Bed Bug Blog

SECAUCUS - Nicole Gallo sought treatment at Straight & Narrow because of the program's reputation for helping patients overcome addiction.
But 15 days into her 28-day stay, she's checking out because of a bed bug infestation.
"I have a 15-month-old," Gallo said while standing outside the facility last week. "My sobriety is important to me, but my health is more."
A resident of the program, which rents space at Hudson County's Meadowview Psychiatric Hospital, called The Jersey Journal to report the bed bug infestation.
When a reporter and photographer visited Building 7, where the program is housed, they were not allowed in or permitted to speak with the resident.
Reached by phone, David Mactas, executive director of Straight & Narrow, said the building occasionally gets bed bugs, but an exterminator has a standing contract to visit the site as soon as a problem is reported.
"I'm not sure we'll ever have a month where we don't see a bed bug, we're doing the best we can. We always feel bad," Mactas said. "If we get a report, the exterminator is out right away."
Hudson County Spokesman James Kennelly said the county Department of Health and Human Services was unaware but will now investigate.
Gallo, of Hunterdon County, said exterminators have been out to the building and furniture has been replaced, but there is still a problem. She will likely throw away the clothing and belongings that she had there.

Author: MELISSA HAYES

Hudson County Sheriff's officers who showed up at a Jersey City home this morning looking for a weapon in connection with a domestic violence incident were greeted by an infestation of bed bugs, prompting a the fire department to set up a decontamination tent in the street.
Ten residents of the building - at Wilkinson and Ocean avenues - as well as five sheriff's officers were quarantined in the two-and-a-half story building while fire officials brought people out to scrub them down in a special shower set up at the scene.
Two men were taken out of the building in handcuffs shortly before noon, even as officers dressed in full hazmat gear with oxygen masks went into the home.
Jersey City Fire Director Armando Roman said sheriff's officers were immediately bitten by the bugs when they entered the home this morning; officers also found drug paraphernailia, he said.


Author: Jason Fink

The tenants at Grandview Terrace in Jersey City have done everything they can think of to deal with bedbugs that began infesting the building three years ago.
Kevin Geraghty steam-cleans and sprays pesticide constantly, encased his mattress in plastic to suffocate the critters, and keeps his lights on as much as possible.
Robert High pulls the covers over his head to keep from getting bites at night, and his caretaker, Debra Armstrong, will only sit on a metal folding chair when she comes over.
"No matter what I did they weren't going away," said William Dorrity, who finally hired an exterminator. "I'd sweep and mop. All the bedding I'd throw into hot water. I did that night and day, night and day. (Finally) I figured I had to bite the bullet."
The tenants of the seniors building at 3060 Kennedy Blvd. - where there have been nearly 50 cases of bedbugs in the 240-unit building over the past three years - are not alone. Over the past three years, bedbugs have been turning up across the country at a shocking rate.
"There's a very severe outbreak in the United States," said James Lashomb, a professor of entomology at Rutgers University.
Bedbugs used to be common in the United States, but the use of DDT and other chemicals nearly eliminated them in the U.S. by the 1960s, said Lashomb. But in the 1970s DDT was banned, and over the past decade, several other anti-bedbug chemicals have been too. And that, along with increased travel to Asia and Eastern Europe where the critters are common, has led to a "hundredfold" increase over in the last decade.
The New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services doesn't keep statistics on bedbugs, said spokeswoman Patricia Cabrera, but the department has seen a "significant increase" in complaints over the past few years. Jersey City spokeswoman Jennifer Morrill says her municipality has seen a "sharp increase" as well.
Carlos M. Hernandez Sr., who has owned Pest-A-Side Exterminating Company in Bridgeton for 25 years, said he began getting calls on the bugs about five years ago. "They used to be sporadic," he said. "Now I'm getting calls several times a month."
Hernandez, who has accounts across the state, including several in Hudson County, said bedbug extermination accounts for 10 percent of his business.
The 1,400-unit Hoboken Housing Authority has treated at least eight units for the bugs since November, said its deputy director, Carmelo Garcia.
The bugs have also turned up at the West New York Housing Authority, Atlantic City hotels, college dorms, apartment buildings, nursing homes, schools and private homes across the state.
They're more difficult to get rid of than other insects, they can hide out in the walls until conditions are right to come out, said Lashomb.
"I'd rather kill roaches and fleas and ticks than have to kill bedbugs," agreed Hernandez. "They are the hardest enemy I have ever come across."
Geraghty, the Grandview Terrace resident, said the bugs have gotten so bad that his daughter once counted 26 bites at one time.
"I'm always looking on the couch, looking on the walls to see if they're anywhere," he said. "But it's gotten to the point where you just have to laugh at it."

