Ray Lopez, Jody Gangloff-Kaufmann and Paul Wenning are interviewed in this article at Miller-McCune magazine about our bed bug problem: A Wake-Up Call on Bedbugs.
I am personally grateful for this careful reporting:
In New York, confirmed violations — likely a fraction of the whole picture — shot from 82 in 2004 to more than 4,000 last year.
There are no reliable statistics.
HPD’s bed bug violations are not the true scope of the problem in NYC, and neither are tenant complaints about bed bugs lodged with HPD. This late in the game, people do not understand this simple, and rather obvious by now, concept. A disclaimer about these statistics has to accompany every mention of them.
Reporter Nick Kusnetz got this out of EPA on an interagency task force (CDC, HUD, etc.) formed as a result of the April summit:
“The task force will help us coordinate our messages, research, and other efforts on bed bug control on a federal level,” the spokesperson wrote. They are working on a Web page that will provide information to the public, but there is no release date yet.
Let’s hope the planned web page is only an outward sign and that we can see the results of more substantive work happening behind the scenes. What else but hope.
These pages may be of related interest:
- Extraordinary (breaking) news: an EPA bed bug conference in Washington on April 14
- EPA’s National Bed Bug Summit April 14-15: announcement and conference details
- Stop Bedbugs DC: a bed bug summit to start the dialogue to end the bed bugs
- Bed bugs make the home page of the NYC Department of Health
- Psst, CBS: there is no bed bug task force
