New Yorkers Can't Flee City's Bed Bugs – Even in the Hamptons
THE INDEPENDENT: It used to be the exploding population of rats in New York City that gave everyone the creeps, but today it's a different urban infestation that is gripping the imaginations – not to say sucking the blood – of its residents. The city does sleep occasionally, which is when the bed bugs come out to play – lots and lots of them.

Not so long ago, bed bugs barely registered on the radars of the pest control specialists in Manhattan. Across America, in fact, the squishy critters had all but disappeared thanks to the pesticide DDT. But since that chemical cocktail was banned the bugs have been making a spectacular comeback.

It is raining bed bugs in New York – they can fall kamikaze–style from ceilings on to sleeping victims. This week, part of an emergency room was briefly shut down in Brooklyn after one bug was discovered by nurses. The week before, the preppy clothing chain Abercrombie & Fitch was forced to temporarily shutter two of its Manhattan outlets to combat infestations.

Exploded suddenly then is the myth that bed bugs reside only in seedy hotels and crummier postcodes. No, they are "equal opportunity" bugs, according to New York magazine which reported this week that the infestation had reached The Hamptons. The filmmaker Joel Roodman and his wife, Jill Taft, were "shocked and horrified" to discover their $18,000 (£12,000) holiday rental in East Hampton, was "crawling". Ms Taft (a former model) sought treatment in hospital such was the extent of the bites on her face.

Exterminators report being called more and more frequently to commercial spaces. "We've had them in banks, grocery stores, movie theatres, judges' chambers, schools, dentists' offices – everywhere," said Jeff Eisenberg of PestAway, an exterminating company in the city. And we haven't mentioned hotels. Continue reading and comment >>> David Usborne in New York | Wednesday, July 14, 2010

TIMES ONLINE: A Bedbug Epidemic Bites New York >>> Tim Teeman | Monday, May 31, 2010

Google Building Infested by Bed Bugs
THE GUARDIAN: The internet giant's New York headquarters have fallen prey to a city-wide outbreak of bed bugs

They are reddish-brown, smaller than an apple seed, have a taste for human blood and when they bite they itch like hell. And now the onward march of the common bedbug has extended into cyberspace.

The search engine giant Google confirmed today that its 9th Avenue offices in Manhattan have been infested with the bugs. Parts of the headquarters, a futuristic space renowned for having a Lego room and scooters for staff to move around, have been found to be harbouring the parasites, prompting the wags at Gawker media group to wonder whether its possible for them to spread via the internet.

Google is the latest victim of an epidemic that has been rampaging through New York over the summer and has the city that normally prides itself on its permanent state of cool in a veritable panic: the blood suckers have wreaked havoc everywhere from the Empire State building to hospital wards, the prosecutor's office in Brooklyn and Time Warner's Manhattan headquarters. >>> Ed Pilkington in New York | Friday, September 03, 2010

Related material here and here

A Bedbug Epidemic Bites New York
TIMES ONLINE: An epidemic of bedbugs in the Big Apple has brought panic, revulsion and a nasty little rash to rich and poor alike. Can the city cope

Photograph: Times Online
At first May thought that her husband had heat rash. “We were staying at a smart hotel in Cape Cod. Then I developed these hive-like welts on my back and legs.” May (not her real name; she is terrified of giving me that) is middle class, in her late fifties and lives on the Upper West Side, New York, in a well-maintained four-room apartment. When she and her husband returned to the city, one doctor prescribed antihistamines, surmising the couple had reacted to shellfish. She called a dermatologist. “He took one look and said, ‘You both have bedbug bites’. My husband turned our mattress over and we saw them. That’s when — no joke, no exaggeration, however ridiculous it may sound — our nightmare began.”

The infestation would last five months and cost May and her husband $15,000 (£10,200) to treat.

The cockroach has scuttled in retreat. Bedbugs have become New York, indeed America’s, latest bug noire. These tiny, yellowish creatures (which grow to 4-5mm long), fiendishly difficult to eradicate and understand, have become an obsession for landlords, renters, pest-control experts and scientists. Why do they feed so hungrily on human blood? Why have they proliferated? Why are they so hardy? How can you eradicate them?

“Don’t let the bedbugs bite” now has a particularly hollow ring to it: we are almost powerless to stop them. There has been a 71 per cent increase in bedbug infestations since 2001, according to the US National Pest Management Association. In 2004, there were a reported 537 complaints and 82 “violations” (verified infestations) for bedbugs in New York; in 2009, there were 10,985 complaints and 4,084 verified infestations. “That’s just the reported cases,” says Jeremy Ecker, of Bed Bug Inspectors, a firm that uses two specially trained dogs to sniff out the bugs in apartments before advising occupants and pest exterminators on the best action. “The problem is everywhere, it’s growing and it’s mostly invisible because of people’s embarrassment. People are too ashamed to say anything. If they admit to having bedbugs they’re frightened of losing their apartment, of being asked not to go into work, of getting rid of their possessions. We see people in extreme distress.” >>> Tim Teeman | Monday, May 31, 2010

The Bedbug Registry >>>

Bill de Blasio: Kids Have Lice, Bed Bugs, and Chickenpox

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio says he met with workers at a foster care center in New York, where 239 migrant children who were separated from their families are experiencing mental and physical health issues.

Bed Bugs vs. NYC: The Battle Is On
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: The city that never sleeps? Tell that to New York's bedbugs. The tiny blood suckers specialize in feeding off sleeping bodies and this summer in the Big Apple they're enjoying the pickings of their lives, specialists say.



Related articles here and here