They're Baaacck!

Across the country, bedbugs are quietly creeping into hotels, cruise ships and (gulp!) even our homes

by Debra Hale-Shelton

It’s the stuff of B-list horror movies. Bedbugs, those nocturnal, six-legged creatures of childhood lore, have recently staged a comeback, quietly invading everything from cruise ships to condos in their quest for blood: ours. “Bedbugs are on the rise, and we’re seeing probably a 500-percent increase from three years ago,” says Cindy Mannes, director of public affairs for the National Pest Management Association (NPMA), a 6,000-member trade association based near Washington, D.C.

Mannes is talking about the species of bedbugs known as Cimex lectularius, which dates back to the Middle Ages and likely came to the United States from Europe in the 17th century. They were quite common here until the 1950s, when pesticides such as the now-banned DDT drove them into obscurity. But as Americans became more environmentally conscious, pest-control companies began using more conservative approaches to insect control. A chemical now used to kill cockroaches, for example, targets only cockroaches, not other pests.

Furthermore, increased international travel in recent years has given these bedbugs a free ride and more dining opportunities. “This is a great hitchhiker,” says Frank Meek Jr., technical director of Atlanta-based Orkin, Inc. “People are able to pick up these insects while out traveling on vacation or business and bring them home.” They can hitch rides in luggage, backpacks, boxes — you name it.

Making matters worse, female bedbugs can lay more than 500 eggs in a lifetime. How long the newly hatched arthropods survive often depends upon their food supply. “Under ideal conditions, when there’s plenty of food available, their average life span is about a year,” says Meek. But, ironically, during repeated food crises, he adds, they can slow down their life cycle, sometimes living up to five years.

The oval-shaped insects are brown to reddish brown and relatively flat until becoming engorged after a good meal. They measure less than a quarter inch in length and often go unnoticed until unsuspecting hosts awaken to find redness and swelling where they were attacked. While the welts are itchy and sometimes confused with mosquito bites, they usually don’t require medical treatment.

In 2003, Orkin handled 390 cases of bedbugs — a dramatic increase from 0 in 2000. The company says it has tackled them in 35 states (see sidebar) and predicts a 25- to 30-percent rise in infestations in the next five years. Besides cruise ships, hotels and airplanes, they’ve found the bugs in suburban homes, city apartments and college dorms.

Orkin isn’t alone. Bob Grinkemeyer, owner of Delphi Pest Control in Cincinnati, says bedbugs recently turned up in the home of a Cincinnati Reds ballplayer — not surprising given the traveling schedule of professional athletes. This was one of the first few bedbug complaints his business had received in 23 years. “It kind of took us by surprise,” he says.

Laurie Woolever, a freelance writer and private cook, can certainly relate. She will never forget the moment she was cleaning her fifth-floor Manhattan apartment, flipped her mattress and discovered the source of the itchy, bright-pink bites that had been appearing on her legs, arms and face. “It was a horrifying moment — not only seeing the bedbugs, but realizing that I’d been living with them for weeks,” she says.

Woolever quickly learned that her neighbor’s apartment was badly infested and the bugs had migrated to her residence. Both she and her landlord hired exterminators, and Woolever discarded her mattress, the wooden futon frame and some of her bedding. Along with a new mattress and pillows, she says she also purchased plastic covers for “some sense of psychological security.”

In Boston, the Allston-Brighton Community Development Corporation reports that bedbugs have been a problem in about 47 sites representing a total of 500 apartments. “In some areas, new tenants don’t know the buildings are infested,” says Juan Gonzalez, director of community organizing for the housing nonprofit. “Once they find out, it’s like a nightmare.”

Some victims never see the pests at all. Lisen Kern of Sugar Hill, N.H., still recalls her encounter with bedbugs in 1982, when she was 11 years old. After staying at an upscale Washington, D.C., hotel, she unknowingly brought some of them home with her in her luggage. “Within a few days, I had all these little red, itchy bites,” Kern says. “The bugs were indiscriminate, so I was covered! But we never could catch them in the act. We never saw a single bedbug.”

While victims are often embarrassed about their bedbug encounters, experts say there’s no reason to be. “People think they’re a sanitation issue, and they’re not,” says Mannes, adding that the bugs are as likely to camp out in a flophouse as a five-star hotel. The Encyclopedia Britannica, which notes that bedbugs are found in every kind of dwelling, describes them as “the most cosmopolitan of human parasites.”

The good news, as Mannes puts it, is that the pests aren’t as dangerous as some insects. Harold Harlan, senior entomologist with the NPMA, says 27 diseases, including hepatitis B, HIV and St. Louis encephalitis, have been detected in bedbugs. But he adds that several studies conducted by entomologists and physicians in the United States and elsewhere have shown the diseases are not transmitted to humans.

