It’s sometimes difficult to make sense of presentations found on the internet. Meaning is often lost in all those bullets in the absence of the speaker.
The report is authored by Allison Taisey and Tom Neltner. It is intended for an audience of “health professionals, housing professionals, and pest management professionals seeking to plan for or respond to a bed bug infestation in multi-family housing. It is not a best management practices document” — this is important to understand I think. Practices are evolving and there is so much that is not known.
The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has published a new bed bug guide, Preventing and Getting Rid of Bed Bugs Safely (PDF), available in English as a printed booklet by calling 311, and in Spanish (PDF) and Chinese (PDF) on the web.
This guide is a part of the Health Department’s Healthy Homes guides. It uses spare and easy-to-follow text and drawings like this one:
Infested with bedbugs - graphic from DOHMH Healthy Homes bed bug guide
Not to understate things but you must realize that this is a vast improvement on the city’s previous bed bug fact sheet.
Here are some key messages that I like in this new publication:
It tells you one of the most important things you should know about bed bugs:
Some people do not react to bed bug bites.
It tells you that bed bugs are not your fault:
If you have bed bugs, you shouldn’t feel ashamed. Anyone can get bed bugs. Notify your landlord and neighbors. The sooner everyone responds, the more successful everyone will be.
It tells you not to use foggers and bombs in the only language that will mean anything to you in your desperate state:
Do not use pesticide bombs or foggers to control pests. They can make conditions worse.
It tells you that your efforts will help but does not lie to you and doesn’t shame you for not being able to get rid of bed bugs solely with a vacuum cleaner (like so many others do):
Cleaning and disinfecting will help to reduce bed bugs and their spread but may not get rid of them totally.
It recommends to landlords that they:
Notify tenants, and inspect all units adjacent to, above and below apartments found to have bed bugs.
If you’ve been around the bed bug block, I know exactly what you are thinking. I do. So here are some suggestions for you.
If you think the guide leaves out important information, or you have specific tips to share, take out a red pen! Call 311 and order a copy of the guide and then annotate it with your best tips and information before you give it to your friend, neighbor, acquaintance down the street. But please do share it. If you know there are bed bug problems in your neighborhood, share this guide with others. Spread the word and be a part of the solution and all that.
Now there is finally a city publication that can serve as a basic guide both to build awareness and to help the newly exposed.
Please share and build upon this effort. We’re all in this together. (Okay, I’ll stop before I tell you how moved I was to see this on the Health Department’s website.)
Please note that this guide, like the HPD bed bug course, was not developed by the Bed Bug Advisory Board. The advisory board is not a task force, remember?
Still, this is such important progress. You have no idea. Or maybe you do, and so I hope you will appreciate what this represents.
Here’s a screenshot of this I-never-thought-I’d-see-it development:
New bed bug guide on the city's Health Department website - February 5, 2010
Below is our letter in support of the Community IPM Program — links added in this online version. Please take a moment to review the appeal (PDF) by Dr. Donald Rutz, director of the NYS IPM Program, and please consider writing a supportive letter to save the program. As always, many thanks…
February 3, 2010
The Honorable Antoine Thompson
Chairman
Senate Environmental Conservation Committee
Legislative Office Building, Room 902
Albany, New York 12247
As a co-founder of New York vs Bed Bugs, a policy advocacy organization in New York City, I have worked closely with an IPM Specialist at the Community Integrated Pest Management Program, Dr. Jody Gangloff-Kaufmann, most recently on the New York City Bed Bug Advisory Board which Dr. Gangloff-Kaufmann chairs.
Bed bugs are rapidly spreading in New York City, as in other North American cities, causing extraordinary physical, psychological and financial distress wherever they appear; and severely straining the budgets and resources of families, property owners, social and health services providers, business owners and government agencies.
Current bed bug control methods and practices are variously difficult, ineffective and, crucially, unaffordable. There are no programs or resources available to the majority of New York residents who are affected by bed bug infestations. It is particularly troubling that the most vulnerable populations are at higher risk for suffering entrenched bed bug infestations.
In a period of deepening economic austerity, the prospects for bed bug control in New York City are realistically bleak. In this challenging landscape, therefore, the work of the Community Integrated Pest Management Program at Cornell University is vital. The Community Integrated Pest Management Program at Cornell University has worked to develop and deliver educational resources to combat bed bug infestations in New York City and New York State. In 2008 it produced Guidelines for Prevention and Management of Bed Bugs in Shelters and Group Living Facilities, a publication that has had a significant impact far beyond its intended audience, becoming an extremely valuable resource for all affected New Yorkers. The Program has a comprehensive website about bed bugs and delivers bed bug management education and advice through various channels, including innovative tools such as informational wallet cards [PDF] targeting the needs of travelers and college students. This combination of attention to an emergent public health pest problem and concerted effort at producing useful guidance and educational materials, especially for underserved populations, is a critical response that is singular in the state, with no other organizations taking on this task.
