Archive for the ‘exterminators’ Category

More Bed Bug Haikus!

Wednesday, September 10th, 2008

I didn’t know what to blog about this week and I had a bit of a creative streak, so I churned out some more bed bug haikus.

***



R wants a task force

But her pleas fall on deaf ears

Bloomberg’s bed bug-free

***

R wants a task force

Can we trust the government?

Ask the Indians

***

A menage a trois!

M, a bug and me

Not very sexy

***

Caitlin’s M.I.A.

Her bed bugs, long time no see

They are just hiding

***

Bed bugs in college?

Students with bites and huge debts?

Stay home; get a job

***

Renee still insists

On City bed bug task force

But pols do nothing



***


Hey, nobugsonme!

Hablo espanol tambien!

Bed bugs just speak bite.

***

For bed bug orgies

Poor Brooklyn is Ground Zero

Thank God I’m in Queens

***

Exterminators

$300 a room

Go out and turn tricks

***

Exterminators

$300 a room

Time to sell cocaine

***

$300

For bed bug control

Where is price control?

***

Let’s get together

Start our own bed bug task force

Cuz’ Council does zilch

***

Bugs on your mattress

Bites all over your body

Which wrist to slash first?

***

Just pick up your phone

Tell 311 bed bug woes

Who promptly do zilch

Feel free to share your own bed bug haikus. Remember, the first line is 5 syllables, the second line is 7 syllables and the third line is 5 syllables! Have fun!

Posted in City Council, Haiku, NYC Government, bed bug task force, exterminators, fun and games | No Comments »

How Do I Do It?

Thursday, April 3rd, 2008

In my most recent post, an anonymous commenter said the following:

Wow! You do not own a vacuum? I’ve read that 2 of the most important things to do to rid one’s home of an infestation is to vacuum, vacuum, vacuum and hire a pco to put down chemicals. Those 2 you are not doing. So how is it that your bb population is going down? Are you spraying chemicals yourself? Maybe you can let us know what you do so as to help others who are also poor and who cannot afford pcos.

This problem is getting worse, not better. You can get rid of everything you own to get rid of bbs and then go to a movie, ride a subway or sit on a subway bench, etc. and get reinfested all over again. But, we must live our lives, as you said. Heck, you can even get them from your job. FoxNews has them and so does lawfirm Cravath on 2 floors.

I hope you keep this blog going for bb sufferers. I know that the other anonymous poster sounded ignorant, but do not let that stop you from keeping this blog going. Yes, this blog has been around for awhile and yes, you still have bbs. That doesn’t mean that you are not helping out people who are suffering w/bbs. You are being honest with your situation. There are a lotta people out there who hire pco’s and go through the bagging and purging and other stuff and get rid of their bbs in a few months. Well, I feel that there should be no “time limit” on how long a person should have bbs or try to get rid of them. You and everyone else is trying their best and that’s all anyone can do in this situation.

How am I getting rid of bed bugs?

Since I do not own a vacuum cleaner, M and I do a lot of sweeping and mopping. We have bare linoleum floors and we do not own have carpets or rugs. I would have to imagine that carpets and/or rugs would have to be great hiding places for bed bugs. We mop about twice a month. The experts who say you have to vacuum rigorously and religiously say so because they can’t imagine an American who doesn’t own a vacuum cleaner.

I also purchased Suspend AC, a pesticide specifically made to kill bed bugs that I bought from www.domyownpestcontrol.com and it does seem to work; it claims to be a residual pesticide, which kills bed bugs long after the solution dries. The label does claim that even inhaling fumes from the concentrated pesticide may be fatal, so I have to dilute it with water before applying it as directed. I also have a gallon hand-operated pressure pump which I also bought from the abovementioned website. It kind of works like a Super Soaker, where you have to manually pump pressure into the jug so its hose attachment can spray the watered-down pesticide. I’m not too comfortable spraying chemicals in my home whose fumes alone can be fatal to humans, so I spray every other month or so.

I also got rid of a lot of wooden furniture (which were doubling as bed bug colonies), often using crates to hold up my TV, stereo, DVD player and other items. I bought plastic dressers from target.com and plastic laundry hampers from a 99 cent store (I have two, one for colored clothes and one for white clothes). I’ve become increasingly concerned about my heavy window curtains becoming ground zero for the next great bed bug population explosion. I was actually considering trashing the cloth curtains and replacing them with shower curtains, but that’s way too tacky, don’t you think? Plus it probably wouldn’t keep light out that well.

