Exterminators said there is not bed bug repellant, and that the best thing people can do is know what one looks like. If in a public area, people should make sure to check the bugs are not around.
This is where the concept of bed bug prevention and “precautionary measures” breaks down. Public transportation, movie theaters, what can you reasonably do to prevent bed bugs in such places? Inspect regularly and educate the community. Of course, but is that enough?
And yet, this advice, the title of this post, is solid. If it’s all you can do, may as well do it like you mean it. I’m partial to the ID photos and tools in the NYS IPM/Cornell Guidelines, and also the out-of-this-world bed bug life cycle diagram in Dr. Anderson’s presentation (PDF) — there are many others and everyone should have no problem teaching others about what bed bugs look like. (People often want to see photos to scale, but they are seldom helpful, and maybe we should encourage public health departments to make available bed-bugs-on-a-stick with all life stages.)
Marc Lame of Indiana University thinks that bed bugs will finally move his university to adopt integrated pest management (IPM). His remarks at a monthly ‘Green Drinks’ gathering in Bloomington are quoted in this Indiana Daily Student story:
“I’m working on it, but there hasn’t been much response so far,” he said. “I’m pushing on these guys to do it, but it’ll be the bedbugs that will do it. There is nothing like a bedbug infestation to push people into action.”
Marc Lame is an IPM-in-schools expert, an IPM expert at Indiana University, and yet apparently IPM adoption has been slow there.
The Indiana Daily Student reporter takes a stab at an IPM definition that is familiar:
Integrated pest management involves taking precautionary measures to ensure that bugs do not become a problem in the first place, thus eliminating the need for pesticides.
Dr. Lame is also quoted on a kind of framework for viewing pesticides in society that, again, is very familiar to us:
“You have all been exposed to pesticides,” Lame said. “The EPA regulates them so you think it’s safe, but 20 years later they say ‘oops’ because those pesticides were actually harmful.”
Pesticides bad, IPM good.
Moreover, IPM eliminates the need for pesticides.
Got it.
“Once these systems are in place”
The idea that bed bugs will spur changes in the way we manage pests is something that should be examined. We’ve heard it before from various sources, not so long ago, for example, from Dr. George Rotramel who told us that:
The good news is our bed bug problem is forcing us to go from ‘spray and pray’ to integrated pest management (IPM) whether we want to or not. We can’t control the bugs unless we coordinate (integrate) the activities and functions of all of the people involved. Once these systems are in place and habits are learned they can be extended to include problems with roaches, ants, mice, and our other urban pests.
Eliminating the need for pesticides is not mentioned here and I haven’t asked Dr. Rotramel to elaborate. (I suspect he would roll his eyes and tell me I need to focus on other things if I did.)
Dr. Lame and Dr. Rotramel appear not to be talking about the same thing, and yet let’s assume for the sake of argument that their views are complementary and each would largely agree with the other about IPM. In other words, let’s allow for complexity and let’s presume a deep appreciation of the facts and the challenges. These people think about pests for a living.
Because I’m not a professional, not in the industry, not particularly afraid of asking stupid questions, I’ll ask: can you kill bed bugs with IPM?
And I, of course, mean everyone’s bed bugs.
I guess we’ll find out.
I do know this, the last time society used bed bugs as a vehicle for change, we made some rather spectacular mistakes, the effects of which are still messing with your head today. More on that soon.
I hope you are checking the website of the Central Ohio Bed Bug Task Force every now and then. If you live in a place, like we do, where there’s nothing like it, you can borrow and learn from them.
I just mentioned this document in a comment to someone, a NYC health services worker looking for guidance, and I want to share with the rest of you out there in similar circumstances, the Central Ohio Bed Bug Task Force’s Guidelines for Reducing the Risk of Transporting Bed Bugs (PDF), a guide for health care and social service workers making home visits.
People travel around in cars in Ohio. No matter, big city social and health care workers can adapt these recommendations.
You can find additional best practice resources on our resources page.
This is sad. Take a look at the residents of the Cole Manor Apartments in Springfield, Ohio (Clark County) walking out of an educational meeting set up by health department officials in this August 19 story from WDTN Channel 2:
What is going on here? The health department is trying to help—how I wish our own health department visited public housing buildings in the city to deliver bed bug education—and something has gone wrong. I see fear and distrust.
But, well, look at how this story has been framed.
I hope you see what I see. I feel sorry for the health officials in Clark County, but the people of Clark County are not served by these stories, because they stigmatize people with bed bugs. Who is going to talk about bed bugs in rational, constructive ways in Clark County when they see this on their local news?
And if you think bed bugs are only found in multi-unit buildings, or in public housing complexes, in large cities, I strongly recommend that you think again, because bed bugs are prevalent in the suburbs and in small towns, but you will never, ever see anyone passing on photographs of such infestations to reporters.