I urge you to restore the Community Integrated Pest Management Program at Cornell University to its historic funding level of $400,000. Please take steps to preserve one of the few pest management education resources available to New York residents at a time when they are ill-equipped to cope with an unprecedented resurgence of bed bug infestations.
Pest treatment specifications for bed bugs are in appendix B-4.
Please note that the PDF has a wayward dot—you may need to rename the file (add a .pdf extension) in order to open it.
See also previously: Bed bug treatment specs from ONPHA. (The ONPHA specs are substantially the same but the warranty is specific to bed bugs and other details have been elaborated upon. Highly recommend that you check them out.)
Please heed the caution advice about dry ice. It is probably unlikely that a professional pest manager will use a dry ice trap in your home, for liability reasons, but you now have several options to consider if, like so many, you are on your own when it comes to inspecting for bed bugs in your home:
There are some inherent safety risks that are associated with dry ice, and it is always advisable to contract the services of a pest management professional that uses devices that have been designed and tested to monitor and detect bed bugs. However, the dry ice trap, when designed and used correctly, offers an effective method for individuals that cannot afford professional pest management services.
It is impossible to overstate how important it is for affordable solutions to be developed and shared with the public. I am so grateful for Dr. Wang’s and his colleagues’ efforts.
The fact sheet has a brief comparative discussion of other bed bug monitoring solutions. Solutions need to be fitted to the circumstances. On the very effective passive monitor, Climbup Insect Interceptor, for example:
Interceptors are not intended for use in vacant rooms and cannot be used when furniture legs are absent or the furniture legs do not fit into the interceptor. Interceptors need to be placed for at least a week or longer to detect bed bugs at very low numbers.
The vacant room problem is an interesting one. I hope we will see more knowledge develop in this area.
The Ontario Non-Profit Housing Association has posted bed bug management specifications which were developed in collaboration with hsi solutions. This is a great communication and education tool for their residents and property managers — but there’s also generosity at play here for the rest of us who can now read this example of clearly thought-out bed bug treatment contract specifications.
The warranty for unit treatment, planned or demand, shall be three (3) months from the service date. The warranty is also dependent on specific factors that may compromise the service effectiveness, such as adjacent infestations and other factors such as extremely heavy infestation, or conditions requiring further services. Unless such factors are identified by the Pest Control Service Provider (PCSP) to the Housing Provider before or at the time of treatment, the warranty shall be in force for the period noted.
From the expected service levels:
Adjacent Unit Inspections
Units immediately adjacent to the treated unit on the same floor shall be inspected at the same time as the treatment of the unit is undertaken. This will require preparation and advance notice to the tenant by the Housing Provider.
I think there are IPM contract recommendations out there but I have not seen one specific to bed bugs, so I hope this is helpful for those of you who are considering your own RFQs or negotiating contracts.
ONPHA also has a bed bug list-serv for their member property managers. Very cool.
A National Research Council report (70) on strategies and tactics for pesticide resistance management described insecticide susceptibility as a resource….
Pest-control actions can resemble the depletion of any “commons.” Here the commonly held resource is the susceptibility of pests to available pesticides. Individuals acting independently can deplete this resource to the detriment of all, while the benefits of conserving susceptibility may or may not exceed the cost for any individual. Thus, reliance on individual users’ decisions may harm all users.
Both [Bed Bugs and Beyond president Michael] Batenburg and [Global Pest Control general manager Kery] Bruzzo agree that the public and many pest control professionals are simply not aware about fumigation as a bed bug option.
I’ve heard this before but I’m not sure how true it is. More like, aware but priced out?
As for the case in question, Global was the fourth company on the job:
“We were the fourth pest control company they had hired. For almost a year we tried to take care of it with traditional tools — inspection, vacuuming, steam treatments and crack-and-crevice insecticide treatments. We would drill and treat in walls but could not get control because there were areas we could not reach with insecticides, or the bed bugs would simply move away from the treated areas. The problem was that one of the owners had tried a do-it-yourself approach for too long before calling in a professional, and the bed bug population just took over the structure.”
I also want to highlight Bed Bugs and Beyond’s thoughts on containerized fumigation for move-ins:
Batenburg says fumigation will get a building or a person’s contents to a baseline of zero for bed bugs, but because fumigation offers no residual the goal then becomes prevent re-infestation. The important role of fumigation to combat bed bugs has a proven history. Years ago, hotels and other multifamily buildings would make it a part of the tenant’s contract to have their belongings fumigated before moving in. So, following a fumigation Bed Bugs and Beyond outlines steps to take to help prevent re-infestation.
While this is true as far as history, what of the apartment structure itself? Only once have I heard this seriously proposed as a policy solution.
Is it just me or does it seem like they moved everything around at PCT for no reason? Confused.
We believe strongly that the insect should not be allowed to crawl over children while they are sleeping. We took the position two years ago that (bedbugs) are a public health crisis. — Chris Eddy, Environmental Health Director, Hamilton County, Ohio, 2007