Eradicating bed bugs when your funds are limited is like any other aspect of life; you have to get creative and find alternatives for the things you can’t afford. To me, if an expensive exterminator who charges $300+ per room can’t even guarantee 100 percent bed bug eradication, you might as well do your own deep cleaning, furniture replacement and overall lifestyle changes and save a few hundred bucks, considering you even have a few hundred bucks to save!

Killing bed bugs directly can be quite enjoyable if you’re down for playing Bed Bug Barbecue (hint: it requires a barbecue lighter!) and you have a linoleum floor. Each charred bed bug equals one point, and the game ends either when you’ve scored one million points or have not seen a bed bug in two months.

The whole lifestyle change and deep cleaning routine helps in case your home becomes re-infested. You’ll be ready, your home will be ready and the bugs won’t be alive in your home for very long.

Yeah, that anonymous commenter was kind of a douche, suggesting among other things that I advocate just settling for getting bit less and not working towards the lofty goal of total bed bug eradication. For the record, eradication is possible and it should definitely be attempted over and over again. I agree with you that there should be no time limit on how long it should take a person to rid their home of bed bugs. It’s a long and arduous goal, but it’s one that a person should strive for no matter how long it takes. I mean, if you don’t get rid of your bed bug infestation in say, six months, should you just give up and let the bed bugs take over? Just spend the rest of your life with hundreds of little red bites on your body and just have bed bugs everywhere? Would that whacky Aussie commenter say that bullshit to a cancer patient undergoing chemotherapy? “Dude, if the cancer doesn’t go into remission by November, you should, uh, just give up.”

And yes, I’d gladly have cancer if I knew I’d never have to see another bed bug again! I’ll move to Canada, do the chemo, puke my brains out and smoke all the medical marijuana I want. At least cancer sufferers don’t have to be afraid their friends, family and co-workers will find out they have cancer, or worse, that they’ll spread cancer by going to someone else’s house or other people coming over to theirs.

If you read enough of this blog, you’ll see there have been sporadic surges of bed bug sightings after weeks of seeing very few. I often wonder if I’ve unknowingly re-introduced bed bugs into my home.

This post has become waaayyyyy longer than I initially expected it to be, so I’ll wrap up now!

Thanks for all the kind words, and I’m glad to know that Bugged Out is still helping people cope a but easier with their bed bug problems, even though one commenter apparently feels my time is up! I appreciate all the feedback you guys send me, and I’m sure a lot of other people feel the same way. Your comments really compliment Bugged Out and are just as full of insight, news, tips, stories and information as this blog.

Later.

Posted in exterminators, fun and games, furniture, insecticides, paranoia, personal, tips | 1 Comment »

Do I Still Have Bed Bugs?

Friday, February 22nd, 2008

I felt the urge to respond to this anonymous commenter who inquired:

Hey, are you actually living with bed bugs? I mean, are you doing anything to keep them from, like, taking over your place ’cause I read that they multiply very quickly. And, what about you and M’s body and face? Don’t you guys get a lotta bites from these suckers?

Respond when you can. Thanks

Well, anonymous commenter,

First off, thanks for keeping up with the ongoing saga between M and I. To be honest I’ve been deliberately vague about the actual current status of our bed bug situation, mostly because more and more people are becoming aware of this blog, and my other blog in which I am not so anonymous. What’s more, M also has her own blog in an effort to promote her cooking career and we’re being invited to more and more public events, and quite frankly, I don’t want anyone to think we’re cooking with bed bugs in the food or our home is overrun with bed bugs or we’re walking around with some whacky “bed bug disease”. You’d be surprised how many people still think that bed bugs carry disease.

To answer your question, do we actually have bed bugs? Yes and no. We still have them, but we’re not actually suffering from them anymore, and we’ve kept them under control. We see maybe two or three bed bugs a month, and rarely are they still alive. I don’t get bitten anymore, but M does, which makes me believe that females are more susceptible than males to bed bugs. Even then, the bites are just as rare as bed bug sightings.

But this peaceful scenario did not occur overnight. Yes, my apartment was once overrun with bed bugs, to the point where I was sleeping on the floor with the lights on and hatchlings were being born by the thousands only inches from my sleeping head. To wake up in the middle of the night and the first thing you see is scores and scores of tiny brown bed bug eggs and babies just inches from your retina is worse than any nightmare you’ve ever had. It’s an image you never really forget, and I always remind myself of that image whenever I feel like slacking off from keeping my home clean.

