Bed Bugs Infest Fashion Chain Stores In Growing Epidemic
It's easy to dismiss bed bugs when they happen to someone else. Say that sketchy neighbor who, according to your mildly nosy monitoring, leaves the comfort of his own filth at best once a month.
Now, Victoria has a secret in her bed, and let me tell you, it's not the pretty lingerie.
This weekend, a branch of Victoria Secret had to temporarily shut down because of an infestation. That's just one example of the growing invasion of the bed bugs, especially in New York City, an epicenter of what some national experts want to call an epidemic. A New York Abercrombie and Fitch store also recently closed briefly, as did an office of the financial giant Goldman & Sachs. In 2007, Fox News got the bug, resulting in an employee lawsuit against the building owners.
Now, I have to admit, there's more than a bit of divine justice in the above examples.
But these also expose the myth about bed bugs -- that they care for one blood-sucking second about your hygeine or your wealth. Bed bugs can happen to anyone, and they are indeed happening to everyone.
Having been nearly eradicated for decades, those engorged, feces-dropping creatures of the night are making a comeback of epic proportions. They are turning up in all the likely places -- hotel rooms and mattresses -- and also many places experts never thought about before, such as embedded in wood park benches or nestled between the pages of a book. In 2004, about 500 complaints were filed in New York City compared with 10,000 in 2009. Cities around the country are experiencing similar trends.
What's interesting to me is the 'why' of all this. Experts largely blame the problem on the declining use of pesticides, such as DDT and other strong killers, that work best against bed bugs. DDT was banned in the U.S. in 1972 because of human health and wildlife effects. What's worse, bed bugs have since developed pretty strong resistance to the pesticides we do continue to use, and there are no pesticides specifically for bed bugs right now.
At a first-ever "National Bed Bugs Summit" that U.S. EPA held last April, some experts said our weak defenses will no longer cut it. "In my opinion, we are not going to get out of this thing" until we "allow the pest-control industry to go to war," entomologist Mike Potter from the University of Kentucky warned, according to AFP.
This is worrisome, since the "war on bugs" mentality has a long history of producing chemicals that we recklessly spray in our homes and on our lands. But then again, no one wants to live like its 1910 either, accepting itchy red welts as an annoying fact of life.
Luckily, these days, we have strong environmental laws to prevent this 'throw caution to the wind' attitude, and, right now, there's a high bar to registering a new pesticides, since health and environmental testing can cost $100 million, according to pest expert Dini Miller. After their summit, EPA's pesticides division seemed to be working towards pest management strategies that involve as few toxic chemicals in our homes as possible -- designing furniture to limit bugs, education and tracking programs, bug-sniffing dogs and different "heat" treatments.
EPA has also called on CDC to declare bed bugs an epidemic-level public health pest to get more research funding. But since bed bugs do not carry diseases, the agency has been reluctant. But, for anyone who ever had to worry about a bed bug problem, you're probably with me when I say the paranoia, shame and stress is public health problem enough.
Photo Credit: CDC, Harvard University
Jess Leber
is a Change.org editor. She most recently covered climate and energy issues as a reporter in Washington, D.C
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