There is one of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg wearing a T-shirt that protests the construction of the West Side stadium. It was a project that he, in fact, supported — and one that Ms. Bermúdez, who lives in the neighborhood that would have been affected, did not.

“I made him much more handsome than he is,” Ms. Bermúdez, 66, said.

There is one of Christie, her dachshund. And there is one of a woman asleep, unaware of the bedbugs that have invaded her apartment.

Ms. Bermúdez cited Frida Kahlo as one of her inspirations, mentioning Kahlo’s vibrant use of color, but resisted further comparisons.

“My life is much fuller than hers,” she said. “I don’t have that much sadness in my life.”

In mid-March of 2001, Ms. Bermúdez, then a designer, arrived for work at a bridal-wear company in the garment district. As she started across the workroom floor, she slipped, slamming her right shoulder against a metal door handle.

The resulting injury, which broke her upper arm in three places, required the insertion of metal rods in her shoulder and two years of physical therapy.

“I couldn’t even pick up a cup,” she recalled. “I still don’t have full-range motion of my arm.”

Her accident, Ms. Bermúdez said, coincided with a protracted legal dispute with her landlord, as she struggled to retain the third-floor apartment on West 34th Street where she has lived since she was 26.

During this period, she said, she was not notified of a rent increase, which eventually put her thousands of dollars in debt.

Housing court records show at least three lawsuits filed against Ms. Bermúdez. The most recent indicates that in 2004, she agreed to pay a total of $14,093.45 for “all rents prior to April 2001” and “for the period April 1, 2001, through Sept. 30, 2004.”

After her accident, Ms. Bermúdez had no steady source of income. And while workers’ compensation covered the cost of her hospital bills, years of legal fees had chipped away at her savings.

No longer able to afford a lawyer, Ms. Bermúdez turned to Housing Conservation Coordinators, which offered legal guidance necessary to help settle her debt. With money from several social service organizations, including the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies, which gave her $1,500 toward her arrears, she said she managed to come up with most of the remaining sum.

Now, because of New York State’s Senior Citizen Rent Increase Exemption program, her rent is frozen at $1,021. But she still lives on a tight budget, with just under $1,000 in federal aid, including Social Security, plus $500 her older sister sends her each month.

And then, a little over a year ago, the bedbugs arrived.

In October 2009, she woke up to find bites all over her body. She immediately discarded her sofa and mattress.

Ms. Bermúdez said she spent about $3,000 repeatedly washing clothes and buying the necessary cleaning supplies.

In October 2010, long after her apartment had been exterminated and she was certain she no longer had bedbugs, she again turned to the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies, one of the seven beneficiary agencies of The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund. With $620, Ms. Bermúdez bought a new sofa.

Financially, she says, she is just getting by. Still, Ms. Bermúdez contends that she considers herself lucky, reasoning that there are people far worse off.

“I always say my life is like the Internet,” she said. “You put in what you want, and the universe gives it to you.”

View the original article here

There is one of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg wearing a T-shirt that protests the construction of the West Side stadium. It was a project that he, in fact, supported — and one that Ms. Bermúdez, who lives in the neighborhood that would have been affected, did not.

“I made him much more handsome than he is,” Ms. Bermúdez, 66, said.

There is one of Christie, her dachshund. And there is one of a woman asleep, unaware of the bedbugs that have invaded her apartment.

Ms. Bermúdez cited Frida Kahlo as one of her inspirations, mentioning Kahlo’s vibrant use of color, but resisted further comparisons.

“My life is much fuller than hers,” she said. “I don’t have that much sadness in my life.”

In mid-March of 2001, Ms. Bermúdez, then a designer, arrived for work at a bridal-wear company in the garment district. As she started across the workroom floor, she slipped, slamming her right shoulder against a metal door handle.

The resulting injury, which broke her upper arm in three places, required the insertion of metal rods in her shoulder and two years of physical therapy.

“I couldn’t even pick up a cup,” she recalled. “I still don’t have full-range motion of my arm.”

Her accident, Ms. Bermúdez said, coincided with a protracted legal dispute with her landlord, as she struggled to retain the third-floor apartment on West 34th Street where she has lived since she was 26.

During this period, she said, she was not notified of a rent increase, which eventually put her thousands of dollars in debt.