I had a lot of wooden furniture, which served as the perfect haven for colonies upon colonies of bed bugs. I’ve had to throw out almost all of my furniture and replace it with plastic and steel furniture, which was not easy since I was broke and had to spend a few months in a relatively empty living space until new non-wooden furniture entered my home piece by piece. In short, I had to go through a dramatic lifestyle change in order to rid my home of bed bugs. And even then, the eradication is never 100%. No exterminator can guarantee 100% bed bug annihilation, which didn’t matter to me anyway since I couldn’t afford one. Most exterminators highly recommend their bed bug-infested clientele take the same drastic steps I’ve taken. Also, I don’t like the idea of unknown chemicals (especially industrial-strength chemicals which are illegal for non-exterminators to purchase) being sprayed in a space in which I eat and sleep.

As I’ve discussed before, I use an eco-friendly approach to killing roaches (because roach sprays and foggers causes bed bugs to scatter and hide, making it harder to kill them all) and I advise people to do the same with bed bugs. The most eco-friendly method I’ve found of getting rid of bed bugs is to simply get rid of your wooden furniture (if you have a full-blown infestation, chances are good that you will find small colonies of bed bugs already living in your furniture). The other step is to replace that wooden furniture with furniture made of plastic or metal. The other step is to adopt a lifestyle of serious routine cleaning. I mean, cleaning your home has to become like a religion for you if you want to get rid of bed bugs. That includes clutter. Throw away any old newspapers or magazines you may have lying around. Store your books in plastic food containers. It may look weird to have shelves full of books sealed in Tupperware but a full-blown bed bug infestation and a body full of bug bites look even worse. M and I have a financial goal of making enough money that we can someday hire someone to do all the routine cleaning.

Everyone tells me to tell my landlord to take care of the problem or to call 311 or to sue my landlord, but this is wayyyy easier said than done, especially when the assholes giving me all this helpful advice don’t actually have to do any of this themselves. As I had discussed in earlier posts, holding landlords responsible for a bed bug infestation can be tricky, and if the landlord has a lawyer and you don’t (which is my case) they can convince the city that not only are they not responsible for your infestation, but that you may be held liable for introducing bed bugs onto the property. It’s also difficult to expect the government to do anything about a bed bug infestation because bed bugs do not carry disease and therefore do not pose any kind of public health threat. However, you can argue that a bed bug infestation and their biting can cause mental anguish, but this is obviously much harder to prove than a physical injury.
I simply don’t have the time or money to travel to and from court over and over, fill out forms, take photos of my apartment, etc. What’s more, the landlord may retaliate by trying to find you in violation of your lease. And in New York City, the hometown of over-regulation, some leases have so many terms most tenants are unknowingly in violation of them in some tiny superficial way.

As for multiplying quickly, bed bugs can lay about 500 eggs in their lifetime. And those 500 bed bugs, upon reaching adulthood can each lay their own 500 eggs. So yeah, they can multiply quickly in a very short time.

I hope I answered your questions. For more details on my personal bed bug experience, I suggest you browse the rest of this blog.

Later.

Posted in bug bites, exterminators, insect foggers, roaches, tips, updates | 4 Comments »

In The News

Saturday, November 10th, 2007

Hi,

I couldn’t decide which news item to write about, so I figured I’d write about both. First up, a New York Times article from November 2005. It illustrates the dramatic increase of numbers of bedbug reports in New York City.

Last year (2004) the city logged 377 bedbug violations, up from just 2 in 2002 and 16 in 2003. Since July (2005), there have been 449. “It’s definitely a fast-emerging problem,” said Carol Abrams, spokeswoman for the city housing agency.

wow is all I can say.

In other news, Cincinnati, Ohio’s Department of Health has accomplished something New York Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) could not, despite all the token gestures made and lame duck hearings held by the New York City Council last year: form a bed bug task force.

According to WLWT Cincinnati and WCPO Cincinnati, the Ohio State Legislature formed the Bed Bug Task Force after Cincinnati’s Council On Aging logged 500 different clients in one month who had complained about a bed bug infestation in their homes. The task force held their first public meeting last Monday with residents, politicians and exterminators to discuss the city’s bed bug problem. The task force has already lobbied members of the Ohio state legislature for stricter guidelines in a bed bug eradication strategy.

So Cincinnati has their act together, but what about New York? Well, there’s this quote from the 2005 New York Times article to keep our spirits up:

“People come in here and cry on my shoulder,” said Andy Linares, the owner of Bug Off Pest Control, in Washington Heights. “They feel ashamed, even traumatized, to have these invisible vampires living in their home. Rats, even V.D., is more socially acceptable than bedbugs.”

