Murder and mayhem at the Vigilant

These last two weeks at the Vigilant the bugs have resurfaced for spring, only to be hit with more cold weather; but they are regrouping in the woodwork, out of which they will emerge. So be ready New York, this breeding ground of bloodsuckers is getting ready to send out its troops. While the bugs moulted and hibernated, much was going on with their human hosts. One man was set to be evicted, but I stepped in and advised him of his rights and told him he may well be severely overcharged. So he looked into it and stood his ground. The management tried their best to get him to leave, offering him $1,000, but he declined. We went to dinner and came back around 7pm to find police in the building. At first I thought they had called them to evict him, which would not be legal; but instead I found that a friend of mine had committed suicide. So one man got to stay, another left for good... The next week cops were called again, this time because someone wrote on the bathroom walls MURDER: ALBERT WAS MURDERED. I do not doubt that the owners are up to some nasty stuff, but murdering a tenant, even one who gave me information and once considered joining a rent strike, is beyond them. Maybe not morally, but murder takes a bit of planning, timing and bravado. The management can hardly keep paint on the walls, let alone slip into a room and force a tenant to swallow pills and leave a note. So no. This is one conspiracy theory I do not buy, but some may believe it. Maybe there is something I do not know, and it was suspicious that at the very time I was helping a tenant stand up to them another tenant passed away...but this world is full of coincidences. So I am not calling the police with mere speculations; which is what they are wont to do to, as every time some idiot writes on the bathroom wall or a toilet jams they call the cops and point the finger at me. Some detective is getting quite a file. I just hope he has the same view towards evidence of a crime that I do, and does not send the SWAT team to my door for that leaking loo on my floor...better to send a plumber and fix them all for a change. And oh, speaking of suspicions about crimes, I am not alone in thinking that this hotel is deliberately being used to breed bedbugs as an act of bioterrorism...but, without proof, I cannot call the NYPD. And it could well be just incompetence, apathy and greed. Which are not quite crimes in this city...

Borax recommended for use against bugs

In the New York Daily News, a letter by Howard Scott Pearlman extols Borax:

"Borax has the ability to get on insects' skin and then suck the moisture out of their bodies. If you do laundry with borax soap powder, your clothes and sheets get a borax residue on them. Unsuspecting bedbugs pick up that residue and take it back to their nests, where all their nasty little friends meet Mr. Borax, dry out and die. Borax soap powder can also be sprinkled on carpeting and left for days, providing you do not have small children or pets that will eat it."

27 January, 2011.

It may or may not work, I would assume that they would get hungrier (or thirstier...) and go for more blood...on average adults eat once a week. They can fast for over a year.

Vaguely I recall borax being illegal to use in New York as a powdered bug deterrent, but I am not sure. But this is worth knowing about. My own flat has seen a decrease in the bugs, which I attribute to more use of ziploc bags and therefore loss of habitat.

Also, is this a free ad for a product - or is it reality? I wonder if it only makes the critters hungry, and rather than dry out and die, they just go for more blood. At least Mr. Pearlman is not selling us on DDT.

2 gallon zip loc bags

Today I found what I was looking for - 2 gallon zip loc bags - they were upstairs at Jack's on 32nd btw 6th and 7th - cost $1.99 for 15 of them, 2.7 ml heavy duty, 13 x 15 3/8". Great! I was able to put 5 books into one of these when I needed 5 1 gallon bags to do the job before...a pair of jeans its easily, and large stacks of papers, no problem. The bugs will lose out and I will have my stuff more secure.
Other shops have not paid any attention, so this is a real find. They are made by GAM Associates in Goshen, NY 10924 - and sold as the Nicole Home Collection.
So if you don't live near Jack's in Manhattan, try googling that information.

Next Media Animation mocks America's epidemic

Rewatching the Next Media Animation "Bedbugs take over America" cartoon, I noted it points to the EPA ban on propoxur and/or other pesticides as the reason for their spread. This not true - and it may show that there is some media plan to push pesticides on us - as in NY, where DDT is advocated by people like Howard Stern and Andrea Peyser. Watch the press carefully and see what they are really pushing, and even the blogosphere, where companies spend fortunes to convince us to buy chemicals....

Just seen: a spoof cartoon in Chinese? about bedbugs taking over New York City. It features Penn Station, which is near the infamous Vigilant...and it also features a cartoon character named Vigilante...its premise is that bedbugs are taking over NY, and a similar cartoon from the Orient is making outright fun of America as bedbugs are taking over...

It does make me wonder if maybe the owners of the Vigilant are not sabotage agents who are out to destroy New York or America, as they are in such flagrant contempt of court by refusing to even cover garbage cans that they are certainly aiding and abetting the enemy: Cimex lectularius.