Still, such assurances haven’t kept the critters out of court. Last October, for example, a Chicago federal appeals court upheld a Cook County jury’s decision to award Canadian siblings Burl and Desiree Mathias $191,000 each in punitive and compensatory damages for bedbug bites they received while staying in a Motel 6 at 162 E. Ontario St., near Chicago’s Magnificent Mile.

Chicago attorney Peter Stamatis, who represented the Mathiases, says the siblings noticed red welts forming on their bodies after spending a night in the motel in November 2000.

According to a brief filed by Stamatis, Burl checked his bed just before retiring the next night and found two unidentified insects. Still suspecting nothing serious, he killed them with a tissue and went to sleep.

Awaking after 1 a.m., Burl allegedly lifted his sheets and saw numerous bugs scurrying from his body to the sheets and bed. “Horrified, [he] sprang up and discovered the blood-engorged insects crawling about the inside of the bed where he previously lay,” Stamatis stated. Once the lights were on, the siblings reported seeing bugs on the beds, furniture and walls. They asked to be transferred to another hotel, says their attorney, but were instead moved to a different room on the same floor.

Judge Richard Posner, who wrote the appellate opinion, criticized the manner in which the motel handled the infestation. In 1998, he noted, it refused an exterminator’s offer to treat every room for just $500. “The infestation continued and began to reach farcical proportions,” Posner wrote. “Desk clerks were instructed to call the bedbugs ‘ticks,’ apparently on the theory that customers would be less alarmed.” According to Posner, the motel’s failure to warn guests or take effective measures to eliminate the bugs “amounted to fraud and probably battery as well.”

The motel, which has since become a Red Roof Inn, is owned by Accor North America. The attorney who defended Accor and Motel 6 in the lawsuit declined to comment on the case. Kelley Johnson, a spokeswoman for Accor in Dallas, would say only that her employer was “disappointed in the jury’s verdict.”

While the Mathias siblings failed to return calls concerning their bedbug nightmare, their attorney recalls seeing pictures of their bites. “They were red welts, and there were countless numbers of them all over their torsos, their necks,” Stamatis said in an interview. “They were everywhere.”

Referring to the nursery rhyme, he noted that one of his challenges at trial was having to overcome the “cutesy impression” some people have of bedbugs. After passing a jar of the nasty critters among jurors, he adds, “I think their view changed right away.”

Public awareness of the insects is, of course, now growing. At the American Hotel & Lodging Association, communications director Tia Gordon says the industry is aware of the “situation and staying on top of it.”

Experts advise anyone who thinks they may have the critters to contact a good exterminator immediately. Early signs of infestation include small brownish or reddish dots — fecal spots or droppings — on bed linens and a distinct, sickeningly sweet smell, which exudes from the bedbugs’ glands. “My best comparison is soda-pop syrup,” Meek says.

The first step in controlling them is to have a professional thoroughly inspect the area to determine where the bedbugs are living. While they often feed in beds, they might hide behind picture frames or mirrors, in curtains or upholstered furniture and beneath baseboards or carpeting.

While Harlan of the NPMA stops short of recommending any specific chemical, he believes most exterminators are using some sort of pyrethroid labeled for bedbugs. Pyrethroids, he notes, are synthetic compounds used as insecticides and come in various forms: liquid solution or emulsion, dust, aerosol and foam. “The type used would probably depend on the specific situation and place being treated,” he says.

In addition to chemical treatments, Harlan says it’s advisable to also seal cracks so bedbugs can’t pass from one area to another. Another approach is to try steam or dry-heat treatments. And while whole-house fumigations might work temporarily, he notes they’re not economically practical — mainly because there’s no guarantee they’ll be successful.

Dan Miles, owner of Total Exterminating Co. in Indianapolis, can attest to the critters’ resilience. Last year he received five bedbug calls from consumers living near upscale Carmel, Ind. A bit of detective work suggested that the families’ children brought the bedbugs home from a summer camp.

Miles says the infestation in one home became so severe that the family eventually “took their beds and threw them away, mattresses and everything.” Even after Miles treated the home, the bugs returned, living for a while off of two family dogs.

Finally, the bedbugs made their way to the master bedroom, where egg casings turned up among books and magazines. Miles discarded all the publications and sprayed again, but three months later he spotted more eggs in screw holes in the bed frame. He cleaned and sprayed the bed, then steam-cleaned the mattress. “Now, since we’ve done that, we’ve not seen any more,” he says, gratefully. “But I’m expecting a phone call any day.”