Hotel Takes Precautions After Bed Bug Scare
Several hotels in Farmington, New Mexico are reporting incidents of bed bugs. First at the Four Corners Motel had repeated customer complaints about bed bugs. Second, a Days Inn near downtown had more than ten guests complain about bed bugs and being bite. Now another hotel in the area, a Best Western, is taking proper precautions to ensure bed bugs don’t take over their hotel too.
Staff and management say that they are taking this matter very seriously and exterminators are a worthwhile investment. The hotel has the exterminators come and spray once a month and so far they haven’t received any complaints about bed bugs yet this year.
Bed Bugs Bite at Coatesville Towers Apartments
The landmark Coatesville Towers Apartment building in Coatesville, PA has been evacuated because of a bed bug infestation. The population of the apartment building include one hundred elderly residents who are temporarily out of a home as exterminators are taking care of the problem.
Residents that have family nearby are staying with them while others are being well taken care of until their apartments are bed bug free. Bed bugs have made a resurgence because of the reduced use of pesticides which means that the exterminators are working extra hard to take care of the situation. The bed bugs should be completely removed in the next 24 hours due to making the temperature in the building 140 degrees. By using heaters and generators on every floor it will help blow heat into each apartment therefore killing the existing bed bugs and all their eggs.
If all goes according to plan residents will be able to return home soon.
Full story found here:
abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/local&id=6475606
Mattress Cover for Bed Bugs
You’ll see a large number of bedbug sites out there selling specialized mattress covers to keep bedbugs from getting inside your mattress (or outside, if you’re infested), but did you know that you can buy them right from your local store?
It’s a lot less expensive and you need only ask the clerk to direct you to the mattress section and look for allergy relief / dust mite barrier covers; these are effective enough to stop bedbugs from passing through.
For example, if I go to Walmart.com and search for ‘mattress cover’, the first result is an allergy relief / dust mite barrier pillow and mattress cover set for $25.
Check with your local store and see what products they have to keep out the dust mites and you’ll have found yourself an inexpensive bedbug cover!
For more information on how to get rid of bed bugs, then check out http://www.badbedbugs.com/bed-bug-treatment/
Emergency Shelter Closes Because of Bed Bugs
In Portland, Maine The Milestone Foundation’s emergency shelter and detox unit were ordered closed Sunday night, because of an infestation of bed bugs. A local pest company was hired to make the assessment. The residents of the shelter were moved to different homeless shelters following the cities overflow management plan. The pest control company is currently working to handle the situation.
Tim Allen, an employee of Milestone Foundation says that everyone is still getting services that needs them. The shelter hopes to reopen as soon as possible after taking caring of the bed bugs.
Full story found here:
wcsh6.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=94942&catid=2
Bed Bugs Scar Child for Life!
Hena Daniels from Eyewitness News did a horrible job on segment where a boy who brought bed bugs to school. [wsmv.com/video/17818727/index.html?rss=nash&psp=video]
The school is Washington Elementary and the video shows a resident being interviewed; when the resident was asked if he would allow his children to go to school with bed bugs and why, he said ‘no, it’s pretty obvious’. The reporter then made a statement that ‘Obvious to some, apparently not to others’. One resident said that she would not allow her child to go to school until the areas the child had been in were cleaned.
The video states that Fernando Silva, Vice Principal, sent a letter to all parents which included the statement “… A small health incident today involving bedbugs” and also stated that they “…removed, sanitized, and returned the affected clothing…”.
Did the school handle this properly? If you watch the video, you’ll hear Hena mention that it was a ‘little boy’ who brought in the bed bugs. Did the school release this information?
If the child’s name is known, that child could very well be scarred for life! The fact that gender was released is something many would consider poor judgment!
Children can sometimes be cruel; should any child be associated with having transported the bed bugs, that child may have to endure a traumatic experience that could scar deep enough to last a lifetime!
- Does the school know for a fact that the child brought the bedbugs to class?
- Was the classroom already infested?
- How does the school know that another child didn’t bring the bugs to class with them and they found their way to this child (or his coat, etc)?
People are afraid to talk about having bad bugs because there is such a stigma associated with the whole topic. People see those having bed bugs as being poor and unclean.
Narrowing it down to a classroom, then gender, could cause panic and push others to point the finger, likely at a student that had nothing to do with it.
Personally, I think Hena Daniels did a very poor job at reporting! The video should have taken a spin on how bed beds can find their way into schools rather than how negligent parents can be!
Washington School is located at 685 Baldwin St in Waterbury, CT 06706 and can be reached at (203) 574-8177 waterbury.k12.ct.us/was/ – http://www.badbedbugs.com 10/28/08
Animal Planet Features Bed Bug Sniffing Dogs
As bed bugs are becoming more and more of a problem through out the United States people are coming up with more solutions. One solution is dogs that are professionally trained to sniff out and locate bed bugs. On an upcoming show “Dogs 101″ on Animal Planet a beagle that is trained to detect bed bugs will be the star.