Author: Amy Sara Clark

A Jersey City public school sprayed for bedbugs yesterday after discovering a bedbug on a student last week, a school official confirmed today..
A teacher at School 14, the Ollie Culbreth Jr. School, found an insect on a preschool student, and the school nurse confirmed that it was a bedbug, said Paula Christen, a spokeswoman for the Jersey City Public Schools.
No other bed bugs have been seen at the school, but officials decided to spray the building's first floor, the only floor the child was on, as a precaution, Christen said.
Asked whether other schools have sprayed for bedbugs, Christen said "not to my knowledge at this point."
She said school officials haven't been warned to be on the lookout for the bugs, but that she wouldn't be surprised if they were, since "they're rampant all over the place."

Author: Amy Sara Clark

You check into a hotel for a good night’s sleep, never suspecting that you might become room service dinner for a crawly critter, an insect waiting to drink your blood.
Nancy Duke: I had welts and they were all over my legs, my arms.
That’s what happened to two women just months ago, in decent American hotels: They were the smorgasboard for bed bugs.

Author: Dennis Murphy

ARLINGTON, Va. -- "Don't let the bedbugs bite."
Doesn't seem so bad in a cheerful bedtime rhyme, but it's becoming a really big problem now that the nasty critters are invading hospitals, college dorms and even swanky hotels.
With the most effective pesticides banned, the government is trying to figure out how to respond to the biggest bedbug outbreak since World War II.
Bedbugs live in the crevices and folds of mattresses, sofas and sheets. Then, most often before dawn, they emerge to feed on human blood.
Faced with rising numbers of complaints to city information lines and increasingly frustrated landlords, hotel chains and housing authorities, the Environmental Protection Agency hosted its first-ever bedbug summit Tuesday.
Organized by one of the agency's advisory committees, the two-day conference drew about 300 participants to a hotel in Arlington, just across the Potomac River from Washington. An Internet site notes that the hotel in question has had no reports of bedbugs.
One of the problems with controlling the reddish-brown insects, according to researchers and the pest control industry, is that there are few chemicals on the market approved for use on mattresses and other household items that are effective at controlling bedbug infestations.
Unlike roaches and ants, bedbugs are blood feeders and can't be lured by bait. It's also difficult for pesticides to reach them in every crack and crevice they hide out in.
"It is a question of reaching them, finding them," said Harold Harlan, an entomologist who has been raising bedbugs for 36 years, feeding them with his own blood. He has the bites to prove it.
Out of concern for the environment and the effects on public health, the EPA has banned many of the chemicals that were most effective in eradicating the bugs in the U.S. At the same time, the appleseed-sized critters have developed a pesticide resistance because those chemicals are still in use in other countries.
Increasing international travel has also helped them to hitchhike into the U.S.
"One of our roles would be to learn of new products or safer products. ... What we are concerned about is that if people take things into their own hands and start using pesticides on their mattresses that aren't really registered for that, that's a problem," said Lois Rossi, director of the registration division in the EPA's Office of Pesticide Programs.
The EPA is not alone in trying to deal with the problem. An aide to Rep. G.K. Butterfield, D-N.C., says the congressman plans to reintroduce legislation next week to expand grant programs to help public housing authorities cope with infestations.
The bill will be called the "Don't Let the Bedbugs Bite Act."
"It was clear something needed to be done," said Saul Hernandez, Butterfield's legislative assistant.
Bedbugs are not known to transmit any diseases. But their bites can cause infections and allergic reactions in some people. The insects release an anticoagulant to get blood flowing, and they also excrete a numbing agent so their bites don't often wake their victims.
Those often hardest hit are the urban poor, who cannot afford to throw out all their belongings or take other drastic measures. Extermination can cost between $400 and $900.
So bedbug problems increase, said Dini Miller, an entomologist and bedbug expert at Virginia Tech, who until 2001 saw bedbugs only on microscope slides dating from the 1950s. Now she gets calls and e-mails several times a day from people at their wits' end.
"I can't tell you how many people have spent the night in their bathtubs because they are so freaked out by bedbugs," Miller said. "I get these people over the phone that have lost their marbles."
Because the registration of new pesticides takes so long, one thing the EPA could do is to approve some pesticides for emergency use, Miller said.
Another tactic would be to screen pesticides allowed for use by farmers to see if they are safe in household settings.
Representatives of the pest control industry will be pushing for federal funding for research into alternative solutions, such as heating, freezing or steaming the bugs out of bedrooms.
"We need to have better tools," said Greg Baumann, a senior scientist at the National Pest Management Association. "We need EPA to consider all the options for us."

