Do You Have Bed Bugs
When people think about blood sucking insects, they first picture a mosquito or tick. Did you know bed bugs are also blood suckers. The tiny, sneaky insects are spreading so rapidly across the United States that almost no region or area is unbitten, a new survey suggests. The United States has seen a 50-fold increase in bed bug infestations over the last five years, according to the National Pest Management Association. An entomologist told MSNBC, “It’s like the return of the wooly mammoth,” as many of his peers had previously never seen a single bed bug in their careers. The outbreak has affected most parts of North America and Europe, especially in urban areas. Most cities have bed bug problems today,” says Michael F. Potter, University of Kentucky professor of entomology and one of the co-authors of the study. “Any place you have a lot of people, or a lot of movement of people, you have bed bugs.
The unpleasantness of a typical rodent or insect extermination is largely the fee charged by the exterminator. But with bed bugs, this fee is just one piece of a greater nightmare. Because bed bugs are adept at hiding almost anywhere, an alarming quantity of possessions, from curtains to books and picture frames, must be discarded or quarantined. In one posh New York City rental tower, a tenant was forced to part with carpets, bedding, curtains, 20 cashmere sweaters, an Armani suit, a couch, a headboard, a night table, a bedframe, and an exercise bike, according to the New York Daily News. Other victims have had to throw away their books unless they were willing to inspect each one, page by page. Some possessions may be salvaged if they are sealed in special casing long enough for the bed bugs to die, which can takes many months. During this time, residents may be forced to move to temporary housing elsewhere. “There are still an amazing number of people that think bed bugs are some kind of folklore,” he says. “Or, if they do know about them, they think it’s due to poor hygiene, or it’s a problem that only affects the lower classes.”
Fortunately, the health dangers posed by bed bugs seem to be limited to temporary skin irritation and inflammation, akin to mosquito bites. There are no known cases of disease transmission from bed bugs to humans, despite the fact that the parasites seem similar to other parasites that do transmit disease, such as fleas and ticks. Anaphylactic shock, however, may be experienced by a small percentage of the population, and measures should be taken to prevent bacterial infection of bitten areas.
Hidden, until it’s too late
From there the stealthy bugs took hold and spread. Bed bugs don’t live on people, but they can hitchhike around in suitcases, purses, backpacks and computer bags. Because they hide during the day and feed on you painlessly while you sleep, they are very difficult to detect.
In addition, it takes about a week before an allergic reaction to the bites appears, so it can be hard to know exactly where the encounter took place. Roughly 30 percent of people living with infestations don’t develop an allergic reaction until being attacked multiple times, researcher Potter says. And since people simply aren’t expecting them outside urban areas, it can take while to identify bedbugs as the cause.
That gives the pesky insects a three- to four-month head start on any efforts to control them, a significant lead for critters who lay lots of eggs and whose eggs hatch in about two weeks.
Getting rid of bed bugs is difficult even for professionals, who rate them far more difficult to deal with than ants, termites or cockroaches. Effective treatments are available, but they’re expensive and time-consuming. A thorough inspection to detect bedbugs can involve specially trained dogs, followed by an application of pesticide and then a heat or cold treatment to kill eggs, which no chemical can currently do. The cost can be anywhere from $800 to $1,200 or more for a one-bedroom apartment, a steep price tag in the midst of a tough economy.
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