NEW YORK – Legions of tiny bloodsucking bugs are biting their way through the Big Apple, but they’re not just rearing their rust-colored heads in New York City. Experts say they’re spreading to other states and countries. Exterminators who handled one or two bedbug calls a year are now getting that many in a week, according to the National Pest Management Association.
“There’s an epidemic going on throughout the country, and New York seems to be the hotbed,” said Jeffrey Eisenberg, a pest control expert.
Bedbugs are turning up in hospitals, schools, movie theaters, health clubs. Recent reports put them in a New Jersey college dorm and a Los Angeles hotel – where one guest filed a $5 million lawsuit. Apartment tenants have taken landlords to court over infestations.
The current generation of exterminators has been caught unaware by these pests, which were all but forgotten for decades. They blame the comeback on several factors, primarily increased global travel and the banning of potent pesticides such as DDT.
“We feel like we’re starting from scratch,” said Eisenberg, who returned this weekend from a conference where bedbugs were a top priority. “The only thing we know is that we don’t know anything.”
The tiny vermin avoid light and attack in the middle of the night. About the size of a flattened apple seed, they hide in cracks and crevices in furniture and walls.
They’re efficient and active travelers, often hitching rides on clothing and jumping from host to host when people brush up against each other. And they invade even the cleanest apartments and swankiest neighborhoods.
Fighting an infestation is a costly, time-consuming process. Belongings must be removed from the home to be thoroughly cleaned, followed by meticulous vacuuming, before the exterminator can even begin work. It often takes several visits.
People who have bedbugs rarely see them. The only signs are pepperlike spots of their fecal matter, specks of dried blood on bed sheets and, of course, the bites. The scourge is nearly impossible to eradicate; the creatures can go a year without feeding, they reproduce rapidly and don’t die easily.
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