Tracer, the name of the Beagle, and his owner Mike Tache will demonstrate to viewers how dogs can be trained to sniff out bed bugs. Tache operates his own business called American K9 Private Investigators with his dogs, Tracer and Ace, a Siberian husky-beagle mix. Tache rescued both dogs from an animal shelter and trained them. The dogs usually detect bed bugs in college dorms, hotels, businesses, homes and schools. In fact, the dogs are in high demand due to the rise in bed bug infestations.
Tache mentions that many of the latest bed bug infestations have become immune to the methods that used to kill them off such as sprays and dusts used by exterminators. However heat is one way to kill them off but it needs to up around 130 degrees. Closing off the entire building and using vikane gas is another method, but it is extremely expensive.
Stories and articles about bed bug sniffing dogs are becoming more common and they will have to come up with more new ways to get rid of bed bugs as they are now resistant to many methods exterminators used to kill them. Questions or comments? Leave them below!
Full story found here: southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081027/NEWS/810270334
Woman Receives $71,000 From Bed Bug Bites
A woman (who wishes to remain anonymous) stayed at the Ramada Plaza Hotel in San Francisco and during her stay received more than 400 bed bug bites. During her stay the woman noticed blood stains on the sheets as well as insect bites on her face and body. Upon her departure from the hotel she mentioned the bug problem to the front desk.
Within a week the woman’s face and body were covered with hundreds of bite marks along with intense itching. After seeing a doctor she was informed that it could take up to ten days for her skin to fully react to the bed bug bites and related irritants (for example: bed bug feces).
After receiving treatment the woman developed what is called steroid acne. Later, it developed into dermographism, which is a skin condition where you can actually write on your skin.
The hotel decided to offer the woman $71,000 to settle her claim, which happens to be the largest sum of money ever offered to a victim of bed bug bites.
Full story found here: sfist.com/2008/10/24/downtown_bedbug_attack_costs_ramada.php
Bed Bugs Infest WA at a Soaring Rate
Bed Bugs aren’t just found in the United States, but other countries as well. In fact traveling is a huge cause of bed bugs, bed bugs have been called the “hitch hikers of the world”. In the past six years there has been a great increase of bed bugs in West Australia. Pest control companies are reporting a 5780 per cent increase. The spread is from hotels, cinemas, private homes, offices and public transportation and the bugs have developed a resistance to chemical treatment. Infestations, like in cinemas, are extremely hard to control.
Typically in a private home someone may spend $600 to get rid of bed bugs, but Greg Mills (owner of Allpest) said he knew of a couple that had spent $7,000 to get rid of the pests in their home. In really bad infestations bed bugs can be found not only in beds but in cracks and crevices, curtains as well as the edge of carpets. Another reason for the huge rise in reported infestations is that bedbugs have built up a resistance to the low-toxicity chemicals used on mattresses to kill them.
Many agree that bed bugs are going to continue to be problematic but there also needs to be effort put forth in order to find a better way to detect and exterminate them.
Full story found here:
thewest.com.au/default.aspx?MenuID=8&ContentID=104287
Police & Firefighters Should Get Financial Help for Bed Bugs
Cincinnati local news recently wrote an article about the City Council saying that Policemen and Firefighters should get financial help for the removal of bed bugs because often times they unwillingly bring them from their job scene to their own home. All members from the council agreed and are currently seeking out a pest control company to provide them with a discount. The motion also tells the administration to keep bug spray in every police and fire vehicle.
It’s hard to say just how many are bringing home bed bugs, but the situation is getting progressively worse. Especially for Firefighters as they often work at more than one station per shift and therefore are bringing the bed bugs from one location to the next. Hiring a new pest control contractor has helped keep bed bugs under control at the firehouses.
Officers come into contact with the bugs when arresting someone with the bugs in their clothes, Harrell said. The bugs sometimes get into the gear officers keep in their cruisers and then get transferred into the officer’s home when he or she takes their equipment home. When Firefighters are forced to go into homes that have bed bugs they enviably take them home.
Full story found: here news.cincinnati.com/article/20081022/NEWS01/310220038
Please share your questions and comments with us below!
Man Who Lets the Bed Bugs Bite
You’ve heard the nursery rhyme a million times when you were a child, but did you for a second think that anyone may actually willingly let bed bugs bite them? The New York Times wrote an article about Louis Sorkin, a man that biologist Bill Schutt features in his new book “Dark Banquet.” The book features different creatures that share a love for one thing: blood. The book is both instructive and graphic.
The article discusses how Sorkin lets the bed bugs bite. Sorkin’s purpose is to take a closer look at their colonies and understand their habits. To do this he has rigged up a glass jar with a mesh top, in fact the weave is so dense none of the bed bugs can escape and that goes for newborns as well. The only thing that can through the mesh is the bed bug’s stylets or in other words their piercing mouth-parts (where they feed). Sorkin places his arm against the mesh and proceeds to let the bed bugs bite. He claims that it doesn’t hurt and that they need to feed. He lets them feed for about ten minutes before removing his arm!
Here is a video of Sorkins’s Bed Bug colony; the video doesn’t have any sound, but you get an idea of what the bedbugs look like when they are active. We have more movies on our bed bug video page.
For more information on Sorkin and the book “Dark Banquet” featuring bed bugs, bats and other blood-thirsty creatures visit the article from The New York Times:
nytimes.com/2008/10/21/science/21blood.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
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