Housing court records show at least three lawsuits filed against Ms. Bermúdez. The most recent indicates that in 2004, she agreed to pay a total of $14,093.45 for “all rents prior to April 2001” and “for the period April 1, 2001, through Sept. 30, 2004.”

After her accident, Ms. Bermúdez had no steady source of income. And while workers’ compensation covered the cost of her hospital bills, years of legal fees had chipped away at her savings.

No longer able to afford a lawyer, Ms. Bermúdez turned to Housing Conservation Coordinators, which offered legal guidance necessary to help settle her debt. With money from several social service organizations, including the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies, which gave her $1,500 toward her arrears, she said she managed to come up with most of the remaining sum.

Now, because of New York State’s Senior Citizen Rent Increase Exemption program, her rent is frozen at $1,021. But she still lives on a tight budget, with just under $1,000 in federal aid, including Social Security, plus $500 her older sister sends her each month.

And then, a little over a year ago, the bedbugs arrived.

In October 2009, she woke up to find bites all over her body. She immediately discarded her sofa and mattress.

Ms. Bermúdez said she spent about $3,000 repeatedly washing clothes and buying the necessary cleaning supplies.

In October 2010, long after her apartment had been exterminated and she was certain she no longer had bedbugs, she again turned to the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies, one of the seven beneficiary agencies of The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund. With $620, Ms. Bermúdez bought a new sofa.

Financially, she says, she is just getting by. Still, Ms. Bermúdez contends that she considers herself lucky, reasoning that there are people far worse off.

“I always say my life is like the Internet,” she said. “You put in what you want, and the universe gives it to you.”

View the original article here

The interface of a new bedbugs app.

Bedbugs are as likely to settle in luxury hotels as youth hostels. So, travelers may wonder, is there a way to figure out whether a hotel (or theater or restaurant) is infested? Well, now there’s an app for that.

The new Bed Bug Alert ($1.99 at iTunes.apple.com) app for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch shows users a GPS-enabled Google map that indicates nearby bedbug-infested sites as red push pins. The locations are based on addresses of bedbug outbreaks reported by the media, by governmental agencies and by users across the country.

Once the map is loaded, bedbug-fearing travelers can zoom in on a pin for more information. If it is a public place, such as a hotel or theater, the name will appear. (If it is a private place like a home, the name will not.)

In addition to the map, the app includes a tab that links to bedbug maps of the Top 10 infested cities. (New York, Philadelphia and Detroit are currently first, second and third, respectively.) And users unfortunate enough to encounter one of the insects can immediately report it via the app as well.

View the original article here

The interface of a new bedbugs app.

Bedbugs are as likely to settle in luxury hotels as youth hostels. So, travelers may wonder, is there a way to figure out whether a hotel (or theater or restaurant) is infested? Well, now there’s an app for that.

The new Bed Bug Alert ($1.99 at iTunes.apple.com) app for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch shows users a GPS-enabled Google map that indicates nearby bedbug-infested sites as red push pins. The locations are based on addresses of bedbug outbreaks reported by the media, by governmental agencies and by users across the country.

Once the map is loaded, bedbug-fearing travelers can zoom in on a pin for more information. If it is a public place, such as a hotel or theater, the name will appear. (If it is a private place like a home, the name will not.)

In addition to the map, the app includes a tab that links to bedbug maps of the Top 10 infested cities. (New York, Philadelphia and Detroit are currently first, second and third, respectively.) And users unfortunate enough to encounter one of the insects can immediately report it via the app as well.

View the original article here

She was midway through a five-course Mexican feast at the Brooklyn Kitchen in Williamsburg last Saturday night, a meal engineered to introduce New Yorkers to the succulent wonders of edible insects. Throughout the first couple of courses (yucca frites dotted with mealworms, a smoked corn custard sprinkled with crispy moth larvae), Ms. Moorehead’s response had been muted. Earlier that evening, in fact, out on the sidewalk, she and her date, Harold Bradley, had considered fleeing the event altogether, even though they’d spent $85 each.

“We kept asking ourselves: ‘Are you ready? Do you want to turn back?’ ” Mr. Bradley said.

But they stayed, and at some point during dinner a bowl of squirming wax moth larvae was passed around. Ms. Moorehead, 38, who most days can be found driving the morning G train, dived in. “They’re moving,” she said. “Oh, I want to try that. Oh! Oh!”

Suddenly almost trembling with excitement, she stuck her fingers into the bowl, grabbed a pale yellow worm, popped it into her mouth and munched down. She closed her eyes. She seemed to swoon.

