New York vs Bed Bugs

If you are too overwhelmed by bed bugs to write letters or make phone calls to your elected representatives to support our campaign for a bed bug task force, please visit our CitizenSpeak page. You can enter your name and address and a letter we have written for you will be sent to select officials.

Two minutes and you’re done. Thank you for your help!

And please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or want to join our efforts: renee at newyorkvsbedbugs dot org

We are really very happy to have attended the Greenpoint bed bug seminar this evening. Thanks to HPD and Mr. Edward Brownbear who conducted the seminar. Miss Heather and Pastor Ann Kansfield get our heartfelt thanks for organizing the evening; it is very inspiring to see people who want to protect their neighborhood, to spare others the suffering and the unpheaval of an infestation.

For a play-by-play account with visual aids and extensive notes, I must defer to the tireless Miss Heather.

Please read her full account, but I can’t resist quoting her on the horror centerpiece of the evening:

It was at this point that one of the more terrifying points of this entire meeting (in my opinion) was brought up: bedbugs make good “hitchhikers”, e.g.; they can attach themselves to a person’s clothing and spread. Five different subway stations have turned up positive for bedbugs. Three of them (the ones Mr. Brownbear could recall) are:

1. Fordham Road, Bronx
2. Union Square, Manhattan
3. Hoyt-Schermerhorn, Brooklyn

The latter most were found on a subway bench, which makes sense given it is has been established these little critters like wood.

Lou Sorkin (American Museum of Natural History) and Cesar Soto (Freedom Pest Control) were at the seminar and both spoke to the audience at different points, sharing their knowledge and perspectives on the issues. One of the most gratifying parts of the evening for me was hearing from people how much they appreciated Lou and his incredible generosity to all of us who have suffered an infestation and sought his help.

Greenpoint is lovely. I’m really sorry I had to go there because of bed bugs but very glad to have met so many nice people. Two neighborhood residents I talked to told me they’d already had bed bugs twice. Twice. Once is plenty, I assure you.

It’s time for New York to lose the bed bugs.

We had major technical difficulties during our live interview with David Cain this morning so we won’t post the podcast; instead, here is an edited transcript (in progress) of the interview. I’ll update this as the transcription is completed.

We did, however, shamelessly guilt David into agreeing to another guest appearance in a future talkcast and so we’ll make sure next time to have him seated comfortably in his office and not driving to a job—and we’ll also get him to say ’sshedule’ for you, just for kicks.

NYvsBB: Why bedbugs?

David Cain: Well the introduction of me and bed bugs started about seven years ago. My background is actually in molecular biology. I was a research scientist for years and then moved into the more business-orientated side. I ended up holding the position of business development director for an investment house in London. And one Monday morning went into work, had a disagreement with my boss and decided that I’d find a completely new job to do and purely by accident ended up as a pest controller because a friend needed someone to work…. Because of my background handling toxic substances in labs, I knew most of the safety precautions to start up with. Initially it was supposed to be a part-time stopgap.

I loved meeting people, getting out there, helping people in difficult situations. And because everyone else in the company had worked in pest control for very long periods of time, they thought it was rather amusing to send the person who they perceived that their tax pounds or dollars had paid for my education to go out on all the nasty jobs, and invariably in pest control, one of the worst jobs that you can get given is bed bugs. But back in those days it was an incredible rarity, we were seeing approximately one case per month and then over the next three months, that grew to about a case a week, three months after that we were looking at a case a day and within six months of that I was doing seven to eight cases of bed bugs per day.

NYvsBB: This was in 2001?

David Cain: That was just in one region of London. London is split up into districts or boroughs and it was one of the West London boroughs I was working for. They had a very high turnover of international residents and therefore it was a bit of a hotspot because, as we all are now starting to understand, part of the picture of the spread of bed bugs is that it’s not just happening in the United States, this is being mirrored in the UK, a massive increase in the population, most of the European cities… the same, so people traveling from far afield as Australia and New Zealand are naturally going to encounter the problem as readily as people now are in New York and Canada.

NYvsBB: [What are some of the differences between the UK and the United States in terms of the pest control industries and the actual practice of bed bug eradication?]

