Bed Bug Blog

MORRISTOWN (WABC) -- A bed bug invasion had some New Jersey residents worrying they were going to be forced out of their homes. The bed bugs were found at 31 Early Street in Morristown in a building dedicated to seniors.

But as it turns out, only one resident may be forced to leave.

"To think that someone would threaten to shut down this building and put a group of seniors at risk, it's ludicrous," tenant Julia Kersey said.

She and several other tenants were hot over rumors the 100-unit senior citizens building was being evacuated because of bed bugs. The Morristown Housing Authority says that was never a plan.

"There is no truth to this story, and I'm very upset because...our residents are all gathered out here, and they're scared," Vera White said.

"We have one tenant in this building who has a serious infestation of bed bugs in her unit," Marion Salley said.

They blame the rumor on the tenant in 1H, Barbara White, whose apartment the Housing Authority says is the source of the bed bugs.

"We went to exterminate her unit yesterday, and she would not allow entry," Salley said.

Outgoing Morristown Mayor Donald Cresitello knows White and, this afternoon, took issue with the blame game.

"We have other people suffering in the building," he said. "I don't like the comments being made that this particular person may have carried them from another unit."

White says she has no bed bugs and refuses to let them spray her apartment because of her medical problems. But in the middle of agreeing to disagree on the cause, the solution may cost White her unit.

Salley says she can't abate the problem in the building and that the Housing Authority will be forced to pursue legal action.

Author: Toni Yates Eyewitness News Team

The state Assembly passed Thursday passed the "bed bug bill," a measure whose main objective is to get landlords to take care of bed-bug infestations, according to a report in the Press of Atlantic City.

The report said under the bill approved by a 74-3 vote in the Assembly, landlords of multiple-dwelling units must have bed-bug infestations removed as soon as they learn about them. Landlords who don't take appropriate actions would face fines of $300 for each infested bedroom and $1,000 for each infested common area.

Author: The Star Ledger/Paul Cox

COLUMBUS — Ohio wants the federal government to allow an industrial insecticide to be used in homes to fight bedbugs, tiny bloodsucking insects that continue to be a problem here and in other states.

The Ohio Department of Agriculture is seeking an emergency exemption that would allow the use of Propoxur, which is used in commercial buildings, on crops and in flea and tick collars for pets, said Matt Beal, the agency’s assistant chief.

“We are in dire straits, and we need help,” he said.

The request was filed Oct. 23 with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Propoxur, which can cause nausea and vomiting if swallowed, was removed from home use in the 1990s. Walmart Stores Inc., the world’s largest retailer, asked its suppliers in 2006 to phase out products made with Propoxur.

But Propoxur may be worth revisiting because bedbugs are becoming resistant to many products used today, said Richard Pollack, a public health entomologist at Harvard University.

“If used wisely and against the right kind of pest, then I think it will probably offer far more benefit than risk,” he said.

A message seeking comment was left Wednesday for the EPA in Washington, D.C.

Locally, Cole Manor’s 152 apartments, which are run by the Springfield Metropolitan Housing Authority, were treated for bedbugs in August.

Bedbugs are nocturnal insects about the size of an apple seed. Though the bugs are not known to carry any diseases, their bites leave behind itchy red bumps.

The creatures have become a growing problem in recent years, most notably in dormitories on college campuses, including Ohio State University and the University of Florida.

Health officials in Franklin County, which includes Columbus, say they have collected reports of hundreds of infestations in the past year.

About 70 percent of hotels in the county have had bedbug infestations, said Paul Wenning, special projects coordinator with the Franklin County Board of Health.

Bedbugs are generally controlled by washing sheets, thoroughly cleaning infested rooms and use a powerful vacuum to remove bed bugs from cracks and crevices. In some cases, exterminators use pesticides.

Author: Springfield News-Sun Associated Press

While grappling with MSNBC and CNN for viewers, Fox News has also been battling a smaller, more insidious enemy closer to home: bed bugs in its Midtown Manhattan newsroom. In an interview on Monday, Warren Vandeveer, senior vice president for operations and engineering at Fox News, said the cable channel had realized it had a problem a few weeks ago, when an employee “caught a bug and showed it to us.” An exterminator determined that the incursion was limited to a “very small area in the newsroom.” But the source of the bugs was not determined until the exterminator inspected the homes of about 20 employees. Mr. Vandeveer said the exterminator later described one employee’s home as having “the worst infestation he had seen in 25 years in the business.” After making large bags available for employees to stash their belongings, and replacing a number of fabric-covered desk chairs, Mr. Vandeveer said that the treatments had ended about a week ago, and that the problem had been contained. “It’s totally eradicated,” he said.

Author: JACQUES STEINBERG

A common bedbug is engorged with blood after feeding on a human arm.