Author: Pzicari

Ella Reed walks through her Newark apartment with an oxygen tank that helps fill her lungs damaged by chronic emphysema, then slowly lifts her twin-sized mattress to show where the bedbugs live.
Exterminators have been to Reed’s apartment, and although she lives in low-income housing, she has bought two new mattresses with her own money.
But the bugs, she said, keep coming back.
"I live on a fixed income," Reed, 60, said through short breaths, "I can’t afford another mattress."
Reed and dozens of other residents say the bug infestation is part of a pattern of neglect at New Community Corp., one of the city’s largest providers of housing for the elderly and disabled. Since July, residents have gathered at Newark City Council meetings to protest the infestation of bedbugs and mice, poor maintenance and shoddy treatment they say they receive from management.
New Community’s staff admit to a myriad of problems, including bedbugs, equipment failure and issues with staff members. But with limited resources, the staff of the $20 million not-for-profit agency said they’re doing the best they can.
"New Community is really committed to trying to do the best job they can," NCC special projects coordinator Richard Cammarieri said during a recent city council hearing. "There are flaws we need to correct."
The unhappy residents are the latest problem for New Community, which has long been under mounting financial strain — from cuts in government funding to delays in Medicaid reimbursement to its own management problems.
The community development corporation — one of the largest such entities in the country, which won national acclaim for its involvement in the state’s largest city — continues to spend more than it brings in through government grants and contributions. It has millions on the books in outstanding loans that have left it cash-strapped, according to its most current federal tax returns.
Community development entities like New Community are essentially neighborhood-based nonprofit groups, typically created to provide affordable housing or develop local businesses with the assistance of federal grants or private donations. New Community, though, has a far larger footprint, with 1,800 housing units in Newark, Orange and Jersey City.
Despite its problems, most say New Community is vital to Newark, providing services the city cannot, including medical services, job training and literacy programs.
Still, residents who live in the two high-rise buildings on South Orange Avenue for the elderly and disabled in Newark said the agency’s response is inadequate, that their living conditions have deteriorated and their grievances have been largely ignored.
"The elevators are broken almost every day. There’s bedbugs, rodents, we can’t get stuff fixed," said Dyran Thomas, 56, who has lived in a one-bedroom apartment at 140 South Orange Ave. for the past four years. "It’s constantly one thing after another."
BEDBUGS AND RODENTS
The bedbugs top their list of complaints. The Star-Ledger was invited by tenants to the building at 140 South Orange last week and saw several mattresses that appeared to be infested with bedbugs and roaches and holes where rodents had apparently eaten through the walls. Residents showed arms and feet peppered with small red bruises they said had resulted from bedbugs.
New Community spokeswoman Angela Stewart said in an e-mailed statement that management, including the agency’s founder, Monsignor William Linder, is actively pursuing resident grievances.
"It is the goal of New Community to work cooperatively with its residents," Stewart said. "Monsignor Linder holds monthly meetings with the tenant leadership of our residential properties."
Linder declined to comment for this story, directing Stewart to speak for NCC.
Central Ward Councilman Charlie Bell, who called special council hearings after hearing complaints from residents, said New Community has been making improvements, albeit slowly.
"I feel personally that they could do much better," Bell said.
New Community Corp, was the first community development group to provide affordable housing for Newark residents following the 1967 riots. Since 1968, it has grown into the largest development corporation in the city and provides more affordable housing than any agency outside of the Newark Housing Authority.
The two buildings on South Orange Avenue are among six New Community buildings dedicated to the elderly and disabled. The group’s mission is, "To help residents of inner cities improve the quality of their lives to reflect individual God-given dignity and personal achievement."
After residents complained that the agency’s mission isn’t being met, Bell held two days of special council hearings in September for tenants, New Community management and city inspectors.
TENANT-MANAGEMENT STRIFE
Transcripts provided this week to The Star-Ledger reveal deep divides between residents and New Community leaders, with speakers on both sides engaging in acrimonious debate. The dominant complaint in the hearings was the infestation of bedbugs, but talks turned to accusations of mistreatment by New Community managers.
