The New Yorker’s Book Bench wonders about bed bugs in books.
Lou Sorkin’s answer:
“Bedbugs will be wherever they fit,” he said. “I’ve found them on wood, metal, plastic surfaces, electronics, electric clocks, laptops, cell phones, stereos, clothing, bathroom tile, grout, cracks in wooden floors, inside chandelier bases, seams of shoes, soles of shoes, etc. People have used vacuuming, freezing, Vikane fumigation, No-Pest Strips, and heat for book treatments.”
Grout? I thought bed bugs hated moisture and damp.1 I suppose if there is a cardinal rule… never put anything past them.
Actually, there’s an early NYC (and books) bed bug story—from perhaps the middle mark of our present troubles—in a Talk of the Town. Maybe you’ll appreciate the sanguine hope of a New York City PMP in 2005:
This summer, we’re going to hit a plateau.
From Night Visitors, The New Yorker, April 4, 2005.
Lou has new photos up if you are in need of a wherever visual aid.
- Here is archaeologist Paul Buckland talking briefly about the absence of bed bugs in peat-fired houses. I had to look up peat too. [↩]
These pages may be of related interest:
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