New England Bed Bug Forum

One of New York’s swankiest hotels, The Ritz-Carlton, has had some very unwelcome guests – bed bugs.

Hotel management confirmed it found the bed bugs in one of their rooms on Sunday following a complaint from a guest.

A worker at the hotel, where a midweek room can start at $695 and soar to $4500 for a suite, said that a guest in Room 1005 produced a specimen of the pesky bug, a wingless six-legged bloodsucker before checking out on Sunday.

Hotel management said it subsequently called an exterminator to rid the room of the creepy crawlers.

Guests in rooms next to the infested area, as well as those above and below it, were transferred to other accommodations and hotel workers received bedbug training, reports the Times.

‘Bedbugs are inevitable,’ said Scott Geraghty, the hotel’s general manager.

‘They’re brought in by guests and come in on luggage or things of that nature.’

He said the problem had been remedied.

A worker at the Ritz, Rosanna Polanco, a room attendant, told The New York Times she was asked on Monday to service the room next to 1005 but was not told about the bed bugs. 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,’ Polanco said, referring to Room 1005.

‘Management didn’t tell me. I found out myself.’

The Ritz isn’t the first New York luxury hotel to be paid a visit from the wingless, six-legged creatures.

Three people have separately accused the Waldorf-Astoria of harboring the critters– one woman even claimed the bites caused her some severe trauma.

Bedbugs have been found at a slew of Gotham landmarks recently. The Empire State building, Abercrombie & Fitch and the AMC Empire 25 Theatres all have had their problems.

One Brooklyn school was attacked by the bugs 31 times in 2011. And even the headquarters of the city’s Department of Housing isn’t safe!

With cold weather temperatures dropping and expected to hit the North-East, including New York and Connecticut harder in the coming weeks, people will likely have to continue to battle bed bugs through the winter, experts say, when most other insects are halted by the cold, bed bugs still thrive.

Bed Bugs are a domesticated insect, whereas they live inside and spend very little time outside.  The cold temperatures of winter have little affect on bed bugs when they are residing in a heated home or business.

Although both extreme heat and cold can be used to rid homes and businesses of bedbugs, heated dwellings will offer plenty of shelter to bedbugs as the seasons shift.

How Infestations Originate

It often seems that bed bugs arise from nowhere. The bugs are efficient hitchhikers and are usually transported in on luggage, clothing, beds, furniture, and other items. This is a particular problem for hotels, motels and apartments, where turnover of occupants is constant. Bed bugs are small, cryptic and agile, escaping detection after crawling into suitcases, boxes and belongings. The eggs are especially tiny and are usually overlooked. Acquiring secondhand beds, couches and furniture is another way that the bugs are transported into previously non-infested dwellings. Bed bugs also can be carried in on a person’s clothing or shoes, resulting in an infestation.

Once bed bugs are introduced, they often spread throughout a building. The bugs can travel from room to room or floor to floor either by crawling or via a person. Unlike cockroaches that feed on filth, the level of cleanliness has little to do with most bed bug infestations. Pristine homes, hotels and apartments have plenty of hiding places and an abundance of warm-blooded hosts. Thus, they are almost as vulnerable to infestation as are places of squalor, and it doesn’t matter what the temperature is outside.

Think about it, when it is cold outside the bed bugs have a nice, comfortable place to stay in your heated home or business.  They also have a good food supply – meaning your blood.

If you think you have a bed bug problem this winter in your home or business the best thing to do is contact a licensed and insured bed bug professional.

Bed bugs are one of the only animals on our planet known to get stronger by inbreeding.  A recent study has come to terms that bed bugs are fighting back against us humans by inbreeding.

New research on the bed bug’s ability to withstand the genetic bottleneck of inbreeding, recently announced at the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH) annual meeting, provides new clues to explain the rapidly growing problem of bed bugs across the United States and globally. After mostly disappearing in the US in the 1950s, the common bed bug (Cimex lectularius) has reappeared with a vengeance over the past decade. These stubborn pests have developed a resistance to the insecticides, known as pyrethroids, commonly used against them.

One of the newly discovered factors that appears to be contributing to the bed bugs’ effective infestation is their ability to establish new infestations through inbreeding. Coby Schal, PhD, and Ed Vargo, PhD, both entomologists at North Carolina State University (NCSU), and colleagues carried out two studies now under peer-review examining the genetics of bed bugs from three multi-story apartment buildings in North Carolina and New Jersey, and determined that there were high levels of relatedness within each apartment and very low genetic diversity within each building, indicating that infestations start from just one or two introductions of the insect. Being able to withstand a very high level of inbreeding — i.e., still produce healthy offspring — allows the bed bug infestation to expand to other apartments within the building.

