10/13/2011 University Of Minnesota Sets Up Bedbug Resource Center

ST. PAUL — The University of Minnesota has set up a resource center where homeowners and businesses can learn about fighting bedbug infestations, which have become increasingly common over the past few years.

The university launched its bedbug initiative Tuesday that also includes plans to conduct seminars about the growing bedbug problem around the state.

Increased travel, changing insecticide use and a lack of public awareness has caused a resurgence of bedbug populations, according to entomologist Stephen Kells. The oval-shaped, flat, brown bugs are about the size of a wood tick and feed on the blood of people and some animals. Bedbug bites may cause some people break out in a rash, while others see few symptoms beyond a red spot.

By crawling into travelers’ suitcases and clothes, they can easily spread from an infested hotel room or residence. The bugs are difficult to detect because they hide in cracks and crevices, Kells said.

Experts warn that individuals who try to use insecticides to kill bedbugs could harm themselves or others, and they recommend seeking assistance from a professional pest control company.

The university’s resource center is funded with nearly $91,000 from the Environmental Protection Agency and the Minnesota Department of Agriculture.

Beat the Bug: http://www.bedbugs.umn.edu

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9/27/2011 Bedbug Summit Discusses Latest Trends & Weapons

Bed bugs have become an increasing problem at hotels across the country. This week, dozens of experts invaded Chicago to gather for a summit about how to deal with those pesky bugs. They have some innovative ways to get rid of them.

 They are adaptable and not all pesticides work on them. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cautions residents to get professional help for bed bugs. The agency found over 100 people got sick and one woman died after using bed bugs pesticides.

Experts in town this week are swapping information about the latest techniques to keep bed bugs at bay.

The little guys are the stuff of nightmares. Bed bugs can range from the size of a sesame seed to the size of an apple seed. Their food source is you — so what better place to get to you than those overnight hours when we’re sleeping? It’s a veritable buffet for the bugs. As disturbing as that notion may be, they are not life threatening.

“There is awareness of this pest, but people are freaked out and the wrong messages are sticking,” said bed bug central/entomologist Allison Taisey.

Pest control specialists will swarm Rosemont for the next two days for the Bed Bug University North American Summit.

To start, there are special detections devices. There is a kind of coaster for your bed leg: the bugs can crawl in but can’t crawl out. There is an active monitor, which emits heat and CO2 like a person, irresistible to bed bugs.

Mattress and bed spring covers will allow you to see the bugs, as there are no nooks and crannies to hide.

To control the insects:

• Heat has proven effective if the item or area is heated to 120 degrees for an hour.
• There are portable heaters for rooms.
• And there is a device to kill any bed bugs you make have picked up on your journey.

Experts say the key to detecting and controlling the bugs is getting professional help.

“They’re really hard to find for one thing, and the products we have available to us&it takes a trained professional to use them,” said Taisey.

The Safer Pest Control Project has been monitoring pest activity in the Chicago area for 17 years. The project reports bed bugs are particularly a problem in multiple-dwelling structures — public and private.

The project’s executive director says, while the beds bug may not lead to the health problems of other pests, controlling these particular bugs can be more expensive.

“bed bugs, they don’t discern between any economics, cleanliness. It’s like, you are the food, so you are like the most delicious thing they’ve ever met. They need you to survive,” said Safer Pest Control’s Rachel Lerner Rosenberg.

The bugs can be hard to see. The marks can be hard to see. And some people don’t react to bed bugs — so some people may not know they have been bitten.

Some good things to know: they don’t fly, they don’t jump and they are not known to carry disease.

Continue Reading More/Watching Video: Bedbug Summit Discusses Latest Trends & Weapons

8/30/2011 Are We In A Bedbug Cycle Of Growth? 

“Good night, sleep tight. Don’t let the bed bugs bite.” Largely eradicated by the early 1940s, bed bugs were almost unheard of until recently. As infestations continue to rise, some exterminators say avoiding bed bugs is becoming more difficult for area residents.