David Cain: Well, although I’ve not worked in pest control in the US, from what I’ve seen there is a very different culture in terms of the industry and people’s perception of it. It seems to be much more acknowledged in the US to have a relationship with a pest control firm who maybe come round once a year to inspect your property or they have a relationship with the building you’re in or with the landlord. In the UK there really isn’t what’s considered to be a domestic culture of professional pest control. To be honest, before I became a pest controller, the only people that I knew of that dealt with pest problems was invariably the local authority, the local borough, or the local council. So, as a result, one of the big issues that’s facing the UK industry is there really isn’t an established model or where people would go in and treat on a regular basis, as you would get, for example, with termite pest control in the United States, or cockroaches in New York, etc. People just don’t have a kind of relationship as individuals with a pest control company, and I think that’s been one of the biggest challenges that I’ve seen over the last couple of years is that people just never think this thing’s going to happen to them and I’m quite often the first pest controller they’ve ever met, which is kind of refreshing, because you don’t have all of the hangups associated with a big established industrial sector, but it does create some cultural differences where people aren’t used to having a relationship with a pest control company because this is a problem that they’ve never really seen before.

To be continued…

We need help from New Yorkers interested in helping advocate for change. We need help from New Yorkers who are suffering from bed bugs or who have suffered from bed bugs in the past to write letters to their elected representatives.

And we also need help from those who can volunteer time to our efforts. We would be most grateful for anyone willing to help us with research and community outreach and for the help of anyone with legislative or policy analysis experience.

I understand that everyone wishes to remain anonymous. Your anonymity will be safeguarded. If you feel you have some spare time to contribute to our cause, please get in touch with me at renee at newyorkvsbedbugs dot org

Thanks!

We are very happy to announce that David Cain of Bed Bugs Limited (UK) has generously agreed to be our guest for the very first New York vs. Bed Bugs talkcast.

This will happen next Tuesday, May 6 at 9 a.m.

Feel free to listen in as we record the interview live. Live? Fun!

We are really looking forward to it and hope you will enjoy, especially if you know David from his contributions to the bedbugger forums.

A bed bug seminar is coming to Williamsburg in June:

Wednesday, June 18, 2008
6:00 pm to 8:00 pm
Lindsay Park Building 4 Community Center
31 Leonard Street
Between Moore and Boerum Streets
R.S.V.P. (212) 863-8830

Don’t forget: the next HPD bed bug seminar is in Greenpoint next week!

Let’s recap what we learned this week:

• The New York Department of State has said that it does not intend to publish mattress sanitizing regulations because doing so would constitute an effective ban on reconditioned mattresses.
• The city’s Department of Consumer Affairs believes that poor New Yorkers—those who are least able to afford illness or the costs of eradicating an infestation—should nevertheless be able to buy a reconditioned mattress.

The state will not enforce the law and the city will not ban the sale of reconditioned mattresses—never mind the virtual petri dish of filth and arthropods included at no extra charge.

Have we mentioned lately that the bed bugs are winning?

There are no sanitizing regulations and none are forthcoming. Still, what would they look like? There are 26 states that have reconditioned mattress regulations. How do they sanitize used bedding?

Very laboriously and expensively, apparently. Let’s look at two states in order to get an idea of the regulatory and enforcement challenges.

Nevada

These are the State of Nevada’s approved used bedding (used bedding includes such things as pillows and mattress pads as well as mattresses) sterilization methods:

• washing and boiling for at least 1 hour
• steam pressure for at least 30 minutes
• two streaming steam applications of 1 hour each at 6 hour intervals
• two forms of fumigation: formaldehyde and sulphur in a moist atmosphere and hydrocyanic acid gas

California

The State of California’s Bureau of Home Furnishings and Thermal Insulation (BHFTI) enforces the state’s sanitization law. The BHFTI regulations provide two methods for the sanitization of mattresses.

Dry Heat:

(a) The dry heat method may be used to sanitize mattresses, box springs, or similar items covered in whole by a porous material or fabric.