Residents accused one manager of intimidation and harassment calling tenants "ignorant," "illiterate," and "troublemakers."
The manager, Emuobosan Newkirk, responded at the hearing by saying "that’s not the true story," and accused the residents of "cussing and bumping on my door and saying all kinds of stuff."
Other residents say tenants’ complaints are exaggerated.
"She’s the best manager we’ve ever had," said Larry Coley, 77, president of the tenants association at 140 South Orange. "I don’t know why they’re saying all this."
Bell said New Community has told him that the concerns of residents are legitimate, and the agency will provide sensitivity training for managers.
INSPECTIONS IMPASSE
On the second day of council testimony, a spokesman for the Department of Neighborhood and Recreational Services said city inspectors had been barred from entering at least one of the New Community buildings when following up on resident complaints.
"Lately, our inspectors have been turned away either by security or by management, or they’re getting the runaround to some degree," said Thomas McDonald, spokesman for the department, which is in charge of inspections and code enforcement.
"I don’t want to get messages from our inspectors saying, ‘They won’t let us in,’ because that’s not acceptable to the city, and it appears that you’re hiding something by not letting us on your property."
The building manager at 180 South Orange Ave. said no one told her the inspectors were turned away. She said it would not happen again. "I will assure that you will have access," said Fonda Porter.
Before September’s hearings, 180 South Orange Ave. passed an inspection by the New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency, of which Linder is a board member.
Throughout the hearings, residents said the most important problem is poor maintenance, specifically the infestation of bedbugs.
City health officials said bedbugs must be treated holistically and exterminating in one apartment does little good if the bugs move to multiple apartments. During the hearings it was established that only certain clusters of apartments were being treated on a case-by-case basis.
According to Bell, the problem also lies with residents.
"Some people will deny that they have a bedbug problem," Bell said this week, adding that others are reluctant to admit exterminators into their apartments.
Bell said all the residents should be temporarily relocated in order to fully eradicate the bugs and their eggs. "It’s just having the will and the financial wherewithal to do the job."
Stewart, of New Community, says management is spending $200,000 on bedbug extermination — up from $152,000 last year — and that they are not alone in battling the pestilence.
"The problem of bedbugs is by no means unique to New Community and has been a problem in other apartment complexes within the city of Newark," Stewart said. "It is also a national issue that has impacted facilities ranging from hotels to college dormitories and is not easily eradicated."
OTHER MAINTENANCE ISSUES
While bedbugs top the list of many residents’ complaints, some say the infestation is part of a lax approach to resident concerns.
Vincent Heyward, 53, and his wife have lived at New Community for two years. He said a bullet hole in his bedroom window has not been fixed since he moved in. Two months ago, Heyward’s kitchen faucet fell off the sink. Despite numerous requests, no one has come to repair it, Heyward said.
Thomas said that last week paramedics were called to attend to a resident on the 15th floor of 140 South Orange but became stuck in a faulty elevator and had to be rescued by the fire department.
"I was waiting for the elevator on my floor and they said we couldn’t get on because they had to get the EMTs out of the elevator that got stuck."
The New Community spokeswoman did not deny the incident occurred and said they have intermittent problems with their elevators.
"New Community recognizes the importance of elevator service to our residents," Stewart wrote in her e-mail. "Commons Senior, or 140 South Orange Avenue, has two elevators and it is a rare occasion when at least one of the elevators is not functioning."
Bell said part of the agency’s problem is its lack of resources. Financially, "they’re in serious trouble," he said.
The conundrum for city leaders and residents is that New Community is one of the only organizations that is still dedicated to providing housing, medical care and job opportunities for Newark’s poorest residents.
"Father Linder is one of the last hopes in the city of Newark for poor people and housing for poor people," Bell said this week. Citing a new direction by the Newark Housing Authority to provide more mixed-income housing, Bell said, "The government is getting out of the business of providing housing for poor people."