Fogle’s Pest Control owner Jimmie Fogle said he has seen a “moderate increase” in the number of cases over the last several months.

“They are coming back, but they are not as bad as 30-40 years ago,” Fogle said. “DDT was used then to kill them before it was banned by the government.

“They are attracted to cotton and wool. We find them mostly in bedrooms and the mattresses.”

The exact cause of bed bug resurgence remains unclear, although many exterminators feel increased travel is a key factor. According to the recently released NPMA/University of Kentucky 2011 “Bugs Without Borders” survey, 99 percent of pest control specialists have seen bed bug infestations in the past year.

Gressette Pest Management has seen a 30-40 percent increase in the number of bed bug calls this year over 2010. Company representative Gene Kizer says the insects have no mode of transportation except humans.

“I have my own theory, too,” Kizer said. “We see cycles of insects come and go and we are in a cycle of bed bug growth now. That happens with all insects.”

Orkin Pest Control entomologist Stoney Bachman said the number of bed bug cases has remained steady over the last three years.

“I’d say prior to that, they were unheard of in this area,” Bachman said. “Only recently have they become a household issue. Infestations can also spread in apartments because they can travel through walls.

“Five-star hotels in New York are having bed bug problems. More are actually seen in high-end homes because those individuals often travel more.”

The blood-feeding insects are reddish-brown in color, flat and about a quarter-inch long. Signs of activity include sores on the body where bites have occurred.

Gressette pest control technician L.W. Strock III said many people don’t attribute the bites to bed bugs unless it continues to happen.

“You will see blood stains on the bed sheets,” Strock said. “Having a lot of clutter in the room also gives them ample places to hide, which requires more invasive methods of treatment.

“Stores sell pesticides labeled for bed bugs and they can be somewhat effective as long as you follow the label to its entirety. But it will take you even longer to rid the problem using that compared to what is available to exterminators.”

Although some online information sites suggest there are simple precautions travelers can take to reduce the chance of transporting bed bugs, Kizer said there is little that can be done to prevent them. The eggs are smaller than a pinhead and can be transported on shoes.

Immature or even adult bugs can often stow away in luggage without detection.

“If people are suspicious they have bed bugs, they need to call an exterminator to come out and assess the situation,” Kizer said. “They are easy to identify and are not mistaken for any other insect.”

8/22/2011 Austin Texas Spends Big To Get Rid Of Bedbugs: Housing Authority Has Spent Over $40k Already

The Housing Authority of the City of Austin has spent nearly $40,000 over the past year fighting bedbugs in 15 of its 19 facilities.

Since September 2010, the authority has been treating the insects, whose bites leave itchy red welts on the skin. Over the past year, 166 of the housing authority’s 1,928 units have been treated for bedbugs, said Sylvia Blanco , vice president of housing and community development for the agency.

“There are peaks and valleys,” Blanco said. “It also depends on the season, but right now we’re having a spike because people are trying to get out of the heat. They’re staying indoors, and sometimes they’re bringing the bugs with them.”

Bedbug infestations in recent years have increased dramatically all over the country. The bugs have wreaked havoc in all kinds of buildings: luxury hotels, department stores and private homes, to name a few. Locally, they’ve hit student apartments around the University of Texas and the Austin State Supported Living Center, which houses people with intellectual disabilities. Austin Travis Integral Care has spent $14,000 over the past year battling the bugs in seven of its 46 properties for people with mental illness.

The Austin housing authority contracts with Oliver Termite and Pest Control for monthly treatments for roaches, ants and other insects at all its housing facilities, Blanco said. The company sprays for bedbugs after receiving a complaint from residents. Each apartment generally gets one treatment, which could include two or three visits from the exterminator, Blanco said.

“Maybe on occasion it could take a second treatment,” she said. “But typically it’s pretty effective in the first treatment.”

If the bugs come back after the warranty period, usually 30 days after the last treatment, residents are required to pay for additional service, Blanco said. That costs residents between $175 and $265 . The pest control company also speaks with residents extensively on ways to avoid a reinfestation, such as inspecting all furniture before bringing it into the apartment.

