About four weeks ago, Province readers were introduced to Laura
Powell, a single mother of two young children who was trying her best
to keep things together during the holidays.

In addition to a derelict balcony that had been deemed unsafe to walk on, the New
Westminster mother, who battles bipolar disorder and carries around a chest full of less-than-rosy childhood memories, was in the midst of an ongoing war with bed bugs.

The infestation left her and her six-year-old daughter and four-month old son sleeping on the living-room floor.

With a bank account bordering on the red, the 38-year-old said she would be turning to the New Westminster Christmas Bureau for help during the holidays — help she wasn’t likely going to get from either
of her kids’ dads.

Well, the help came flooding in. After Powell’s story ran, she was contacted by the Christmas bureau and told
there were several families who were willing to sponsor her during the holidays.

On top of being showered with gifts to put under the tree, a bed bug company by the name of Baked Bed Bugs offered to fumigate her apartment free of charge.

“He is one of the nicest men I have ever met in my whole life,” she said of the owner of Baked
Bed Bugs. “We are wonderfully happy. I’m just so pleased.” After having just about all her Christmas wishes answered — although she was unable to visit her family due to the snow — Powell is looking forward to the
new year. She hopes to move to a new apartment soon.

“I figure all I need now is a three- bedroom apartment and a good man. But the good man can come later.”

If things continue, “we won’t be able to keep up with the requests for inspections,” said Camille Jones, assistant Cincinnati health commissioner and member of a city-county bed bug task force. “It’s a problem that we expect to only get worse.”

Cincinnati is not alone in its itchy woes. Reports of a welt-covered public are coming in from college campuses, high-end hotels and even movie theaters across the country.

University officials at Texas A&M in College Station have flown in bed bug-sniffing dogs to root out the insects. The University of Florida in Gainesville reportedly has spent tens of thousands of dollars to clear out dorm rooms and campus apartments of infestations.

In New York, there were 8,830 complaints about bed bugs in fiscal 2008, which ended June 30, up from 1,839 in 2005, according to the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development. The bugs have shown up in unexpected places: An executive with Fox News told the New York Times that the Manhattan newsroom had to be exterminated for bed bugs and furniture replaced after an employee tracked the insects in from home.

Task forces aimed at eradicating the bugs and educating the public have been established in numerous states — including Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota and Ohio.

In California, the bugs have become such a problem that the state’s Department of Public Health started surveying local public health agencies in 2007 to get a handle on the scope of the infestation. Among the reasons cited for the return of the bugs: the DDT ban and an increase in international travel.

Often mistaken for ticks, adult bed bugs are about a quarter-inch long and reddish-brown. They are active mostly at night, and their bites can leave itchy welts on the skin.

During the daytime, they tend to hide near places where people sleep — such as the seams of mattresses — or in wall cracks or beneath furniture. The eggs are white, sticky and about the size of a speck of dust, so people can unknowingly spread them from room to room or even across town.

“Set a bag down on the carpet, or walk through an infested area, and it’s almost impossible to tell that you’re walking out with shoes or a bag that has bed bug eggs stuck to them,” Jones said.

Once the bugs are there, they are not easy to kill. Most over-the-counter insecticides won’t work, and clearing the problem up can take several treatments from a professional exterminator.

There’s also a social stigma associated with the insect, but unlike some other vermin, bed bugs are attracted to blood — such as a human’s or an animal’s — not to garbage.

Renee Corea has battled the bugs in her New York apartment for months but shies away from talking to friends about the details.

“My home is clean. It’s always been clean,” said Corea, who helps run the online support and policy advocacy group newyorkvsbed bugs.org. “I have lost a lot of belongings because of this. The whole experience was emotionally draining and exhausting. It still is.”

But figuring out the extent of the problem nationwide is difficult, entomologists say.

Part of the problem is that cash-strapped cities don’t see the insect as a public-health priority. Unlike cockroaches, fleas or mosquitoes, bed bugs aren’t known as disease carriers.

