New York vs Bed Bugs

New: There is a new bill in the New York State Assembly, A10081, that would provide a tax credit of up to $750 for the replacement of personal property lost to a bed bug infestation. The sponsor is Assembly Member Linda B. Rosenthal (67th District).

New York vs Bed Bugs was started by a small group of New Yorkers who were bed bug sufferers or former sufferers. We had a simple goal: we wanted our city to achieve control of the spread of bed bug infestations. In March 2008, we started a campaign for a bed bug task force. In February 2009, the New York City Council held a hearing on various legislation proposals, including the original bed bug task force bill (PDF) sponsored by Council Member Gale Brewer in 2006.

Thanks to Council Member Brewer’s sustained efforts over the past several years, the New York City Bed Bug Advisory Board was convened. Please see the local law (PDF) which created the board and the Mayor’s March 2009 statement upon signing the legislation. A report is expected in April 2010.

The impetus for this project was the belief that New York City could act to protect its citizens—and its businesses—from the health effects, productivity drain, and staggering financial consequences of bed bug infestations. We advocated a city-wide bed bug control plan and we believed that bed bug control policies can be modeled on the plans and strategies in development or already adopted in other cities. Our efforts ended in March 2010.

Using the site

Your first stop and best bet should be the resources page. We collected various policy documents, regulations, best practice resources and many useful links (including NYC landlord/tenant resources and links)—we were always searching for emerging policies and strategies to highlight.

There is a selected site index and a category and date archive. The purpose of the blog was to engage in a public conversation about the issues and challenges: to highlight the public health interest, bed bug research, the history of bed bugs, the available statistics, and the strategy roadmaps in other cities.

For example:

Note: if the site search does not work well for your search, you may want to try instead, in your search engine of choice, site:newyorkvsbedbugs.org cimex — replacing “cimex” with whatever you are looking for.

Comments on this entry are closed.