Sooner or later the conversation must turn to money.
We don’t have money to spend on bed bugs. And bed bugs cost a great deal of money. Logic will out: a deterioration in the quality of life in our cities as bed bugs become endemic.
But come on, Cincinnati!
Don’t you realize citizens and city alike will have much worse financial problems if in 2009, you see a rise in bed bug cases?
And finally, we need to find a way to determine and calculate real dollars, real costs to businesses and organizations and public agencies, and we need to get those numbers into the hands of decision-makers.
But that’s just it. The exorbitant sums that are being wasted on bed bugs are not yet fully appreciated.
The question is, if appreciated, would it make a difference? In the current climate (a billion this, a billion that, every day in the papers)?
In any case, it sounds like a good research project.
These pages may be of related interest:
Renee, it sounds like a GREAT research project! I wonder how we can get people to try to calculate and then talk about how much money they’ve spent on trying to get rid of bed bugs (and deal with them during the long, long process)?
I’d like to hear from homeowners, and tenants in multi-unit dwellings, and landlords/property managers who maintain multi-unit dwellings, and public agencies, and businesses like hotels and motels and owners of commercial properties– like the ones that house the Marie Claire offices.
How do we accomplish this? Any ideas? Anyone?
We can set up a survey, make it anonymous, and just use one so we can share the information, have a question about which city they’re in. An online survey is the only thing within our means. I think.