Another study by this team confirmed this same conclusion based on a study of 21 bed bug infestations from Maine to Florida in the US, nearly all of which came from single rooms within homes. “Inbreeding gives bed bugs an advantage in being able to colonize,” said Schal. “A single female that has been mated is able to colonize and start a new infestation. Her progeny and brothers and sisters can then mate with each other, exponentially expanding the population. With many organisms, extensive inbreeding would cause serious mutations that would eventually bring about an end to the population.” He also noted that cockroach populations are also able to survive inbreeding.

A major strategic advantage that we might want to explore in this bed bug fight, and it may seem unproductive at this time, but may pay a huge benifit in the future is to introduce female bed bugs into the mix that do not have a resistance to any chemicals.  This would, in theory, create colonies of bed bugs that do not have any resistance to our extermination procedures or chemicals.

Until then, there is really only one proven and effective way to kill bed bugs and that is heat.

Bed bugs invade Tampa fire station: MyFoxTAMPABAY.com

Bed Bugs have invaded another firehouse, this time in Tampa, Florida.  Bed bugs have been spreading all around the US, invading homes, businesses, government buildings, and firehouses.  Makes you think why are bed bugs invading these fire houses?  Well one simple explanation is that when fire fighters go to a call in which a house is on fire the heat from the fire causes the bed bugs to come out and find a means of escape.  Bed bugs can easily develop resistance against pesticides, such as DDT but this is not possible against heat.  Heat, especially from a fire is a bed bugs worst enemy.

My thinking is that the bed bugs can feel the heat from the fire and escape on the first human body that is around.  That being a firefighter or his equipment.  Fire fighters need to be ever vigilant when going out on a call that they take precautions on returning to the fire station.

Fire fighters should launder their clothes before or as soon as these items are brought back into the fire station.  All equipment should be stored in a central location where it can be cleaned and inspected for bed bugs.  If bed bugs are present, any equipment that can be treated with heat should be done at this time.  Any equipment that is heat sensitive or can not fit into a heating chamber or dryer should be wiped down with rubbing alchohol.

SEATTLE — The mere mention of the Internal Revenue Service is enough to make most people squirm, but now some of the agency’s own employees are feeling queasy after discovering bedbugs in their office.

An IRS worker first spotted a single bedbug at the Seattle office in October. An exterminator trapped a second bug, and that was enough for IRS officials to send in the hounds.

Exterminators use dogs trained to sniff out the insects, and the dog who canvassed the IRS offices didn’t find any more bugs.

Exterminator Grant Gummow didn’t help with the IRS case, but he suspects the bedbugs discovered in the Federal Building hitched a ride to work from an employee’s home.

“You have your purse next to your bed, or a bag. The bedbugs crawl into the bag, you carry it and have bedbugs at work,” Gummow said.

It’s never easy finding bedbugs, and Gummow said that because office chairs are perfect hiding spaces for the insects, finding them in a large office building can be even more difficult.

An IRS employee anonymously complained about seeing another bedbug several weeks ago, but agency officials say no more bugs have been found at the office.

They say they’ll continue to monitor the situation.

Here is a story about taxpayer money being wasted because pest control operatives and doctors misdiagnosed a rampant bed bug infestation in a Tennessee emergency management center, closing the building, and leaving the emergency responders sleeping on cots for a week.

LEBANON, Tenn. – Pest control crews have been working to clear a bed bug infestation from the Wilson County Emergency Management Agency’s Station.

About a week ago, officials at WEMA realized bed bugs were biting employees as they slept. For five nights, employees had to sleep on cots in the training center across the street.

At first pest control companies thought Station One’s bunk was infested with fleas, and at one point, doctors treated employees for shingles before realizing bed bugs were the problem.

For one thing, flea bites look nothing like bed bug bites and for another if my doctor told me I had shingles, when in fact it was bed bug bites, I would be shopping around for a new doctor.

On Monday, a company pumped hot air into the station to kill the bed bugs.

This rampant bed bug infestation caused sleep deprivation for the emergency responders, one thing that is highly needed in this job.

“They have to be ready to go at any time. What little sleep they do get, they can’t be deprived of it, so we need to get these bugs out of here and make sure they rest calmly when they come in from a job,” said an official.