NEW YORK - Legions of tiny bloodsucking bugs are biting their way through the Big Apple, making this the city that never sleeps ... tight.
Bedbugs are back, and they’re not just rearing their rust-colored heads in New York City. Experts say they’re spreading to other states and countries. Exterminators who handled one or two bedbug calls a year are now getting that many in a week, according to the National Pest Management Association.
“There’s an epidemic going on throughout the country, and New York seems to be the hotbed,” said Jeffrey Eisenberg, a pest control expert.
Bedbugs are turning up in hospitals, schools, movie theaters, health clubs. Recent reports put them in a New Jersey college dorm and a Los Angeles hotel — where one guest filed a $5 million lawsuit. Apartment tenants have taken landlords to court over infestations.
The current generation of exterminators has been caught unaware by these pests, which were all but forgotten for decades. They blame the comeback on several factors, primarily increased global travel and the banning of potent pesticides like DDT.
“We feel like we’re starting from scratch,” said Eisenberg, who returned this weekend from a conference where bedbugs were a top priority. “The only thing we know is that we don’t know anything.”
The tiny vermin avoid light and attack in the middle of the night. About the size of a flattened apple seed, they hide in cracks and crevices in furniture and walls.
They’re efficient and active travelers, often hitching rides on clothing and jumping from host to host when people brush up against each other on the subway, in elevators or on crowded streets.
And they invade even the cleanest apartments and swankiest neighborhoods.
“We’ve always had pests in New York City — we have rats, cockroaches, et cetera — but bedbugs are new,” said city Councilwoman Gail Brewer, who is calling for a bedbug task force. “We’re not doing a good job focusing on it.”
Related story
NBC: Bedbugs are biting back
Fighting an infestation is a costly, time-consuming process. Belongings must be removed from the home to be thoroughly washed or dry-cleaned, followed by meticulous vacuuming, before the exterminator can even begin work. It often takes several visits.
Banning reconditioned mattresses People who have bedbugs rarely see them. The only signs are pepper-like spots of their fecal matter, specks of dried blood on bed sheets and, of course, the bites. The scourge is nearly impossible to eradicate; the creatures can go a year without feeding, they reproduce rapidly and don’t die easily.
“Now it’s just us against these bugs,” said Sofia Capinha, a 20-year-old college junior whose New Jersey dorm room has been infested since September.
Between calls to campus officials and visits from an exterminator, she and her roommate have tried covering her mattress in a zippered plastic cover and greasing bedposts with Vaseline to keep the bugs from crawling up.
Nothing has worked. Two nights after they returned from holiday break, she was bitten again — on the face.
In New York City, Brewer announced new legislation Sunday that seeks to halt some common mattress industry practices that exacerbate the problem.
She wants a ban on reconditioning mattresses — essentially taking old ones, refurbishing them and selling them like new, which can spread the bugs into stores and homes. The legislation would also require separate transport of old and new mattresses. A mattress purchase often includes the removal of the old one, and several used and new mattresses mingling in a truck produce a bedbug free-for-all.

Author: New York City the hotbed of nationwide epidemic, experts say...
© 2009 The Associated Press.

CLEVELAND -- First, federal prosecutors say they found corrupt officials sucking money out of a Cleveland halfway house for inmates. Now residents at the house say they're under attack again, except that this time, it's bedbugs at the Cuyahoga Re-Entry Agency.

"I got attacked the first night," said resident Harry Story. "You're laying there and, all of a sudden, they're running across you and they start biting."

And he says he has proof: a bottle full of bedbugs.

"I caught them this morning on my pillow," Story said.

Cuyahoga Re-Entry Agency used to be known as Alternatives Agency. That's until its former director pleaded guilty to paying for Cuyahoga County Commissioner Jimmy Dimora and County Auditor Frank Russo to fly to Las Vegas, in return for additional funding.

Alternatives Agency also paid another figure in the ongoing corruption probe, J. Kevin Kelley, about $200,000 over six years to do little, if any, work.

Now, the bugs got so bad that residents have twice called for an ambulance.

"You're calling 9-1-1 for an ambulance?" a dispatcher said, on an Oct. 10 recording obtained by Channel 3 News.

"He's been bitten by bedbugs and he thinks they've laid eggs in his head," a woman from the halfway house replied.

The blood-sucking insects have cost taxpayers a bundle.

The agency has already spent $14,000 trying to eliminate the pesky critters, and it plans to spend another $50,000 on new metal beds to replace the old wood ones were the bugs live and breed.

"We've practically had a pesticide guy as part of our staff," said Cuyahoga Re-Entry Agency Executive Director Thomas Griveas.

Bedbugs can be found all over Northeast Ohio and the state. Nearly a hundred complaints this year, coming from places like the Comfort Inn in Cleveland and the Chesterfield Apartments downtown.

About 70 percent of the hotels in the Columbus area have dealt with bedbug infestations.

"It's happened more slowly here but we're starting to see it," said Cleveland Public Health Department Director Matt Carroll. He said the city expects complaints to triple, especially at hotels, apartments and college dorms.

Author: Tom Meyer
© 2009 WKYC-TV