“I ain’t gonna do that,” Mr. Bradley said.

“Just try one, please,” Ms. Moorehead said.

“It tastes like raw corn,” a fellow diner, Alfredo Lamus, said from across the table.

“Just try it,” Ms. Moorehead said gently.

Mr. Bradley, a police officer, wedged one between his teeth, scrunched up his face, and flailed his arms around in what looked like a genuine spasm of repulsion.

But Ms. Moorehead, who has such a potent phobia about the animal kingdom that she refuses even to pet dogs and cats — well, after having ingested that worm, it was clear that she had crossed a threshold. She beamed like someone who had just walked barefoot over hot coals.

“I’m so glad I did it,” she said. “Because that’s why I came here. I overcame something. If I can do this, I can do anything.”

Phil Ross, the San Francisco-based chef and artist who put together this and other insect smorgasbords, said he sees that kind of reaction all the time.

“People barely need help over the hump,” he said. “As soon as they taste them and they realize that the flavor is actually really good, all the other stuff just goes out the window very fast, and a whole lot of other things start entering. Transgression of one taboo leads to all kinds of other possibilities.”

Mr. Ross is wiry and intense and comes across like a 44-year-old version of Ferris Bueller — if “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” had been directed by, say, David Lynch. (Mr. Ross describes himself as the kind of guy who “gets a pizza with cockroaches on it — intentionally.”) He raises many of the worms in his San Francisco apartment.

His girlfriend, the artist Monica Martinez, builds miniature Bauhaus-style cottages and apartment complexes, and the bugs live rent-free. (These whimsical structures are on display until Oct. 15 at the EyeLevel BQE exhibition space, right around the corner from the Brooklyn Kitchen.)

You really want to go green? Try this. “I have my month’s meat growing in my office,” Mr. Ross said. “It’s taking up almost no space, it’s organically raised, it’s as fresh as I want it to be and the waste from it is garden compost.”

Mr. Ross first brought a group of San Franciscans together to chow down on cooked insects a year ago, and he was surprised when the guests started buzzing around him for raw samples. “I was like, ‘O.K., go for it,’ ” he said. “And then that just led to this very weird erotism moment when people were practically hugging each other while eating these live insects.” The spirit of the moment overflowed, leading, in a few cases, to groping and kissing in a corner.

“I wasn’t expecting that,” he said.

View the original article here

She was midway through a five-course Mexican feast at the Brooklyn Kitchen in Williamsburg last Saturday night, a meal engineered to introduce New Yorkers to the succulent wonders of edible insects. Throughout the first couple of courses (yucca frites dotted with mealworms, a smoked corn custard sprinkled with crispy moth larvae), Ms. Moorehead’s response had been muted. Earlier that evening, in fact, out on the sidewalk, she and her date, Harold Bradley, had considered fleeing the event altogether, even though they’d spent $85 each.

“We kept asking ourselves: ‘Are you ready? Do you want to turn back?’ ” Mr. Bradley said.

But they stayed, and at some point during dinner a bowl of squirming wax moth larvae was passed around. Ms. Moorehead, 38, who most days can be found driving the morning G train, dived in. “They’re moving,” she said. “Oh, I want to try that. Oh! Oh!”

Suddenly almost trembling with excitement, she stuck her fingers into the bowl, grabbed a pale yellow worm, popped it into her mouth and munched down. She closed her eyes. She seemed to swoon.

“I ain’t gonna do that,” Mr. Bradley said.

“Just try one, please,” Ms. Moorehead said.

“It tastes like raw corn,” a fellow diner, Alfredo Lamus, said from across the table.

“Just try it,” Ms. Moorehead said gently.

Mr. Bradley, a police officer, wedged one between his teeth, scrunched up his face, and flailed his arms around in what looked like a genuine spasm of repulsion.

But Ms. Moorehead, who has such a potent phobia about the animal kingdom that she refuses even to pet dogs and cats — well, after having ingested that worm, it was clear that she had crossed a threshold. She beamed like someone who had just walked barefoot over hot coals.

“I’m so glad I did it,” she said. “Because that’s why I came here. I overcame something. If I can do this, I can do anything.”

Phil Ross, the San Francisco-based chef and artist who put together this and other insect smorgasbords, said he sees that kind of reaction all the time.