Employees were told they would be able to return to Station One today.

The town of Lebanon, Tennessee could have saved a lot of time, aggravation, and money had they called in a canine bed bug inspection team. Not only would they have been able to quickly and efficiently been able to verify the bed bug problem, they would have been able to pinpoint it. The pinpointing of the bed bug infestation in the station house would have allowed them to target bed bug infested areas instead of super-heating the whole building, which can be very costly.

Avoiding Bed Bugs This Holiday Season While Flying

With the holiday season upon us a lot of people will be traveling to their families homes by airplane.  What a great way to pick up bed bugs and bring them to your relatives houses.  I am sure that a bed bug infestation is not the gift you want to be remembered as giving.  Here are some precautions you can take to help lower your chance of bringing bed bugs to you relatives homes by airplane.

1.  Bring your own pillow and blanket. In Zane Selkirk’s horrific experience, it was the blanket “crawling with bed bugs” that caught her eye. It doesn’t have to get that extreme, though, to suggest it’s best to beware airline blankets. After all, during last year’s H1N1 flu epidemic, many airlines pulled the blankets fearing they could transmit the virus. Pack a travel pillow (inflatable if you’re tight for space) and a blanket or pashmina shawl. Or just dress in warm layers instead.

2.  Plastic Bag Your Carry On Since it’s way to easy for bed bugs to slip into your carry on while it’s stored under your seat. The best way to prevent this happening is to encase it in a plastic bag, such as a shopping bag or kitchen-sized garbage bag.

3.  Stop bed bugs before they get in your house.   The real problem with bed bugs isn’t when they bite you en route (the bites heal quickly and don’t cause any lasting damage), it’s when they come home with you and set up housekeeping in your home. The way to keep this from happening is with stringent preventive measures. Don’t bring luggage or carry-on’s inside your home, but empty them outside and wash clothes and anything else that’s washable. A hot dryer will also kill bed bugs, so dry anything you don’t want to wash. Put the suitcase and bag itself in a plastic bag and store for two weeks.

We at New England Bed Bug Forum wish you and your families a happy, safe, and bed bug free holiday season.

Bed bugs are a complex pest to rid from a home, business, hotel, or motel room.

Good pest control operatives, bed bug management companies, bed bud inspection teams, and bed bug exterminator’s, for the most part, have a view in common.  They all want to be able to not only control your bed bug problem but, to exterminate it in it’s entirety.

Let’s face it. If you like your job, have integrity in what you do, and most of all care about your clients you have a point of view on the way things should be run, how you should perform, and the results you should be able to accomplish. This is true in any business, including bed bug extermination. Bed bugs are a very complex and emotional issue, whoever you deal with to help you rid yourself of these nasty creatures should realize this whole-hardheartedly.

A bed bug exterminator’s first step is to listen to what is happening in your home or business so that they can asses the situation.  They need to ascertain what the situation is before making a decision on how to proceed.  In some instances they may know right off the bat what is needed to be done to exterminate your bed bug infestation.  In most instances, good bed bug exterminator’s will advise an inspection to figure out where the bed bug problem lies and to what extent the infestation is.  A human inspection for bed bugs is not good enough.  Humans can only detect and pinpoint bed bugs with about 26% accuracy.  If you call a bed bug exterminator and they say they will send over a person to inspect, especially for free, hang up.  This is a sales tactic, not so honest exterminator’s use.  In most cases the human inspector will find bed bug issues everywhere in order to pad the extermination bill.  A bed bug dog is the way to go if your exterminator’s point of view is to kill off your problem in it’s entirety.  A bed bug dog is about 96% accurate in ascertaining if you have issues relating to these parasites in you dwelling or business.  A couple of the best things when taking  your pest control operative’s advice is that having this dog inspection will not only help in verifying this bed bug problem, the dog will most likely be able to pinpoint where the issues are.

As a businessman and a person I like to be able to sleep at night with a clear conscience.  With that being said how could I or any reputable bed bug exterminator,  in their view, advise to either come in with a bunch of chemicals or have a human inspect for bed bugs.  The accuracy is almost half as less as flipping a coin if you have a bed bug problem or not.

Any conscience-wise bed bug exterminator’s point of view is to know, first off, if there is a bed bug infestation in the first place and where it is.

When someone gives you their point of view, it usually comes from experience,  Your bed bug exterminator’s point of view is very important, because you will be able to tell, by this, how your bed bug problem will be solved.