Added to that, they evicted a US paratrooper, Chris Lugo, for trying to get rid of bedbugs the very first night they were there.

If New York had a normal mayor and normal housing court, the Vigilant would be dealt with. But this is a town full of spies...just ask Anna Chapman. So who knows, maybe America is under attack and no one cares, not even the New York papers who turned up their nose at the story...

While New York wastes time with deadly and useless chemicals to treat bedbugs (see previous post), New Haven in Connecticut has the solution. And excerpt from the New Haven Independent spells it out. Hopefully Bloomberg will get the hint or get impeached. I do not mind saying he is a stupid, incompetent jerk who is noted for having fondled his male interns. Don't like what I am saying then don't read my blog!

On Wednesday morning Housing Authority of New Haven (HANH) officials scheduled a pre-bid conference for contractors who would like to provide it with the Temp-Air-40kw Mobile Heat Treatment System and training in order to elminate bed bugs throughout city projects.

This equipment has already completely eliminated bed bugs at the Tower One and Tower Two senior developments, according to HANH Chief Operating Officer Renee Dobos,

“It’s a quick kill,” said Lee Purvis, the HANH staffer in charge of the project.

HANH officials said they haven’t experienced a spike or invasion of bed bugs. They want to get ahead of any new problem that might develop.

HANH did a pilot on eight apartments already. It worked, officials said. Each thermal radiation machine costs about $50,000; the HANH hopes to buy two.

Within six to nine months, Dobos said, all affected apartments in the system should be cleaned.

Harmful chemicals used in New York to combat bedbugs

The following is a list of the chemicals that Superb Pest is using at the Vigilant Hotel in NYC. It seems every time they spray there are more bugs! Some of these may well be harmful to humans. Most chemicals used in the industry do nothing to combat bedbugs, it is heat that gets them going. People spend lots of money on sprays, and this keeps useless chemicals in manufacture and useless people get wealthy. We may have a health problem on our hands in the future with all these pesticides in the environment.

One this for sure is, NYC is now a haven of bedbugs and it is losing its tourism industry. Places like the Vigilant Hotel are part of the cause, but the city does not have the wherewithal to close them down. Instead, it gets sprayed with chemicals that may add to the problem, and idiots are campaigning for DDT.

Tempo Sc EPA # 432-1363 The active ingredient is beta-cyfluthrin, a new synthetic pyrethroid and one of the stereoisomers of cyfluthrin; it is a good insecticide for mosquito control. However, care should be exercised while using it as a larvicide in breeding habitats considering its toxicity to fish.
Gentrol EPA # 2724-351 The active ingredient is hydroprene, which interferes with normal juvenile hormone levels within the insect, creating an imbalance at critical periods in insect development and maturation.
Sterifab EPA # 397-13 Active ingredients are 3-phenoxybenzyl D-cis, trans 2.2-dimethyl-3-(2-methylpropenyl) cyclopropanecarboxylate, isopropyl alchohol, didecyl dimethyl ammonium chloride n-alkyl and dimethyl benzyl ammonium chloride.
Ecopco D.x EPA # 67425-16 The active ingredient is 2-Phenethyl Propionate, a botanical insecticide, which all dealers refuse to sell to users in New York State.
Demon ultrawet powder EPA # 432-1304 The active ingredient is cypermethrin, a synthetic pyrethroid used as an insecticide in large-scale commercial agricultural applications. It behaves as a fast-acting neurotoxin in insects. Cypermethrin is highly toxic to fish, bees and aquatic insects, according to the National Pesticides Telecommunications Network (NPTN). Excessive exposure can cause nausea, headache, muscle weakness, salivation, shortness of breath and seizures.
D-force-Hpx EPA # 9444-217 The active ingredient is deltamethrin, which produces typical type II motor symptoms in mammals. Type II symptoms include a writhing syndrome in rodents, as well as copious salivation. Acute exposure effects in humans include the following: ataxia, convulsions leading to muscle fibrillation and paralysis, dermatitis, edema, diarrhea, dyspnea, headache, hepatic microsomal enzyme induction, irritability, peripheral vascular collapse, rhinorrhea, serum alkaline phosphatase elevation, tinnitus, tremors, vomiting and death due to respiratory failure. Allergic reactions have included the following effects: anaphylaxis, bronchospasm, eosinophilia, fever, hypersensitivity pneumonia, pallor, pollinosis, sweating, sudden swelling of the face, eyelids, lips and mucous membranes, and tachycardia. Studies have shown many cases of dermal deltamethrin poisoning after agricultural use with inadequate handling precautions, and many cases of accidental or suicidal poisoning by the oral route at doses estimated to be 2- 250 mg/kg. Oral ingestion caused epigastric pain, nausea, vomiting and coarse muscular fasciculations. With doses of 100-250 mg/kg, coma was caused within 15-20 minutes.