“Anyone can be at risk,” said Greg Kesterman, director of environmental health for the Hamilton County Public Health agency, which includes Cincinnati. Kesterman noted that the county received two complaints about bed bugs in 2003 and nearly 300 in 2008.

“This is not only an urban concern,” Kesterman said. “This is everywhere.”

NEW YORK, NY January 04, 2009 —Advocates calling on the city to wage war against bed bugs hope 2009 will be the year they get legislative – and dermatological – relief. WNYC’s Fred Mogul has more.

REPORTER: Late last year, 14 city council members released a bill calling on the City Health Department to create a bed bug control training program for pest control providers and property owners. The legislation also would have the department make bed bug information available on its website and establish a bed bug toll-free hotline, to report infestations and request control information. A New York City Health Department spokeswoman says that while bed bugs are a stressful and unpleasant nuisance, they do not present a health risk or spread disease. She notes that the department does, in fact, have a web page and that the Department of Housing, Preservation and Development takes complaints, performs inspections and issues violation summonses when appropriate.

Bed bugs, once nearly eradicated in the built environment, have made a big comeback recently, especially in urban centers such as New York City. In the first study to explain the failure to control certain bed bug populations, toxicologists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Korea’s Seoul National University show that some of these nocturnal blood suckers have developed resistance to pyrethroid insecticides, in particular deltamethrin, that attack their nervous systems.

The study by senior researcher John Clark and colleagues in the current issue of the Journal of Medical Entomology reveals that these pests have evolved to outsmart the latest generation of chemicals used to control them since DDT was banned. In providing this first look at a mechanism, the researchers summarize that diagnostic tools to detect the relevant mutation in bed bug populations have been “urgently needed for effective control and resistance management.”

Specifically, Clark and colleagues found that bed bugs in New York City have acquired mutations in their nerve cells, which blunt the neurotoxic effect of the pyrethroid toxins used against them. The mutations affect sodium channels (resembling pores) in the neurons’ outer membrane, where electrical nerve impulses are produced. In the past, these nervous system poisons could effectively paralyze and kill the bugs, but this is no longer always the case.

Resistance means mutations are acquired over time by selection with pyrethroids, so the neuronal pores no longer respond to their toxic effects. Clark and colleagues found that these pores in New York City bed bugs are now as much as 264 times more resistant to deltamethrin. This means that even if treated, New York City bed bugs go on to suck blood from unsuspecting sleepers for many more nights.

The researchers are not sure how widely this resistance has spread, that is, whether the bugs that infest hotels, apartment buildings and homes in places other than New York City have developed the same type of immunity to chemical control. But as Clark states, “This type of pyrethroid resistance is common in many pest insects and the failure of the pyrethroids to control bed bug populations across the United States and elsewhere indicates that resistance is already widespread.”

For this study, the researchers collected hard-to-control bed bugs from New York City, plus easy-to-control bed bugs from an untreated colony in Florida, Clark explains. The New York population was determined to be highly resistant (264 times more resistant) to deltamethrin compared to the Florida population by contact exposure. Further, they found that resistance was not due to the increased breakdown of deltamethrin (enzymatic metabolism) by the resistant bed bugs but appeared to be due to an insensitive nervous system.

Using molecular techniques, they sequenced genes related to the sodium ion channel’s operation in both groups and identified two mutations found only in the resistant population. Similar mutations have been found in other pyrethroid-resistant insects and are likely the cause of the resistance in bed bugs, Clark and colleagues note. This helps to narrow the focus of the next set of experiments designed to reveal more about the acquired resistance.

There are several kinds of bed bugs but the one best adapted to the human environment is known in Latin as Cimex (“a bug”) lectularius (“lying down at home”), which shows how long they’ve been with us. Bed bugs arrived here with the earliest European visitors. These nocturnal pests feed about once every five to 10 days but are not thought to spread disease. They use two tubes, one to inject an anticoagulant and mild anesthetic, the other to suck blood.

bed bugs were found in Korea for the first time in 20 years, and experts suspect they came from the United States.