It occurs to me, wherever you live, if you are struggling to make someone, anyone, a city agency perhaps, understand what bed bugs are all about, this could be a good tool. Our beloved Lou and Dr. Jones and Dr. Potter, together, describe the essential features of the problem and their mini op-eds are authoritative and accessible. Really, I recommend you use them.
I have such a big smile on my face right now. Maybe we have a chance against some of the willful cluelessness about bed bugs. Maybe people will start to talk about bed bugs in productive ways. Maybe it’s not so dark and hopeless.
UPDATE 8/24/09:
So? What do you think?
Here are some of my favorite bits:
Michael Potter:
And finally, we may need the Environmental Protection Agency and state regulatory groups to allow emergency use of certain older insecticides and, more important, we need to encourage chemical companies to invest in research and development of new insecticides.
Susan Jones:
Bedbug control is expensive and time-consuming, and with the current recession, many people lack the financial resources to hire an experienced professional. Do-it-yourself insecticide sprays tend to work on contact and, therefore, seldom provide control of bedbugs since the insects hide in many inaccessible locations. Bedbugs also have developed resistance to many commonly available pesticides.
Unfortunately, many public health officials have failed to recognize or to address, in a timely manner, the significance of bedbugs as a public health threat. That’s a huge problem.
Lou Sorkin:
Extensive infestations of bedbugs in homes, especially city dwellings like apartments, condos and co-ops, can easily spread throughout an entire building, especially when infested apartments are treated in isolation. That’s why it’s crucial for people and government agencies to understand the issues and work together.
What about you?
I’ve also been reading the comments and they are really interesting! I’m a sucker for 40s army anecdotes. And I like the directness of this guy or gal who tells the NYT to:
Stop teasing with these little stories on this and that and just publish a BIG FAT article on this. We need a giant picture of a bedbug on the Magazine in order to have everyone–most importantly, those in charge fo NYC govt–finally come up with an awareness and action plan [...] All of you in the newsroom know how bad it’s getting, DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.
From your keyboard to influential city ears, Afflicted.
Another commenter, Hermione, is experiencing bed bugs for the 4th time. I have no words! But she has no problem telling us what’s what:
Everyone needs to bring these issues to the attention of law makers and health advocates. Anyone who thinks it’s not important enough will have another thought coming when their lives are turned upside-down, along with their home and all their belongings. When friends won’t come over, when you aren’t welcome in their homes, when your co-workers eye you with alert panic, and when you are covered in red welts without a way to keep it from happening again (and again, and again) maybe you will see.
“Most residential buildings in New York City have had bedbugs”
“Buying and Selling in Bedbug City,” describes the bed bug problem in co-ops and condos as pervasive and hidden:
The problem is so pervasive that some lawyers have begun incorporating sellers’ representations about bedbugs into sales contracts, adding to now-standard ones about leaks, mold and noise issues.
and
“Most residential buildings in New York City have had bedbugs,” said Aaron Shmulewitz, a real estate lawyer at Belkin Burden Wenig & Goldman who represents 300 Manhattan co-op and condo boards.
and
“We tried to find out which units had the bedbugs, but the co-op would not tell us,” said another would-be buyer who also asked to remain anonymous to avoid trouble with a future board.
Two units among 200 is one thing, but 30 percent is the threshold at which pest management companies often start treating the entire building as “sick.”
and
Similarly, it’s ominous if the infestation has spread beyond the early-stage clover-leaf cluster — the targeted apartment and the three or four next to it, above it and below it.
and
“It becomes a sick building,” says Dov Treiman, a real estate lawyer at Adam Leitman Bailey. “I have seen it take three to four years to cure a bedbug problem.”
While there is often a significant difference in the bed bug fighting resources of NYC renters and co-op and condo owners, for the bed bug itself it’s all the same—actually, that may be an oversimplification given the likely higher risk of spread in buildings that are poorly sealed or in disrepair, but the larger point is that bed bugs make themselves at home anywhere.
Moreover, whatever financial advantages co-ops and condos may be expected to have in a fight against the most expensive pest in the city, they are offset by built-in disincentives that inhibit reporting of infestations to building management and hinder the kind of coordinated bed bug treatments—systematically taking into account adjoining units—that are necessary to eradicate infestations.
So there is a substantial bed bug problem in co-ops and condos like we knew all along. We’ve been saying forever that the HPD stats are not the stats—although we insist that they must be publicly available and we want them to be monitored and analyzed—and that the real infestation rate in our city is unknown.
Unknown but probably high. I think we need to come to terms with this. I used to think the rate might be around 5% city-wide. Now that seems hopelessly optimistic. The quotes I’ve highlighted above remind me of this:
It is estimated that in many areas practically all the houses are to a greater or less degree infested with Bed-bugs.
The past is the future. Or may be closer than we think. Consider all the stories you are hearing about bed bugs in workplaces. Doesn’t that strike you as odd? I’ve been wondering about that.
