"Too_Many_Tools" wrote in message
ups.com...
Something to consider when you stay at motels, shop thrift shops, buy
at rummage sales and have your relatives stay over for the holidays.

TMT



Bedbug boom blamed on increased foreign travel By Tom Vanden Brook, USA
TODAY
Fri Dec 2, 7:16 AM ET

Bedbugs, the houseguests nobody wants, are back in growing numbers
across the USA, and booting them from your bunk can be a lengthy,
costly process.


Sixty years after near-eradication, the little bloodsuckers are
infesting homes and hotels from New York to San Diego. Why the
outbreak? Increased world travel and changing pest-control practices.


"The bugs had become a myth," says Richard Cooper, an entomologist who
runs a family pest control firm in Lawrenceville, N.J. "They were the
monster in the closet. People don't believe they're real."


They're real, all right. If they've gained a toehold - or wherever they
find bare skin to bite - they won't leave your house unless you unleash
an all-out effort.


"If you don't manage them, they'll manage you," says Richard Pollack, a
researcher at the Harvard School of Public Health.


The re-emergence of bedbugs appears to have begun in the late 1990s.
Cooper saw his first one in a motel in 1999.


That prompted him to start collecting reports from colleagues. From
June 2000 until May 2001, Cooper surveyed exterminators in the
Northeast, Florida and California. None reported more than 22 bedbug
calls. In 2004-05, bedbug complaints jumped to 335 in the Northeast,
285 in Florida and 240 in California.


"Now, we're out there dealing with bedbugs every day of the week, all
day long," Cooper says.


Cindy Mannes of the National Pest Management Association says the pest
control comany Orkin has had bedbug reports this year in every state
except seven: Alaska, Idaho, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Rhode Island,
South Dakota and Wyoming.


You might expect that the vermin would be found in cut-rate flophouses.
You'd be wrong. The Helmsley Park Lane Hotel in New York, where a
one-bedroom suite fetches $950 a night, was sued by a bedbug "bitee" in
2003. The suit was settled, says spokesman Howard Rubenstein, and the
hotel has not had a problem since.


In San Diego, Herb Field, an entomologist with Lloyd Pest Control, has
treated everything from small condos to rescue missions.


"Five years ago, we might have had a dozen calls for bedbugs a year,"
he says. "Now we get that many in a week."


Pest control companies blame the bedbug boom on increased foreign
travel, Mannes says. The bugs are more common abroad, and they'll
happily hitch a ride in a suitcase. The 46 million travelers landing in
the USA in 2004 were an increase of almost 12% from 2003, according to
the Travel Industry Association of America.


Bedbugs are hardy, too, capable of surviving a year between meals.
Those meals consist entirely of blood. Fortunately, they don't appear
to spread disease, Pollack says.


There's speculation that the industry trend away from spraying
pesticides on baseboards has been a boon for bedbugs, he says. The
practice has mostly been discontinued in favor of more targeted,
less-toxic alternatives.


Whatever the reason, you may not realize you're living with bedbugs
until your home is infested.


"If you wake up at 2 a.m. and something's sucking on your ankle, that's
a pretty good sign," Pollack says. "But people generally don't see
that, and they don't feel feeding. They're stealthy."


Bedbugs had been feasting on Brian Kayen for some time before he
discovered his West Orange, N.J., apartment was infested a year ago.

At first, he thought his laundry detergent had caused him to break out
in red welts. Kayen, 26, lived on the second floor of a three-family
building, and the bedbugs apparently had entered a neighbor's home on
secondhand furniture.

"I'd get up in the middle of the night and flip the lights on looking
for them," he says. Despite four visits by an exterminator, the bedbugs
refused eviction. It was Kayen who moved to a new place.

Killing them is tough work, Cooper says. For starters, they're hard to
find. They come out only at night, they're translucent until they fill
up with blood, and hatchlings are so small they can pass through a
stitch-hole in a mattress. Even as full-grown adults, they're only a
quarter of an inch long, and their flat bodies allow them to slip into
tiny cracks in furniture.

Pollack says a good exterminator will spend at least a half-hour
examining furniture, baseboards and mattresses. Several follow-up
visits are required, too.

"It can cost thousands of dollars to get rid of them," he says.

Getting rid of them can require pesticides, powerful vacuums and
sealing mattresses with impervious covers, Cooper says.

To avoid bringing bedbugs into your home, Pollack says, avoid
secondhand furniture.

He says, "You might be getting friends along with that mattress, bed
frame or dresser."


Bigtime infestation here in Las Vegas, and that includes the GOOD hotels.

Steve