A Yonsei University research team led by professor Yong Tai-soon of the Medical College’s parasitology department said Sunday that it confirmed an insect, which a 30-year-old woman caught in her room and brought to them in December 2007, to be a bed bug.

The bed bug, a brown, 6.5-9-millimeter-long nocturnal insect, is best adapted to a human environment and feeds on human or animal blood. As the living environment has gotten cleaner, they have not been found here for the past two decades.

The unidentified woman had bug bites on her hands, feet and other parts of her body when she visited the Severance Hospital. She had not slept properly for weeks because of the irritating bugs, according to the researchers.

The team inspected her home and found dead bed bugs and their larvae in not only her home but also other homes of the building, as the reproducing insects had spread to other parts of the building.

The researchers concluded that the species is from the U.S.

“The woman started living in the house about nine months before the biting incident after coming back from a long-term stay in New Jersey. Other rooms where the bugs were found have also been rented mainly to foreigners or Korean-Americans,” Yong said.

Epidemic prevention measures were taken on the building, but the woman and other tenants moved out immediately after learning that the insects were bed bugs, according to the team.

“We suspect that it was not a Korean bed bug, which disappeared here over 20 years, but that an American bed bug that penetrated through the quarantine system. It indicates the importance of preventive measures against not only infectious disease but also vermin,” Yong said.

The study result was published in the December edition of the journal of the Korean Society for Parasitology.

An Edmonton woman who took part in an overnight sleep study awoke to find herself covered in bed bug bites.

Dawn Blue’s constant exhaustion prompted her doctor to refer her to the sleep disorder clinic at Edmonton General Hospital. It is overseen by Alberta Health Services, formerly Capital Health.

During the night, said Blue, a distraught technician woke her, telling her she had to leave because another participant in the next room had spotted bed bugs crawling up the wall.

Blue said the technician told her a possible bed bug infestation was first noticed in the clinic before Christmas.

Blue was sent home in a taxi at 2 a.m. wearing hospital scrubs, her belongings sealed in a blue recycling bag.

The next morning, said Blue, the itching started, on her arms, her legs, her groin, her upper back.

A visit to the doctor confirmed what she already suspected — bed bug bites. She left the office with a prescription for antibiotic cream.

“I was angry and it didn’t help knowing that I had to pay for the privilege of being bitten by bed bugs.”

According to Alberta Health Services spokesman Rob Stevenson, Blue was the victim of “a terrible coincidence.”

He said in order to replicate a natural sleep experience, clinic participants need to be comfortable. They have been permitted to bring their own pillows, blankets and pyjamas with them.

When staff members first noticed bed bugs Dec. 17, they immediately closed the clinic, contacting both a public health inspector and a pest extermination company.

The mattresses and furniture were sprayed and the rooms were fumigated.

The clinic remained closed for its annual Christmas hiatus, from Dec. 19 to Jan. 5, during which time it was sprayed again.

The public health inspector and the exterminator returned before it reopened, and, following a thorough examination, gave the clinic a clean bill of health.

It resumed normal operations, until Monday, that is, when Blue was sent home and the clinic closed once more to allow for more fumigation.

“In the most unfortunate of coincidences and, despite the fact that every day all of the material in the clinic goes through a specific laundering process, between Jan. 5 and Jan. 19, one of the participants brought bed bugs in with their belongings,” Stevenson said.

The incident has already prompted a review of the clinic’s policies and procedures. Effective immediately, clinic participants will no longer be able to bring their own belongings with them and must make do with hospital-issue pillows, blankets and gowns.

“It won’t be as comfortable, but we need to do everything we can operationally and procedurally to ensure this doesn’t happen again,” Stevenson said.

Covenant Health spokeswoman Monique Trudelle, speaking for Edmonton General, said there is not now, nor has there been, a similar problem in the rest of the building. “The sleep lab is in our building on the eighth floor, but it’s not integrated into the rest of the hospital,” Trudelle said.

The clinic reopened again Wednesday.