Author: David Giambusso/ The Star-Ledger

What do Bed Bugs look like? Adults are small, brownish insects, just under a 1/4” long and are relatively flat. They are nearly as wide as they are long, and oval in shape. Immature bed bugs (nymphs) resemble the adults, but are much smaller and lighter in color. Newly hatched nymphs are translucent and are no bigger than a pinhead (1 mm). After feeding on a blood meal the immature bed bugs may appear bright red in color. Bed bugs lack wings and therefore they do not fly, but they are capable of moving swiftly on both horizontal and vertical surfaces. The eggs are very small (approximately 1mm), whitish, and very difficult to see on most surfaces without magnification (individual eggs are about the size of a dust speck).



Author: Richard Cooper

Detroit -- It started in February when Debra Miller, who works as a caregiver, noticed dozens of red welts on the body of a man she cares for in the Griswold Senior Apartments complex.
"We didn't understand what was going on," Miller said. "At first we thought it was the soap. Then we thought it was the fabric softener. Finally, I held up a magnifying glass and saw that something was digging into his skin."
It was bedbugs. And the man's apartment was infested with them The minuscule blood suckers -- once essentially eradicated in the United States -- have made an explosive comeback. Evidence of their return first showed up in coastal cities of New York and Los Angeles more than a decade ago and, since then, they have spread throughout the nation. Living in walls and mattresses, they can go a year without a blood meal. They come out at night, feasting on blood and leaving ugly welts.
The good news is they don't carry diseases, but they're resistant to modern pesticides and are adept hitchhikers, stowing away in suitcases, pant seams or inside the keys of laptop computers.
State health officials put together a task force this year because of the growing number of complaints.
"It's the biggest can of worms I've ever set my foot into," said Erik Foster, medical entomologist with the Michigan Department of Community Health. "Education is a huge issue. A lot of people still don't know they're out there and how they're transmitted. By the time they know they have bedbugs, they've got a pretty healthy infestation."
The first guide for residents, apartment managers and health officials on how to identify and treat the problem is expected to be issued in about a month. Foster expects it to be around 70 pages thick.
"The message we're trying to share is it's not a pest anyone should feel embarrassed or any shame about," said Missy Henriksen, vice president of public affairs for the National Pest Management Association. "If people would immediately bring in a trained and licensed professional at the first sign of the infestation, it would really help eradicate the problem."
No community is immune
Miller, who lives in the Griswold apartments, has been battling the pests, the apartment management company and sometimes even other residents for months. She's not alone.
The bugs are now just about everywhere, said Mark "Shep" Sheperdigian, an entomologist with the extermination company Rose Pest Solutions in Troy. Back in 2002, the company may have received three or four calls, Sheperdigian said. Now, it's in the hundreds. And the numbers continue to grow.
"It's not just the big communities," Sheperdigian said. "Smaller communities as well are starting to feel the pinch. There's no real explanation why they're spreading so rapidly."
Increased international travel and the 1972 ban of DDT are considered the two main reasons for the resurgence of the bedbugs, Henriksen said.
