We updated bed bug statistics through FY 2010 (PDF), data courtesy of the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD), and for the first time added a table of 311 directory assistance calls. This table is based on data available from the Department of Information Technology & Telecommunications (DOITT).1
There are a number of misconceptions about the available statistics in New York City, and this is the reason for this update.
First, unless otherwise noted, these are fiscal year numbers. NYC’s fiscal year runs from July 1 to June 30. Therefore, a phrase such as “so far this year there are” in a press report is meaningless unless contextualized.
There are no mechanisms to collect infestations data from businesses, theatres, and commercial buildings.
There are several NYC agencies that maintain (collect may be too strong a word for some of them) bed bug data. Just as an example, NYC has two housing agencies (a fact that escapes some writers), HPD and NYCHA (the New York City Housing Authority), and each maintains its own data.
The statistics obtained from HPD for FY 2009 and FY 2010 do not contain inspections completed data and NYCHA statistics are not included in this update.2
We do not have statistics from the Department of Education (DOE).3 Similarly, the New York City Council, HRA, etc.
One has to be careful of the following: reports do not equal complaints do not equal inspections do not equal violations. NYCHA residents call a centralized service line or 311 to request pest control services (and have a very hard time of it). Private residential tenants call 311 to lodge complaints against their landlords. For the last year that we have inspections completed data, FY 2008, there were 9,213 HPD complaints received but only 5,190 HPD inspections. And now we can see that in that same year there were 12,941 calls to 311 tagged as “bed bug complaint – residence.”
Some co-op residents end up calling 311.4 However, we don’t know how many co-op residents are availing themselves of HPD complaints to compel their boards to act.
The final misconception I have given up on, and that is the idea that HPD stats somehow accurately represent the distribution of bed bugs in the city. So you will see references to so many bed bugs in X neighborhood but almost no bed bugs in Y neighborhood. But I can’t bring myself to explain all the reasons why this is flawed again. Just think about what an adversarial landlord-tenant complaint/violation system is like and the types of buildings and the disposition of landlords that are likely to feature in such a system.
The good news, if you do want to go down that path, is that there was a 37.6% decline in complaints in Queens Community District 3 (East Elmhurst, Jackson Heights, North Corona) in FY 2010.
Too bad, then, that there was a 48.2% rise in Brooklyn CD 3 (Bedford-Stuyvesant, Stuyvesant Heights, Tompkins Park North).
Instructions to find your community district are in the udpate: NYC Bed Bug Statistics Fiscal Year 2010 Update (PDF).
I hope this is useful.
Best wishes.
More interesting (summer) fun with bed bug stats here and here. Also interesting and surprisingly fun is the interactive online course about bed bug management developed by HPD.
- Specifically: June 2008 (PDF), June 2009 (PDF), and June 2010 (PDF) directory assistance reports. [↩]
- For HPD inspections data through FY 2008 and for NYCHA statistics, both obtained under FOIL, please see Bed Bugs in New York City: A Citizen’s Guide to the Problem (February, 2009 – PDF). [↩]
- DOE bed bug statistics, like most NYC agency bed bug statistics, are not available to the public. However, in the 2009 WoodGreen report, Bed Bugs are Back: Are We Ready?, a figure of 300 bed bug complaints in NYC schools in 2007 is cited. [↩]
- Please note that a recent Q&A in The Cooperator described an HPD memorandum in which HPD “requires cooperatives to assume the responsibility for eliminating bedbug infestations.” [↩]
These pages may be of related interest:
Pingback: Is Mayor Bloomberg finally going to appoint a Bed Bug Czar? — Got bed bugs? Bedbugger.com