The housing authority does not deny treatment to anyone and tries to be flexible when charging residents, all of whom are low-income, Blanco said. Many people pay off the bill through a payment plan.

Bedbugs are notoriously hard to get rid of because they are nocturnal and elusive and can go more than a year without eating. They hide in crevices, in furniture, even in books. In apartment complexes, they can easily travel from unit to unit, said Missy Henriksen, spokeswoman for the National Pest Management Association in Virginia.

“They will crawl through the baseboards, cracks in the walls and the electrical outlets,” she said.

Even the most extensive treatments can be ineffective. The Fort Worth Housing Authority spent hundreds of thousands of dollars last year battling bedbugs in one apartment complex — even paying to replace carpets and treat residents’ belongings — but still had to permanently shutter the building when the bugs refused to surrender. More than 200 residents had to move.

Simmie Burke, 68 , said he had bedbugs about a year ago in his third-floor home at Austin’s Lakeside Apartments, a Trinity Street complex owned by the housing authority. The pest control company sprayed, he said, which slowed the insects down. But when the insects returned a few weeks later, Burke decided to battle the bugs on his own, treating the apartment and all of his belongings with pesticide .

“A lot of people have them, but they’re ashamed,” Burke said. “They shouldn’t be. It’s not about hygiene. They’re all over the place.”

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8/4/2011 Meet The Congressman Who Doubles As A BedBug Expert: Representative Robert Dold Ran A Family Extermination Business & Will Speak At Second Annual BedBug Conference This Fall

Things are about to get extra creepy and crawly for Rep. Robert Dold (R-Ill.) — the lawmaker’s office confirms he’ll be speaking at the second annual North American Bed Bug Summit in Chicago. 

According to a press release, the three-day summit in September will “provide an educational blue-print for major industries affected in the battle against bed bugs.” Sounds like hair-raising stuff. 

A spokeswoman for Dold told ITK, “His background as a small-business owner is running Rose Pest Solutions in Illinois. Given his expertise in this area, he will be addressing the convention.”

A statement on the bed bug convention’s website says, “Bob’s roots in pest management will provide attendee’s [sic] with a perspective that few other legislators can bring and his insights should be a highlight of this year’s summit.”

ITK suddenly feels all itchy …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nutmeg State Plagued

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

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

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

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

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

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

What’s the difference?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Covering Bugs In The Covers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bedbugs have made hoteliers very anxious.

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

He added, “There’s hysteria, but it’s justified. People’s lives are turned upside down by this.”
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7/13/2011 Detroit Is Nations Third Most Bedbug Infested City: Problem Is Here To Stay

Detroit is the nation’s third most bed bug-infested city. But the reality is it doesn’t matter where you go, cities across the U.S. are dealing with bed bugs.Pest control companies say bed bugs are a growing problem and, as of right now, they are here to stay. And while they might not carry disease, they do carry a stigma but, even that is changing.Bed bugs don’t care how clean a home is, how much it costs or even how much you paid for a hotel room.”A place to live, something to eat and perhaps a little company,” said Mark Sheperdigian, that’s all a bed bug needs to survive in your home.Sheperdigian, an entomologist with Rose Pest Solutions said while getting bed bugs is easy, getting rid of them is tougher. After all, a single female can lay hundreds of barely-visible eggs a month.Part of the problem they are tough to battle is the products used to eradicate them decades ago are no longer allowed to be used.”The products we have today, the bed bugs show a great resistance to which means it doesn’t work as well, doesn’t kill them as quickly, if it kills them at all,” Sheperdigian said.Sheperdigian said not only are the chemicals different, people are different now too. People travel more and we aren’t as educated about bed bugs prevention.”Clearly the bed bugs have changed from what they were before and they have continued to change and it’s our job to get in front of them,” Sheperdigian said.In fact, Sheperdigian said since 2002 their business has nearly doubled every year and it’s showing now sign of slowing down.”So many of the conferences are dominated by bed bugs or purely about bed bugs that it’s kind of taken over. The bed bugs don’t show any signs of slowing up. We don’t have anything to stop them dead in their tracks,” Sheperdigian said.