Posted in City Council, NYC Government, exterminators, news articles | 1 Comment »

Bed Bug Haikus, Part Two

Saturday, November 3rd, 2007

I’ve only received seven bed bug haikus thus far and was waiting, waiting, waiting for the tenth so I could post my next barrage of haikus. Then I thought, what the hell, seven is good enough. For those first-time visitors, I wrote ten bed bug-related haikus about a month ago and promised to release my next ten provided that I receive ten bed bug haikus from visitors dropping comments. I’ve decided to ignore my old promise and put up my best eight bed bug haikus anyway.

But before I release my own poetry, I’d like to share with everyone the very amusing and creative bed bug haikus that are too good to not share. Unfortunately, the poster was anonymous and the poems were submitted within several different comments , so I have no way of knowing if these seven haikus were written by one anonymous poster or several. In any case, here they are…

******

Bugs have given me
Obsessive Compulsive Order
Mess harbors vampires

***

Bugs! I have become:
Carpenter, maid, repairman,
Entomologist

***

When I find a bug
I tape it to white paper
My only revenge

***

My cat has become
Both best friend and enemy
Potential bug bus

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My feet are so cold
But the alternative’s worse
Socks could carry eggs

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My clothes are in bags
My dignity is missing
Where did my pants go?

***

Red welts on my skin
Either stress hives or bed bugs
I think a mixture

******

and, without further ado, are my ten haikus.

******

Exterminators
$400 a room
My kidney’s for sale

***

Bed Bugs?!? Why me, God?
Oh yeah, I forgot
That thing I did with donkeys

***

Bed bugs in New York
Pay no rent and eat for free!
Freeloading assholes

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Unwelcome bed bugs
Go back to 1950
Nobody likes you

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My blood is too sweet
I should cut down on Starbucks
That’s why they bite me

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Spray here and spray there
Wash your clothes and scratch your legs
I sure miss roaches

***

The next guy who says
“Hey, don’t let the bed bugs bite!”
I will throw rocks at

***

Through pain springs forth art
Bug bites replace my bed frame
Bed bugs are my muse

Enjoy!

Posted in Haiku, air mattresses, bug bites, exterminators, fun and games, humor | 2 Comments »

Bed Bug Tortilla/Pest Control Orgy

Sunday, October 28th, 2007

I came across this old CBS story from New York City in which a woman living in a Brooklyn slum complains to her super of, among other things, a bed bug infestation. Check this out:

As for her complaint to the super about the bedbugs? “What you can do with the bed bugs is put them in a tortilla and feed them to your family and then get rid of the bedbugs,” she said the super told her.

Yikes. Seems like bed bugs are just one more complaint for slumlords to ignore.

In other news, PCT Online had a very interesting article exhibiting just what it took to destroy a full-scale bed bug infestation in one New Jersey apartment building. People often drop comments on Bugged Out asking how to effectively get rid of bed bugs from their apartments or apartment buildings, and the answer is never a simple one. Because apartments are attached to each other, simply fumigating the affected apartment doesn’t help, as bed bugs can escape to adjacent apartments and return when the coast is clear.

Royal Fumigation, however, has devised a fumigation strategy even more comprehensive than President Bush’s invasion of Iraq. Keeping constant communication with local police precincts, fire departments and New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection, Royal had the property manager evacuate all tenants from the building for the duration of the bed bug fumigation, arranging temporary housing for the displaced tenants. Royal then spent the next 12 hours sealing off, I presume, every nook and cranny in the building.

After that, a pesticide called Vikane was sprayed in the building for about 24 hours. A consultant from Dow Agrosciences, the manufacturer of Vikane, was on hand to help Royal with the proper application of the pesticide. The actual fumigation period was followed by a nine-hour aeration of the entire building using fans. Though the aeration was over by 9 pm, Royal didn’t want anyone re-entering the building until the next morning. The next day the property manager brought in a cleaning crew to make the building ready for the tenants to move back in.

I found this to be the most coordinated and thorough bed bug fumigation I’ve ever heard of. I can’t even imagine how much this all cost. The article itself leaves out several facts that I and others would love to know, including:

  1. How many people were actually involved in the fumigation?
  2. How much did this all cost, and was the cost covered by the landlord or by the tenants?
  3. How many apartment units were in the building?
  4. How much time did Royal spend preparing this very thorough operation?
  5. What logistical issues, if any, did the crew face while planning this operation?
  6. Were the apartments unlocked in order for Royal to properly fumigate them?

