of bed bugs. Encourage them to educate students how to identify bed bug signs and use teaching tools such as “Roscoe and the Big Bed Bug Hunt,” a free coloring and activity book on bed bugs authored by Bell Environmental.

Continue Reading More: Avoid Bringing Bedbugs Home From School

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Continue Reading More: Did NYC Dept Of Education Cover Up Bedbugs

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Continue Reading More: Bedbugs Found In Philadelphia Police Station

7/11/2011 New York City Bedbug Complaints Rise Even As Violations Drop

The bedbug wave that caused widespread unease in New York homes, offices, movie theaters and retail stores may have been somewhat more hype than bite, according to data from city agencies.

While residential complaints through the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development rose in the last fiscal year, violations have decreased. There were 4,481 violations issued as a result of 13,140 complaints in 2011, compared with 4,808 violations and 12,768 complaints in 2010.

And though the city’s nonemergency hot line, 311, did report a record 34,044 bedbug-related calls for the fiscal year ended June 30, a 7% increase, as a proportion of overall traffic there were slightly fewer bedbug-related calls made in fiscal year 2011 than in 2010. Bedbug calls represent less than 1% of the total received by the hot line, which fields all types of inquiries.

Regardless, local pest-control companies say there is a boom in the business of bedbug-busting. They say the outbreaks last year in popular clothing stores such as the Epic Hollister in SoHo and the Victoria’s Secret on the East Side were just the start.

They say New Yorkers shouldn’t let down their guards during the winter months, either.

“Bedbugs are 12-month bugs,” said Missy Henrickson, vice president of public affairs for National Pest Management Association.

“It got so bad it showed up everywhere and it carried into the winter. We were getting more calls than ever in the winter,” said Jeff Eisenberg, president of Pest Away Exterminator Inc. and author of “The Bedbug Survival Guide.”

Mr. Eisenberg predicts that the bedbug problem will be worse than ever this year. The problem has spread beyond the city, too.

“The suburbs of New York have been decimated,” he said.

Barry Beck, chief operating officer of Assured Environments, said bedbugs calls to his business lagged in the early part of this year because of a cold winter and spring. The reproductive cycle of bedbugs is faster in warmer months.

“With the heat and humidity, things have been ramping up quickly,” said Mr. Beck, adding that 80-degree temperatures are “heaven” for the blood-suckers.

Bites can cause a rash and potentially lead to a secondary infection, but serious health risks are not known. A Department of Health and Mental Hygiene spokeswoman said that “though bacteria can be isolated from the bodies of bedbugs, there is no evidence that these bacteria or the illnesses they could cause can be transmitted to people from a bedbug.”

Continue Reading More: NYC Bedbug Complaints Rise