“People barely need help over the hump,” he said. “As soon as they taste them and they realize that the flavor is actually really good, all the other stuff just goes out the window very fast, and a whole lot of other things start entering. Transgression of one taboo leads to all kinds of other possibilities.”

Mr. Ross is wiry and intense and comes across like a 44-year-old version of Ferris Bueller — if “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” had been directed by, say, David Lynch. (Mr. Ross describes himself as the kind of guy who “gets a pizza with cockroaches on it — intentionally.”) He raises many of the worms in his San Francisco apartment.

His girlfriend, the artist Monica Martinez, builds miniature Bauhaus-style cottages and apartment complexes, and the bugs live rent-free. (These whimsical structures are on display until Oct. 15 at the EyeLevel BQE exhibition space, right around the corner from the Brooklyn Kitchen.)

You really want to go green? Try this. “I have my month’s meat growing in my office,” Mr. Ross said. “It’s taking up almost no space, it’s organically raised, it’s as fresh as I want it to be and the waste from it is garden compost.”

Mr. Ross first brought a group of San Franciscans together to chow down on cooked insects a year ago, and he was surprised when the guests started buzzing around him for raw samples. “I was like, ‘O.K., go for it,’ ” he said. “And then that just led to this very weird erotism moment when people were practically hugging each other while eating these live insects.” The spirit of the moment overflowed, leading, in a few cases, to groping and kissing in a corner.

“I wasn’t expecting that,” he said.

View the original article here

The New York State Legislature passed a law this summer requiring city landlords to disclose any history of bedbug infestation before leasing an apartment. Real estate lawyers and brokers say that even though the law was intended to address rentals, bedbug disclosure has become an issue in the sales market as well.

The law requires landlords to give renters written notice before a lease is signed indicating whether the apartment being considered, or any other apartment in the building, has been infested within the last year. Anyone renting out an apartment in a co-op or condo would also have to comply with the law.

There has been confusion in the real estate industry over the scope of the law, but Nancy Peters, a spokeswoman for the state’s Division of Housing and Community Renewal, said last week that co-ops must also follow the law when there is a sale, because new buyers enter into a proprietary lease.

The division has issued a form (http://www.dhcr.state.ny.us/Forms/Rent/dbbn.pdf) with a checklist that clearly states whether there has been any bedbug infestation in the apartment or in the building within the last year, and also whether any “eradication measures” have been taken. There is no penalty for not complying, although renters who do not receive a disclosure form can file a complaint requiring disclosure.

In recent weeks, some lawyers representing co-op and condo buyers had already made bedbug disclosure a part of contract negotiation.

In early September, about a week after the law went into effect, Daniel Farris, a senior vice president of Brown Harris Stevens, said he came across a bedbug rider while reviewing a client’s proposed contract to buy a two-bedroom co-op on the Upper West Side.

The rider, which was proposed by the buyer’s lawyer, read, “The seller has no knowledge of the existence or presence of bedbugs in the unit either currently or in the past.” The seller signed the rider, and Mr. Farris’s buyer is now in contract for the apartment. Mr. Farris said he routinely counseled buyers to ask whether a unit has had a history of leaks or other problems and to have the building checked for rodents. He said he thought the rider made perfect sense, “for your own level of comfort; a buyer should know what they’re getting into.”

Similarly, in a recent condo sale on the Upper West Side, Louise Phillips Forbes, an executive vice president of Halstead Property, represented a seller and said she spent about six days hunting down bedbug history, or the lack thereof, to help seal the deal. The buyer asked about bedbugs and was not satisfied just knowing that the seller knew of no bedbugs in the building.

The building had recently switched managing agents, so Ms. Forbes had to get statements from both agents, and she also checked with three members of the condo board, none of whom knew of any bedbug problems.

Assemblywoman Linda B. Rosenthal, a Democrat from the Upper West Side who sponsored the legislation, said that it had been written to address rentals in New York City, but that she planned to introduce a separate disclosure law for co-ops and condos next year. “I think it’s great if people are voluntarily disclosing the information already,” she said. “Since this is such an urban epidemic, the more transparency the better.”

Bedbug disclosure has been a major topic of discussion in the real estate industry in recent weeks.

“We’ve been fielding a lot of calls from our members, which is normal whenever a new law comes into effect,” said Angela Sung, the senior vice president for management services and government affairs of the Real Estate Board of New York, which represents 12,000 building owners, managers, builders, brokers and lawyers.