(b) In sanitizing by the dry heat method a temperature of 230 degrees F. shall be maintained in all parts of an approved chamber for such a period of time as may be necessary for sanitization, which shall in no case be less than one hour and 15 minutes. All chambers shall be equipped with racks or devices and the articles to be sanitized shall be so placed therein so that complete circulation of heat and gases around every article being sanitized shall be attained. All chambers shall be insulated sufficiently to insure maintenance of temperature and shall be tightly sealed to prevent any leakage of gases. A thermostat shall be connected with the heating device to provide and maintain a reasonably uniform temperature at 230 degrees F. + (plus or minus) 5 degrees.

and Chemical Disinfection:

(c) Mattresses, box springs or similar articles covered by a porous material or fabric may be sanitized with the chemical disinfectant, Steri-fab registered with the State of California, Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Pesticide Regulation for use as a disinfectant.

(1) Application of Steri-fab shall be in accordance with the chemical disinfectant manufacturer’s specification in order to provide adequate coverage by thoroughly spraying over all surfaces so that complete disinfection is achieved.

(2) The Steri-fab disinfectant shall be well mixed throughout the application to ensure adequate dispersion of the tracer chemical which can be detected on the mattress cover in the dry state by use of a hand held ultraviolet (black) light under magnification.

Okay, wait, Steri-fab? A state that prescribes dry heat as a sterilization method also accepts spray disinfectants as an alternative?

I mean, this is a mattress oven:

A mattress sterilization oven, image from American Plant & Equipment.

Here is how the manufacturer of Steri-fab put it:

California law required that used/secondhand or renovated bedding be dry-heated in ovens, a sanitization process which takes two or three hours for each mattress, limiting the volume of used bedding that can be disinfected in a day.

Unlike the dry-heat method, the chemical disinfectant permits a tracing method to enforce compliance with the state’s sanitization laws. Steri-fab contains a fluorescent crystal suspension which, when exposed to ultra-violet light, can be seen, thus permitting inspectors to determine whether products have been properly disinfected.

With the alternative method the Bureau hopes that the less-than-honest renovators and businesses dealing in used/secondhand bedding will actually start sanitizing their products, rather than saying they had used the dry-heat process when in fact they had never done so. [Emphasis added.]

Of course, compliance… Using the heat, steam and fumigation methods outlined above must be a very expensive proposition. Steri-fab must therefore appear to be a cost-effective and efficient alternative. And when enforcement resources are limited, as they must be everywhere, a spray disinfectant, especially one with black-light inspection friendly qualities, must seem doubly attractive.

But, if you recall, the mattress dealer featured in the Dateline story had “boxes of Sterifab.”

I’m open to research findings on this matter, and I note that many bed bug sufferers and pest control technicians avail themselves well of Steri-fab and similar products, but it seems to me unlikely that a spray disinfectant is going to be the answer.

What sort of compromises emerge when complex used bedding sanitization regulations are actually put in practice?

In October 2006, when the State of Nevada’s Board of Health considered a variance request to the sterilization methods (link is a PDF of the minutes) from a hotel furniture dealer who wanted to use Steri-fab, the subject of bed bugs came up :

[Environmental Health Supervisor] Ms. Henderson feels that during the sterilization process it would be easy to miss the presence of bedbugs, especially their eggs and larvae. Sterifab is a surface treatment and bedbugs could be a problem inside the mattress and box springs. Sterifab dries in about 15 minutes and when this product is dry, the disinfectant factor is no longer active. Ms. Henderson indicated that it is unknown as to how deep the mattress and box springs are disinfected when using Sterifab.

The dealer cited employee worker safety concerns with the authorized methods and the previous issuance of similar variances. The fact the Steri-fab was approved for use in California was noted by the Board and they accordingly sought guidance from the lab at California’s Bureau of Home Furnishings and Thermal Insulation:

The lab employee clarified for [Environmental Health Specialist] Ms. Sylvas that the process of sterilizing the visibly soiled mattresses could not be determined; and clarified that the mattress’ visible outside fabric is sprayed not saturated with Sterifab, and was unsure of the depth of this treatment on the mattress. The lab employee indicated for Ms. Sylvas that CBHFTI had performed a test on the mattress and box springs disinfectant process using Sterifab and no information regarding the result of the test was currently available.