"We are hearing of significant bedbug infestation in every state. It's become a prominent global issue as well," she said.
The infestation has led to some creative detection and eradication efforts. High-end New York hotels have brought in trained bedbug-sniffing dogs and their handlers to identify infected rooms.
Heating method works best
Last month, the Ohio Department of Agriculture asked the federal government for an emergency exemption to allow the use of Propoxur. The insecticide is used in commercial buildings, on crops and in flea and tick collars for pets. It was removed from home use in the 1990s and can cause nausea and vomiting if swallowed.
Here in Michigan, a few companies are using heat to blast the bugs into oblivion. Heaters brought into rooms raise the temperatures of everything in the room to around 130 degrees -- enough to kill all the life stages of the bedbugs but not hot enough to damage items. The process takes about six hours and can cost $1,000 a room.
It's the eradication method being used at the Griswold and, starting about six weeks ago, at Wayne State University apartment buildings when the need arises.
"We've been successful in keeping them out of the residence halls, but we do have them in our three apartment buildings," said Tim Michael, director of housing at Wayne State University.
University officials established a protocol about three years ago involving monthly inspections and treatments.
About two months ago, the university switched from chemical sprays to the heater method of eradication. Michael is optimistic and said the heater method has been 100 percent effective.
"It's become one of those things that university housing has to deal with," he said. "We have people coming from all over the country. It comes in their luggage. Everywhere people go, they go with you. We're just battling them."
Apartments and dorms are at the biggest risk for growing bedbug populations, Sheperdigian said. Hotels are too, because of the frequency of travelers coming in and out of rooms.
Proper disposal required
Recontamination is common. Miller has seen residents whose apartments were recently treated open up a sealed bag filled with bedbug contaminated clothes and take items back into the apartment.
Wholesale dumping of infected items can further compound the problem. When cases first came up at Cathedral Tower, a Wayne State University-area high-rise, residents' items were thrown out into bins. People would then fish them out.
"The management was just throwing stuff in the Dumpsters," said Ted Phillips, executive director of the United Community Housing Coalition, a nonprofit providing housing-related services to Detroit residents.
"We were begging them not to do that."
"I've seen people take mattresses out of the Dumpster and bring them right back in the building," Miller said.
The coalition works with people such as Miller on rent and housing issues, helping people set up escrow accounts, into which they deposit rent money until management companies address the bedbug problem.

Author: Steve Prado/ The Detroit News

PARSIPPANY, N.J. — Exterminators are battling bedbugs in New Jersey’s new $200 million psychiatric hospital.
The bugs have been found in a patient’s bedroom and in staff areas of Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital in Parsippany.
The nearly 500-patient state facility opened last year.
Human Services Department spokeswoman Ellen Lovejoy says the first bedbug sighting was on Nov. 11. When a few more were found days later, Lovejoy says an extermination company that employs dogs to sniff out the bugs was brought in.
Lovejoy says no patients have been bitten.
Lovejoy says the hospital has responded by aggressively cleaning affected areas.

Author: ASSOCIATED PRESS