Ben Kirschenbaum, the general counsel for Cooper Square Realty, which manages about 400 buildings in New York City, said, “I’ve been in this business for a long time, and I can’t recall a less well-drafted statute.”

Property managers and landlords said that because the disclosure form used the term “vacancy lease,” which tends to apply only when discussing rent-regulated apartments, it suggested that market-rate rentals and apartment sales in co-ops or condos might not be included.

They also said compliance would be difficult because the disclosure form requires owners or managing agents to state definitively whether there has been any bedbug infestation in any apartment in the building. “What the form should say is that the owner or managing agent is providing information that is to the best of their belief,” Mr. Kirschenbaum said. While managing agents of rental buildings might have a thorough bedbug history for a building, he said, “managing agents won’t necessarily know about an apartment in a co-op or condo, because owners don’t have to report bedbugs, and they might get treatment themselves.”

View the original article here

The New York State Legislature passed a law this summer requiring city landlords to disclose any history of bedbug infestation before leasing an apartment. Real estate lawyers and brokers say that even though the law was intended to address rentals, bedbug disclosure has become an issue in the sales market as well.

The law requires landlords to give renters written notice before a lease is signed indicating whether the apartment being considered, or any other apartment in the building, has been infested within the last year. Anyone renting out an apartment in a co-op or condo would also have to comply with the law.

There has been confusion in the real estate industry over the scope of the law, but Nancy Peters, a spokeswoman for the state’s Division of Housing and Community Renewal, said last week that co-ops must also follow the law when there is a sale, because new buyers enter into a proprietary lease.

The division has issued a form (http://www.dhcr.state.ny.us/Forms/Rent/dbbn.pdf) with a checklist that clearly states whether there has been any bedbug infestation in the apartment or in the building within the last year, and also whether any “eradication measures” have been taken. There is no penalty for not complying, although renters who do not receive a disclosure form can file a complaint requiring disclosure.

In recent weeks, some lawyers representing co-op and condo buyers had already made bedbug disclosure a part of contract negotiation.

In early September, about a week after the law went into effect, Daniel Farris, a senior vice president of Brown Harris Stevens, said he came across a bedbug rider while reviewing a client’s proposed contract to buy a two-bedroom co-op on the Upper West Side.

The rider, which was proposed by the buyer’s lawyer, read, “The seller has no knowledge of the existence or presence of bedbugs in the unit either currently or in the past.” The seller signed the rider, and Mr. Farris’s buyer is now in contract for the apartment. Mr. Farris said he routinely counseled buyers to ask whether a unit has had a history of leaks or other problems and to have the building checked for rodents. He said he thought the rider made perfect sense, “for your own level of comfort; a buyer should know what they’re getting into.”

Similarly, in a recent condo sale on the Upper West Side, Louise Phillips Forbes, an executive vice president of Halstead Property, represented a seller and said she spent about six days hunting down bedbug history, or the lack thereof, to help seal the deal. The buyer asked about bedbugs and was not satisfied just knowing that the seller knew of no bedbugs in the building.

The building had recently switched managing agents, so Ms. Forbes had to get statements from both agents, and she also checked with three members of the condo board, none of whom knew of any bedbug problems.

Assemblywoman Linda B. Rosenthal, a Democrat from the Upper West Side who sponsored the legislation, said that it had been written to address rentals in New York City, but that she planned to introduce a separate disclosure law for co-ops and condos next year. “I think it’s great if people are voluntarily disclosing the information already,” she said. “Since this is such an urban epidemic, the more transparency the better.”

Bedbug disclosure has been a major topic of discussion in the real estate industry in recent weeks.

“We’ve been fielding a lot of calls from our members, which is normal whenever a new law comes into effect,” said Angela Sung, the senior vice president for management services and government affairs of the Real Estate Board of New York, which represents 12,000 building owners, managers, builders, brokers and lawyers.

Ben Kirschenbaum, the general counsel for Cooper Square Realty, which manages about 400 buildings in New York City, said, “I’ve been in this business for a long time, and I can’t recall a less well-drafted statute.”

Property managers and landlords said that because the disclosure form used the term “vacancy lease,” which tends to apply only when discussing rent-regulated apartments, it suggested that market-rate rentals and apartment sales in co-ops or condos might not be included.