From the Vigilant to the Waldorf

Yesterday in the Post there was an article about bedbugs in the Waldorf...

which is where POTUS stays in NY. Is he the next victim?

Hizzoner here in NY was quizzed about bedbugs on David Letterman and could only

make joke about it...

Bloomberg ought to go to the Vigilant Hotel and see where the infestation is and stop making jokes. Getting these guys to do their jobs is getting to be a full time job.

While they fiddle, Rome burns...and so do the guests in its hotels, whether they be the Vigilant or the Waldorf.

The former is still in violation of Judge Kaplan's orders of 10 June...they do not yet cover their garbage cans. But to the city officials here, it is all a joke.

Of bugs and nerds

Joanna Molloy yesterday and today held forth in the NY Daily News about the bedbug convention in Chicago...which she thinks is for nerds. She cites some interesting characters, including one US Army researcher, Harold Harlan, who let the bugs bite his legs for 30 years...he harvested them at Fort Dix in 1970. Now they are at Camp LeJeune. The enemy is within the gates...

And within another Nike store. This seems strange. Lightning strikes twice in the case of Nike and Abercrombie & Fitch. How do bedbugs get into places where there are no beds? Such as the Empire State Building and all the government offices in Manhattan (according to Gale Brewer).

Molloy talks about the sex lives of Cimex - which is about as disgusting as it gets; males like to mate once a minute - with any other Cimex, regardless of its age or sex...they cut through the abdomen of the females and just go at it. Apparently, the female of the species has no, what does on call it - cloaca? Or is that just for the birds?

Most interestingly she notes that Dr Stephen Kells of the University of Minnesota dipped a bug in some pesticide, and it lived on and even laid eggs...in my building they seem to be more prolific after spraying...which is ineffective.

What her article does not mention is heat...heat works. Get the temp up to 113 Farenheit, don't spray wasteful chemicals, and be done with them once and for all. Any article or post on this subject ought to contain that information, it is crucial. All the factoids about their sex lives etc. are just interesting but not what we really need to hear.

By the way, I will contact her and see if she is willing to do the city a service by writing about the Vigilant Hotel, not far from her offices. If that place, called Ground Zero, can be treated with heat and kept under watch by the city, it will make a large difference. Is this journalists willing to help us out? We'll know soon.

TURN ON THE HEAT!

The new super today wanted to know if I was going to have the spray in my room...the landlord gave me note after note asking me to get all my stuff out...when I took stuff out the last time, they refused to spray till I had everything out in the hall for people to steal. I took enough out to spray but they refused. It seems to be a ploy for them to have me vacate, then lock me out and throw me out.
But whatever, the sprays do not work. They are a way of placating people and getting on record some action so landlords can avoid taking real action. As they benefit large chemical companies, there is a conspiracy of silence in a world run by billionaire idiot politicians. Ooops, did I say idiot? Yes I did, and since this is my blog, that is not going to be deleted as were my comments on www.bedbugger.com. They also deleted a very pertinent comment I made about druggies being a danger to society when they walk around spreading bedbugs...I wonder who runs that site. What I do not see often there is real mention of how to get rid of bugs...#1 is heat, as TIME and other publications tell you - going so far as to mention that chemical sprays, especially DDT - are ineffective. Turn up the heat to 114 degrees Farenheit, and you will quash the bug. End of problem. It really is that simple.
#2, or maybe it ought to be #1, is cleanliness.
#3 is ziploc everything they may get into, on this blog I spotted where in Manhattan one can buy ziplocs up to 20 gallon size.

What does it take for politicians, journalists and anonymous commentators to act? Are they deliberately trying to talk over the facts so that this bedbug epidemic lasts and lasts, an endless opportunity to sell chemicals? That has happened in the past; William Farish (grandpa of WF III, who was Bush's appointee as US Ambassador to the Court of St. James') was indicted for working with Standard Oil to prolong WWII so they could make more profits...this happens all the time...Philip Habib in the Pentagon surpressed good intel about Hanoi which led to troop inaction and the prolonging of the Vietnam War...and what about this nice little profitable war halfway around the world? Profits for chemical companies...more napalm...depleted uranium which has poisoned hundreds of thousands of US troops...
The war on bugs could be won in weeks, with a government initiative to heat buildings that are government run or low income. Information on cleanliness and ziploc bags could be disseminated, with free bags to low income people.
But that would end this crisis. The Daily News, the NY Post, and the NY Times have not shown any interest in ending it, and I wonder about the site, www.bedbugger.com
So attack me if you want, it is obvious I am making enemies here; oh the gentlre art of making enemies! But it has to be done. Or else we will have millions of enemies crawling up our backs at night.