Continue Reading/Watching Video: Detroit Is Nations Third Most Bedbug Infested City

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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5/17/2011 Bedbugs May Cause Anxiety Paranoia & Mood Disorders: New York Langone Medical Center Doctor Evan Rieder Tells MedPage Today

The media frenzy surrounding reports of bedbug infestations in New York may increase acute anxiety and mood disorders.

Although the numbers of cases are few — just 10 in the study reported here — Evan Rieder, MD, of Langone Medical Center, and colleagues are urging colleagues to be aware of the risk associated with the current bedbug outbreak.

“They’ve occurred in patients with a history of psychiatric illness and without,” Rieder told MedPage Today during an interview at his poster at the American Psychiatric Association meeting here.

Among the 10 patients diagnoses included anxiety, depression, and relapse of controlled bipolar disorder. Others were diagnosed with monosymptomatic delusional disorder — imagining that one is crawling with pests, even though no infestation exists.

“If you’re always struggling with seeing the world as an unsafe place, its easy [for something like this] to bolster your delusions,” said Kenneth Silk, MD, of the University of Michigan, chair of APA’s scientific program committee, who was not involved with the study.

Silk relayed the example of working in an emergency department in Michigan the morning after September 11 and seeing a series of bipolar disorder patients — a greater number than usual, he said — with exacerbations of mania: “We felt the event definitely had something to do with the exacerbations of illness.”

As the prevalence of bedbug infestation has risen considerably in New York City and globally in recent years, so has worry about the insects, Rieder said.

Some savvy pest control companies have coined the term “bedbug psychosis” to describe the paranoid feelings that often accompanying a confirmed infestation.

Rieder and colleagues presented detailed review of six of the 10 cases, who ranged in age from 21 to 75. Two of the patients — 21- and 23-year-old women — who relapsed after their bedbug ordeal had controlled bipolar disorder, while a 75-year-old woman had a schizophrenia.

“Any doctor seeing patients [with bedbug infestation and preexisting psychoses] should be on alert,” Rieder told MedPage Today. “These people can decompensate even if they’ve been medically stable for a significant period of time.”

Two others who developed some form of psychiatric illness only had a history of depression or anxiety — including a 39-year-old male patient who developed delusional disorder — and one, a 22-year-old woman, had no prior medical or psychiatric history.

Most of the conditions resulted from increasing anxiety and depression, tied to various factors including greater social isolation and financial distress due to the expense of fumigation, the researchers said.

Rieder and colleagues also conducted a review of the literature and found that bedbug-related psychiatric issues have not been addressed. Thus, more research is needed into the mechanisms underpinning the association, they said.

Rieder speculated that bedbugs create a unique problem compared with other pests such as cockroaches and mice because their effects are felt a bit more personally, as the latter don’t have such a close, physical effect on humans.

Bedbugs are also much harder to detect and exterminate, which could reduce a patient’s ability to feel confident about being secure in their space, Rieder said.

Similarly, he said, the bed is associated with comfort and protection, and not knowing whether the pests are there can undermine that.

“There’s something about the sanctity of the bedroom and the fact that bedbugs are attracted to warmth and blood that violates something that’s really personal,” Rieder said. “Mice and rats aren’t taking a blood meal from human beings.”

Silk agreed, noting that does seem to be a personal intrusion compared with other pests — “especially if it involves a place that you retreat to for comfort.”

It’s also unclear why certain patients develop psychotic symptoms in response to real or threatened infestations, while others do not — an area that also needs further review, the researchers said.

They concluded that physicians who diagnose bedbug infestation or those who treat patients already dealing with an infestation should screen those patients for new psychiatric symptoms.

Continue Reading More: Bedbugs May Cause Anxiety Paranoia & Mood Disorders

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