They also said compliance would be difficult because the disclosure form requires owners or managing agents to state definitively whether there has been any bedbug infestation in any apartment in the building. “What the form should say is that the owner or managing agent is providing information that is to the best of their belief,” Mr. Kirschenbaum said. While managing agents of rental buildings might have a thorough bedbug history for a building, he said, “managing agents won’t necessarily know about an apartment in a co-op or condo, because owners don’t have to report bedbugs, and they might get treatment themselves.”

View the original article here

At a meeting here this week, a line of salespeople wore green hardhats decorated with large black bugs, red tongues protruding and legs wiggling, as they spoke about the urgent need to protect mattresses.

Not far from various heating, freezing, dusting and spraying devices aimed at abolishing the creatures were stuffed, pastel-colored bedbugs. All around were films, charts and blown-up photographs of the bugs themselves — the enemies (and stars) of this show.

More than 360 concerned people — entomologists; pest control workers; government, military and university officials; and, especially, inventors of anti-bedbug contraptions — gathered here in the Chicago suburbs on Tuesday and Wednesday for the event, which had a growing waiting list of more than 200 people.

“I can give you back your life in a day,” one pest control company owner, Scott Linde of Edison, N.J., said as he pointed a visitor toward a room full of heaters and computerized heat monitors, all aimed at eviscerating bedbugs in a matter of hours.

“People still have in their heads that bedbugs means someone’s dirty,” Mr. Linde said, “but I handle multimillion-dollar homes in Westchester and Connecticut, and believe me, no one’s dirty.”

Phillip Cooper, an organizer of the conference who proudly wore his BedBug Central company logo shirt, said this was the biggest, broadest meeting of its kind since bedbugs began making their miserable return. The price tag for attendees: $450.

Mr. Cooper’s brother, Richard, an entomologist he calls “the god of bedbugs,” had warned for years that they were returning and helped create BedBug Central, a company that sells “boot camp” training to pest control companies and produces regular “BedBug TV” Webcasts on the latest woes.

“This isn’t going away,” Mr. Cooper said of the insects, pointing out that nearly all interested parties besides the hotel industry had chosen to be represented at the conference.

The seminars, which drew standing-room-only crowds, were not meant for those with a passing interest or for those quick to cringe (or itch). Among the topics: “Bring the Heat,” “Fumigation” and “Group Homes — Unique Challenges in Transient Settings.”

In the hallways, the ordinary pleasantries sounded anything but ordinary. Some people shared suggestions on how best to check beds, mattresses and sheets for bedbugs.

(Nearly everyone said they had done as much when they arrived at the host hotel, and the maids may find more than a few headboards askew from their search. Many people said they started out by putting luggage on the bathroom floor, the better to see any scurrying, before investigating hiding spots in the rest of the room. One man put his luggage inside a bedbug-proof bag and kept all his clothes on a non-fabric chair throughout his stay, though his initial survey found nothing.)

A few attendees debated chemical solutions versus heat, whose supporters said it was generally more expensive but required fewer treatments. Others traded tales of their most challenging infestations.

“You got a popcorn ceiling? You’re dead,” said Kristine Effaldana, who owns dogs trained to search for bedbugs, including Walter, a puggle who sat at her feet looking mildly puzzled in the crowd. She was referring to the sprayed-on texture that was in style 40 years ago and can be a breeding ground for bugs.

If anything, the products promoted revealed that there is, for now, no single, agreed-on answer to the problem. The sheer number of them is enormous and growing by the week: dissolving laundry bags, plastic luggage protectors, screw-in bug barriers for the bottoms of bed legs, slow-release strips meant to vaporize bugs, portable aerosol machines and on and on.

Many grumbled about newcomers to the battle and about products that promised to do everything at little cost. “There are so many pest control places out there showing up and undercutting,” said Corey Westrum of Leonard, Minn., who helped create Insect Inferno, a portable trailer that heats mattresses.

Of course, no one seems to agree yet on exactly who is legitimate and who is, in the words of Brian Hirsch, a sales manager for Protect-A-Bed, “a Johnny-come-lately.” Even the organizers of this event said they were not necessarily endorsing those who had chosen to display their goods.

One absolute message here: there is no shame in bedbugs. It is not you. It is them. Still, there were acknowledgments of how the rest of the country may feel.

At the booth of USBedBugs.com, the company’s sign promised “discreet home delivery,” which workers there said meant that items like travel sprays and large plastic bags would arrive in plain brown boxes with no company name on the return address.