I certainly wish these questions were answered in the article, but the story had enough information to keep me interested. Wouldn’t it be an absolute bitch if the bed bugs still survived in that building after all that?

Have a good weekend.

Posted in exterminators, news articles | 1 Comment »

The Bug Man Strikes Again!

Friday, October 12th, 2007

Stumbled on an old (March 2007) San Francisco Gate article featuring some pretty good advice from the Bugman, who I mentioned in a previous post.

Here’s an excerpt:

Q:I have a pest control company spray our house every month, and we don’t see any bugs. They claim they can kill all crawling insects. Is anything wrong with this?

A: Besides spraying pesticides without having a target pest, there are a number of other reasons why I would never recommend such a service.

First, any insect, spider or other arthropod can occasionally wander into your home. It happens to everyone and shouldn’t be a concern. You can dispose of the occasional invader however you like. However, occasionally you may see a few insects of the same species, and it may be important to know what they are. Never hire a pest control company that “kills all crawling insects”; hire one that can identify all crawling and flying insects and will make recommendations and treat accordingly.

I checked out his web site and found these bizarre bed bug facts:

Crushed bed bugs, mixed with salt and human milk make a fine eye ointment. In powdered form they were thought to cure all fevers and for hysteria they were given internally, and just the smell of them was considered sufficient to relieve those under hysterical suffocation. In some parts of Ohio, eating seven bed bugs mixed with beans is considered a cure for chills and fever.

And check out this tidbit on the “insectxuality” of bed bugs.

Bed bugs also have an interesting sex life. The males have large, sex organs with which they pierce the females body wall not bothering to use her sex organs. They fill the female’s body with semen, some it which makes it to her reproductive organs. The rest is absorbed as protein by the female and used as nourishment. When feeding, bed bugs have been observed climbing on top of another bed bug which is feeding on a human and piercing that bed bug with its beak and sucking the blood from it, thus getting the blood second hand. This body piercing of the females by males while feeding seems to have no effect on the bed bug getting pierced.

Doesn’t make me feel any better that two bed bugs may be getting it on while perched on my body sucking my blood. These creatures certainly are multi-taskers.

I highly recommend the Bugman’s interesting website, which I should add, advocates the treatment of insect infestations without the use of chemicals or pesticides.

Posted in exterminators, tips | 1 Comment »

Feeling Depressed?

Saturday, August 11th, 2007

Well, for those of you living with bed bugs, get ready to feel further depressed.

The Village Voice’s blog, Running Scared wrote about a Bedbug Control Seminar held by Pest Control Technology Magazine this month at the Park Central Hotel. According to the blog, the unofficial theme of the seminar was, the bed bug problem’s getting worse and we don’t really know how to deal with it. A note of warning: the entry features a disgusting YouTube video of a bed bug feeding on an arm.

Here’s a few excerpts from the blog entry:

“We have to be in an absolute bed bug state of mind,” warned Dr. Michael Potter, an entomologist at the University of Kentucky and leading expert in the now global bed bug war, with no apologies to Billy Joel. “This problem is not going to go away. I don’t see how the problem is going to get better. It’s going to get chaotic.”

…it appears that even the exterminators’ deadly pesticides are no match for bedbugs…

More horrifying was Potter’s assertion that these tiny vampires are growing increasingly resistant to the arsenal of mostly pyrethroid-based compounds currently approved by the EPA. “We’ve had cases where we’re spraying 200 to 300 times the label dose of toxins and we can’t kill ‘em,” Potter said.

The only solution offered to affected New Yorkers were mattress covers, which to me are not only disgusting but do not put up a substantial defense in your bed bug infestation if the bed bugs are not in your bed, or are in your bed and in other areas of your home. The name bed bug is misleading, because beds are only one of the only many, many places in a person’s home these insects can live.

Notice that the blog mentions “currently approved by the EPA”, hinting that, as many bed bug bloggers have, the long-banned DDT just might be the only hope in combating bed bugs, just as it did half a century ago.

While effective solutions were non-existent at the seminar, one exceptional idea to decrease the spreading of bed bugs was discussed: a hotline that New Yorkers can call to pick up their bug-infested mattresses rather than have them lying around on the sidewalks, or worse, in an apartment hallway.

Long story short: bed bugs growing epidemic, nothing in sight that can stop them, give up hope, find a nice corner to sit in (corners should be easy to find once you throw out your furniture) and cry silently. Or howl like a banchee, whatever works for you.

Posted in epidemic, exterminators | 6 Comments »