Comments on: In it for the Money: Bed Bugs!

By: doug

doug — Fri, 24 Jan 2014 23:06:25 +0000

and then there’s:

http://www.bedbugregistry.com/

By: Nobugs

Nobugs — Fri, 24 Jan 2014 18:42:06 +0000

One other note: yes, there are far more complaints to NYC than are confirmed as violations by NYC. However, as a New Yorker, I can tell you that most tenants in NYC don’t call the city to report their bed bugs. They call their landlords– and most landlords will respond by calling a pest management professional. Only when landlords don’t respond in accordance with housing laws, or when their attempts are woefully inadequate, so tenants call the city. Why?

Because reporting the landlord can really piss him/her off and most NYC tenants believe that doing so may land them on a blacklist or otherwise affect them when their next landlord runs a background check. In a city with few vacant apartments, people really worry about this.

Over the years, thousands and thousands of NYC tenants have posted in detail about the stories surrounding their bed bug issues on my forums. A handful have reported calling the city. Most don’t.

And as for New Yorkers who own a house or apartment? They would never call and report their homes as infested. Nor would their condo/coop management.

So while a small percentage of bed bug complaints reported to the city by tenants are confirmed to be bed bug violations, you can multiply that number by all the people who don’t report the problem, which I guarantee is far, far higher.

By: Nobugs

Nobugs — Fri, 24 Jan 2014 18:29:50 +0000

Thanks for your article. You’re absolutely right about the irrational ways people tend to react to bed bugs.

I run a bed bug website (since 2006) and calming people down is the first order of business on our active forums, before asking people to post a photo for confirmation. So many cases are false alarms (wrong ID) and even those who have bed bugs often do all the wrong things before they calm down and approach things in a rational way, often over and misapplying pesticides. That can have negative effects ranging from health issues to making bed bug problems worse by spreading them.

Note that pests develop what’s called insecticide resistance to pesticides. Bed bugs began showing pesticide resistance to DDT in 1948, so even if it weren’t an environmental issue, it is unlikely this chemical would prove as effective today as it was for earlier generations.

A BBC story on the use of DDT to kill malarial Mosquitos in Africa described bed bugs crawling all over the walls after treatment knocked out the Mosquitos.

By: Vivienne Armentrout

Vivienne Armentrout — Fri, 24 Jan 2014 17:08:33 +0000

The DeLonis shelter solicits donations of new clothing articles but recommends that used clothing or linens be given to a thrift shop (names some) where procedures are in place to prevent passing along bedbugs.

I knew someone who had to leave her senior apartment because of a bedbug infestation. She also had to dispose of most of her belongings. The bugs caused her serious discomfort and loss of sleep.