Just a note about the way everyone references the California regs. The Nevada Board of Health certainly did when ultimately approving the dealer’s variance request (”California has very stringent controls; and California has approved Sterifab as an acceptable product”). The Dateline NBC piece also noted California’s “strict laws and enforcement” with some surprise upon finding that all the mattress samples were contaminated, even the ones from mattresses made in California. Perhaps it’s time to adjust our perception of the California model?

It should be no surprise that New York vs. Bed Bugs supports an outright ban on reconditioned mattresses. We do realize that this is a very complex problem and no one is saying that there is an easy solution. But perhaps we start by seeking to understand the depths of the challenges and by accepting responsibility.

Dateline’s investigative piece today revisited the reconditioned mattress problems in New York City.

In 1996, 19 states had laws in place regulating the sale of reconditioned mattresses. This year that number is up to 26. We started our investigation in New York, where state law requires them to be labeled clearly with yellow tags marked “used materials.” Not disclosing that information is also against federal law.

Reconditioned mattresses begin their journey once they’re thrown out to sidewalks or garbage heaps. At dawn, in many American cities, men with vans come out and cart them off to factories, where we were told they sell for five dollars a piece.

Dateline trailed one of the ‘men with vans’ to a mattress factory in Williamsburg.

And the rest is predictably gross and sad.

The story features well-known entomologist/PMP Rick Cooper, entomologist Jeff White and bed bug dog trainer Pepe Peruyero and his dog Gidget.

There are already two reviews for the Brooklyn reconditioned mattress factory in google from Dateline viewers.

Let’s think about this.

In September 2006, the New York City Council held a hearing on proposed bed bug legislation that would ban the sale of reconditioned mattresses.

At this hearing, Andrew Eiler of the NYC Department of Consumer Affairs explained that manufacturers and sellers of used bedding had to be registered with the Department of State and had to affirm that they sanitized bedding according to standards and regulations; that the NYC Department of Consumer Affairs did not know how many licensed second-hand dealers sold reconditioned mattresses in the city; and that, because the state had never promulgated mattress sanitization standards, second-hand dealers are “supposed to conform to standards that don’t exist.”

Eiler said that the $50 cost-difference between a new and used mattress would be “an unbridgeable gap” for the poor and suggested instead that the Council ask the Department of State to adopt sanitizing rules as provided by law.

In a story about the 2006 hearing, The New York Times asked the Department of State about the missing standards and got this response:

In a telephone interview after the hearing, Eamon Moynihan, a spokesman for the Department of State, confirmed that “there were no standards promulgated.” The reasons why were not entirely clear, he said, but it seems that when employees looked at the 1996 law, they concluded that to enforce the law would have made reconditioned mattresses so expensive as to effectively outlaw them.

Mr. Moynihan said the department had no plan to revisit the issue.

Dateline asked the State Department for an interview and received a statement: the Department now “plans a full investigation.”

As for the NYC Department of Consumer Affairs, their position on reconditioned mattresses remains what it was in 2006. From the Dateline story, Commissioner Jonathan Mintz:

“For a lot of people used mattresses are the right economic choice for them. And you have to be very careful before you take that product away from them.”

How careful, Commissioner? I think hazmat suits are indicated, don’t you?

The next Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) bed bug seminar will be held in Greenpoint.

Tuesday May 6, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.

The Greenpoint Reformed Church
136 Milton Street
Broooklyn, NY 11222
RSVP (HPD): (212) 863-8830

New York vs. Bed Bugs founding members are coming to Greenpoint for good bed bug learnin’, to meet good people like you, and to say thanks to Pastor Ann Kansfield and Miss Heather.

If your community wants to host an HPD bed bug seminar, you should call 311 to start the process rolling. Spread bed bug knowledge in your neighborhood and perhaps you and your family and friends will be spared any closer acquaintance with Sneaky Simes.

Oh, and when we’re in Brooklyn? Perhaps some kind person will explain some of its trippier mysteries to us.

Starting with the Bed Bug Club.

matt semel

Also via mcbrooklyn.