Blue, while still a bit itchy, is satisfied that reasonable steps were, and are, being taken. Alberta Health Services has offered to pay to replace many of her belongings, and to pay for transportation to and from another sleep disorder clinic in Calgary.

WORTHINGTON — Two more cases of bed bug infestations have been reported to Nobles-Rock Community Health Services in the last week, bringing the total number of investigations to four.

Jason Kloss, NRCHS Sanitarian, said the two new cases involve a unit in a local apartment complex, as well as a residential rental home. The first two locations included a residential rental home and a motel, which responded immediately to the discovery by fumigating its entire facility.

bed bugs can easily be spread on luggage, clothing, furniture and mattresses, said Kloss, adding that people should not be taking things like furnishings, box springs or mattresses that have been thrown in dumpsters or placed on curbs.

“Never pick up furniture or mattresses from the side of the street — that is the first lesson to be learned here,” said Kloss, who investigated all four of the reported bed bug infestations. “Simply picking one up because you need a mattress is not a good plan at all. The infestation may be very evident on the mattress (or box spring) or it may not be.”

For the rest of the story, read tomorrow’s Daily Globe.

BOND HILL – The unfortunate combination of a cigarette and a homemade chemical solution to kill bed bugs started a house fire late Sunday that displaced two adults and an infant, Cincinnati fire officials said.

A woman treated a second-story bedroom for bed bugs at a home in the 7300 block of Scottwood Avenue about 10:30 p.m., they said.

She concoction a recipe made up of bug killer solution and 70 percent alcohol.

Then, she fired up a cigarette.

The fumes in the bedroom ignited and caught a mattress on fire, officials said. She unsuccessfully tried to extinguish it and then alerted everyone to get out of the house.

No injuries were reported.

The fire was confined to the bedroom, but there is smoke damage to the entire floor and attic totaling about $30,000.

Like apartment buildings and hotels, schools are another place where bed bugs can be picked up and brought home. All it takes is one student to effect the entire building. If you are a teacher or have a child in school take caution and double check their clothes when they return home to prevent spreading bed bugs.

Full story found here:
wfsb.com/health/17787057/detail.html

Many of the 137 people who live at the John Sevier apartment building in Johnson City haven’t been sleeping all that tight for at least the last year-and-a-half. For months, the government housing apartment complex, home to seniors and people with disabilities, has been infested by bed bugs.

“Vampires are real,” Bryan Saunders said of the bed bugs that have crawled into his room. “They’ve evolved over the years into tiny, tick-size little bugs.”

Those little bed bugs have wreaked havoc on the historic John Sevier Building, sucking the blood of some of its tenants like Lavon Brooks.

“They’re more itchy,” Brooks said. “They get on your body and itch.”

Brooks knows the pests aren’t much of a health risk, but they are a nuisance. In fact, he rarely gets a good night’s rest because of them.

“You can’t sleep,” Brooks said. “You sleep at night and you wake up and they’re crawling and I just crush them up with my hands. They crawl all over the bed.”

Come November, these horror stories should be a thing of the past. M & M Properties, the company that manages the apartment building, recently hired Terminix to address this problem, nearly two years too late in Brenda Springer’s eyes.

“The reason (bed bugs have) taken over the building is because (management has) denied their existence,” Springer said.

M & M General Manager Harry Gibson says that is not ture. Instead, he says staff responded to bed bug complaints starting 18 months ago.

“We addressed it when we initially knew of the problem,” Gibson said. “Here we thought we had it under control and about a month or so ago it reoccurred.”

Now M & M Properties is turning to the experts. Today, Terminix held a training session for tenants and volunteers to prepare for the upcoming extermination. In the coming weeks, Terminix will go into every room, freeze all of the bugs and their eggs, and then treat each apartment with insecticide dust. Exterminators will start from the top of the building and make their way down, temporarily displacing people.

Having failed her before, at least one tenant remains skeptical.

“It’s a band aid on a deep puncture,” Springer said.

Despite her concerns Gibson is confident Terminix will eliminate the problem. Still, he admits tenants and John Sevier staff will have to come up with a plan to keep the bed bugs out.