View the original article here

At a meeting here this week, a line of salespeople wore green hardhats decorated with large black bugs, red tongues protruding and legs wiggling, as they spoke about the urgent need to protect mattresses.

Not far from various heating, freezing, dusting and spraying devices aimed at abolishing the creatures were stuffed, pastel-colored bedbugs. All around were films, charts and blown-up photographs of the bugs themselves — the enemies (and stars) of this show.

More than 360 concerned people — entomologists; pest control workers; government, military and university officials; and, especially, inventors of anti-bedbug contraptions — gathered here in the Chicago suburbs on Tuesday and Wednesday for the event, which had a growing waiting list of more than 200 people.

“I can give you back your life in a day,” one pest control company owner, Scott Linde of Edison, N.J., said as he pointed a visitor toward a room full of heaters and computerized heat monitors, all aimed at eviscerating bedbugs in a matter of hours.

“People still have in their heads that bedbugs means someone’s dirty,” Mr. Linde said, “but I handle multimillion-dollar homes in Westchester and Connecticut, and believe me, no one’s dirty.”

Phillip Cooper, an organizer of the conference who proudly wore his BedBug Central company logo shirt, said this was the biggest, broadest meeting of its kind since bedbugs began making their miserable return. The price tag for attendees: $450.

Mr. Cooper’s brother, Richard, an entomologist he calls “the god of bedbugs,” had warned for years that they were returning and helped create BedBug Central, a company that sells “boot camp” training to pest control companies and produces regular “BedBug TV” Webcasts on the latest woes.

“This isn’t going away,” Mr. Cooper said of the insects, pointing out that nearly all interested parties besides the hotel industry had chosen to be represented at the conference.

The seminars, which drew standing-room-only crowds, were not meant for those with a passing interest or for those quick to cringe (or itch). Among the topics: “Bring the Heat,” “Fumigation” and “Group Homes — Unique Challenges in Transient Settings.”

In the hallways, the ordinary pleasantries sounded anything but ordinary. Some people shared suggestions on how best to check beds, mattresses and sheets for bedbugs.

(Nearly everyone said they had done as much when they arrived at the host hotel, and the maids may find more than a few headboards askew from their search. Many people said they started out by putting luggage on the bathroom floor, the better to see any scurrying, before investigating hiding spots in the rest of the room. One man put his luggage inside a bedbug-proof bag and kept all his clothes on a non-fabric chair throughout his stay, though his initial survey found nothing.)

A few attendees debated chemical solutions versus heat, whose supporters said it was generally more expensive but required fewer treatments. Others traded tales of their most challenging infestations.

“You got a popcorn ceiling? You’re dead,” said Kristine Effaldana, who owns dogs trained to search for bedbugs, including Walter, a puggle who sat at her feet looking mildly puzzled in the crowd. She was referring to the sprayed-on texture that was in style 40 years ago and can be a breeding ground for bugs.

If anything, the products promoted revealed that there is, for now, no single, agreed-on answer to the problem. The sheer number of them is enormous and growing by the week: dissolving laundry bags, plastic luggage protectors, screw-in bug barriers for the bottoms of bed legs, slow-release strips meant to vaporize bugs, portable aerosol machines and on and on.

Many grumbled about newcomers to the battle and about products that promised to do everything at little cost. “There are so many pest control places out there showing up and undercutting,” said Corey Westrum of Leonard, Minn., who helped create Insect Inferno, a portable trailer that heats mattresses.

Of course, no one seems to agree yet on exactly who is legitimate and who is, in the words of Brian Hirsch, a sales manager for Protect-A-Bed, “a Johnny-come-lately.” Even the organizers of this event said they were not necessarily endorsing those who had chosen to display their goods.

One absolute message here: there is no shame in bedbugs. It is not you. It is them. Still, there were acknowledgments of how the rest of the country may feel.

At the booth of USBedBugs.com, the company’s sign promised “discreet home delivery,” which workers there said meant that items like travel sprays and large plastic bags would arrive in plain brown boxes with no company name on the return address.

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National Geographic offers good information on Bed Bugs… Don’t let the Bed Bugs Bite! Contact Isotech Pest Management

View the original article here

National Geographic offers good information on Bed Bugs… Don’t let the Bed Bugs Bite! Contact Isotech Pest Management

View the original article here