Word: bedbug
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Itching for a good after-school science experiment? Researchers at Rutgers University in New Jersey have created a homemade bedbug trap using a plastic cat-food dish, an insulated jug and some dry-ice pellets. According to Wan-Tien Tsai, who reported her findings in December at the annual meeting of the Entomological Society of America, the dry-ice-and-thermos combo captured the bloodsucking critters in an infested apartment just as effectively as, if not more so than, equipment used by professional exterminators. (See the fascinating, frightening world of insects...
This trap was designed to give consumers a cheap way to determine if they have - or, in many cases, still have - a bedbug problem that requires a proper extermination. Bedbugs have made a serious comeback in North America over the past few years, especially in big cities like Toronto and San Francisco. And they are notoriously hard to get rid of. As evidence, amid the enthusiastic talk on Bedbugger.com about the Rutgers invention, one commenter noted, "Dude, I am so going to try this once a month...
...thing is for sure: Bedbugs are a growing problem internationally and across the United States. According to the National Pest Management Association, its member pest control companies, which used to receive one or two bedbug calls a year, are now reporting as many each week. Maciej Ceglowski who runs bedbugregistry.com, an online user-generated database tracking infestations in apartment buildings and hotels in North America, says he saw a "huge spike" in reports in 2009 - though he can't say whether the increase was due to the spread of bedbugs or simply to the growing popularity of his site...
Because of the increasing number of reports, the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA) last summer held two National Bed Bug Symposiums in Newark, N.J., and Seattle, in hopes of educating hotel operators about the pests. The Environmental Protection Agency also held its first bedbug summit last year in Washington. The bugs are most common in big cities, including New York, San Francisco and Toronto, but the number of infestations is sharply on the rise around the world, in part because of the increase in international travel. Bedbugs don't crawl in themselves; they're carried in by visitors...
...bedbug problem is "miniscule," according to Joe McInerney, president and CEO of the AHLA, if one takes into account the fact that there are 4.4 million rooms in the country. "The only people that are making a big deal of it are the media," he says. McInerney says hotel operators exterminate rooms regularly, not just for bed bugs, but for all kinds of pests. An AHLA bedbug fact sheet recommends that hotels prevent infestations by inspecting rooms daily for evidence of bedbugs in bedding and furniture. Rooms found to have bedbug activity should be put out of service until...