If you are a building manager, property manager, or landlord this is a good reason to stay on top of any bed bug infestations reported to you by your tenants. If you do not take care of the bed bug problem promptly and in an efficient manner it could hit you where it counts, your wallet.

The Baltimore Daily Record reported on October 17th that the Baltimore City Circuit Court ruled in favor of the plaintiff when former tenant Kristen Saunders sued her former building’s owners and operators for negligence, claiming they did not treat for bed bugs promptly.

Kristen Y. Saunders said it took managers of her apartment building 48 days to fumigate her apartment infested with bedbugs, leading to a plaintiff’s verdict in the first case of its type in Baltimore.

A Baltimore City Circuit Court jury awarded Saunders $40,000 in her negligence suit against the building’s owners and operators. The verdict came last week after a three-day trial.

Saunders, who has since moved to Edgewater, lived in the Hunting Hills apartments in the 4700 block of Sayer Avenue from February 2009 through February 2010.

The Daily Record reports that lawyers for the management refuted Saunders’ claim, and said the management responded promptly after being informed of the bed bug problem.

The paper also notes that the plaintiff’s lawyer, Daniel Whitney of Whitney and Bogris LLP (Towson, MD) claimed that this was the first bed bug trial in the city, and that he currently has eighteen bed bug-related cases waiting to go to trial.

Protect yourself from bed bug litigation and possible monetary losses by promptly trying to solve any bed bug infestations reported to you by your tenants. There are plenty of bed bug management companies and pest control agents that specialize in getting rid of bed bugs. Pick up the phone if you have bed bug issues and make the call. It is not only the right thing to do, it may save you money and time loss in a court room.

Why are bed bugs so hard to get rid of?

Bed bugs are extremely difficult to get rid of once they’ve established themselves in a home base, apartment, home, business, or any dwelling for that matter. What makes it so hard to get rid of bed bugs?

Well, There are a couple of reasons why it is so hard to get rid of bed bugs once they have made a foot-hold. Up to 88 percent bed bugs are resistant to pesticides and insecticides that you would normally be able to treat other insect infestations with. Secondly bed bugs are not like cockroaches, for example, which have pads on their feet. You can spray a pesticide or insecticide down and and when the cockroaches walk over it the chemical sticks to these padded feet and they’re deader than a door nail. Bed bugs have claws on their feet with a much smaller surface area that the chemicals do not adhere to, thus it doesn’t kill them as effectively.

Bed Bug nymphs are only a millimeter wide. They can crawl in the middle of your mattress and just  come out for a while and feed. Bed bugs are small, flat, insects that are very adept at squeezing themselves into tiny spaces. They can hide in places a person would never think of looking for them, like behind loose wallpaper or under electrical switch plates. To successfully get rid of a bed bug infestation, you’ve got to find and kill every viable bed bug, which is not an easy task.

These parasitic insects multiply by leaps and bounds, a single female can lay 500 eggs during her life, and within a few months her offspring can reproduce as well. A few individuals introduced to a new environment can increase dramatically. Depending on conditions, bed bugs can produce 3 or 4 generations in one year. Additionally, bed bugs reproduce most quickly in temperatures between 70 degrees to 82 degrees, right in the range where most people keep their dwelling temperature at. Bed Bugs have been known to live for 18 months without a blood meal in a controlled environment. Bed bugs can go a very long time without feeding, should no host, meaning you, be present to provide them with needed blood meals. Scientists have documented adult bed bugs living up to 550 days without eating, and nymphs may last for months. So simply leaving an infested dwelling unoccupied for a few months in hopes of starving them out will do nothing to discourage the little freeloaders. So what happens is that these little bloodsuckers just hang out, your pesticide or insecticide degrades and by the time the bed bugs come out to feed the insecticide or pesticide is useless.

Just to make their extermination more difficult, bed bugs can sense chemical odors, and may avoid areas where cleaning agents or even pesticides have been applied.

Those are the main reasons why bed bugs are hard to get rid of.

One way to get rid of bed bugs is to use heat to kill them. This effective measure to kill insect infestations has been around for a very long time. Farmers in ancient times would burn down crops infested with bugs so that they would not spread to other uninfected crops. We are not saying you have to burn down your house in order to get rid of a bed bug problem. Many bed bug management companies that offer bed bug inspection and chemical extermination also offer heat treatment in getting rid of bed bugs. Some pest control agents even have new mobile heat treatment units that you can load your belonging into that cook bed bugs and other insects, thus getting rid of them.