20 Gallons ziploc bags

In my further quest for the bugproof bag, I went to the Container Store on 6th Ave and found they had a small selection of small bags...going in packs of 10 for about a buck a pack. Theirs I think are thicker than others, at 4ml, but other companies I have seen do not note their thickness on the pack.

People who went to Duane Reade told me they had no more 10 gallon bags, so who knows. Could be they are bought up quickly. In any case, I found a 20 gallon bag on the shelf at Associated on 14th St near 8th Ave; $6.49 for three.

Some are slow to take on board why this is important. It removes a habitat. They cannot shed, breed and sleep when there are no piles of papers or clothes or little crevices. Between bagging and painting and cleaning you will get rid of these pests, and with less money than it would take to have some idiot spray poisons around. That is the lazy man's way to do this.

Paint up, clean up, and bag up and you will be safe.

Steps to eradicate bedbugs

No site on Cimex is any good without some practical advice.
So here it is. Get lots of ziplock bags. I keep books, papers, socks, etc. in these,
and my hanging gear hanging in full length dry cleaning bags.
As to ziplocks, it's hard to source large ones. In Manhattan I found a 99cent store
on 23rd near 8th that had gallon size bags, which hold 81/2 x 11s, (but not UK A4, which is taller)
for $1.29. The ten gallon size bags, 20" x 24", hold oversize - but cost $7.99 for four at Duane Reade, though not all DR carry these, I got mine near Penn Station.
The bugs have less places to breed this way, and I can put on clean threads each day and not carry them around. This is important. I do not have to scratch on the subway. It is not hard to defeat them.
They tend not to like splippery surfaces, one sufferer noted they do not climb the smooth wood on pool tables, but this is not 100%. They can if they really need to, but it does help.
Putting sticky traps around the bedposts also works.
But the real way to be rid of them I hear is heat, 113 degrees, or excessive cold.
Another tactic is to keep a spray bottle of acohol for those close encounters.
And take a bath before bed, so your smell is less obvious - mask it with alcohol, lotion, oil, etc.
And of course lots of periodic cleaning.
Hope this helps and please leave any other tips as a comment so we can add to this list.

Update on the Vigilant and its guests

Today I woke up with tons of the buggers. With the drop ceilings, they just pour into the rooms no matter what one does to them. The hotel management painted the floor last week, as if that was the answer to the problem. They also took bedstands out of empty rooms (there is only about a 45% occupancy rate) and painted the stands and the rooms. The paint job was so bad I grabbed one of the young men involved and asked him pointedly if he was ever in the service. He replied that his dad was and his dad was in some special unit. I had no patience at this point; I cut him off and told him the question was about him; then I towed him over to one of the bestands, where mats of hair and dirt could be seen under a thin layer of spray paint, and told him that in the US Navy if he ever did such a lousy paint job the boatswain mates would throw him to the sharks. He then started blaming his coworkers and blubbering. He needed to grow up, so I told him where to find the army recruiter. Not that they would want him. Neither the army nor the marines are looking for a few stupid men.
Sometimes I can be mean, as many journalists can attest. It started with a hapless teacher I had at PS 64, who sent me home with a note to my mother to complain about my attitude. The next day, the note was signed and in the teacher's hands. She looked it over and demanded to know why it was scribbled over. I had to tell her my mother had me correct her spelling. And I've been correcting the spelling of the hapless ever since, whether they by journalists, mayors, or weak young men who can't hold a paintbrush.
And of course building managers and owners who can't get good help.
And then of course I have the same proclivities towards local politicians who are out-of-touch with reality - and that might or might not be Christine Quinn, who has not responded to two emails and whose phone does not pick up; or Mike Bloomberg, who leaves NY every Friday morning to play in the Bahamas. Or any number of other employees who take our hard earned and play games while we have to host these bugs.
So maybe I will be giving Quinn and Bloomberg the number of army recruiting; but I don't think they would want them any more than the hapless blubberer.

TIME article on bugs

Nina Burleigh, pp. 63-64 of TIME, writes on bedbugs, which she first encountered in Italy. She has done good research, and adds to the consensus that most sprays are not an answer, but heat is; 113 degrees Farenheit. Which she notes costs thousands of dollars; does it really? I mean, to leave a few burners on in a room for at most a few hours? Methinks they doth charge too much, whoever is running this operation. In this case, maybe the local governments could allocate money to get such apparatus and just do the jobs with taxpayers' money, as it is in the public interest. People ought not to have to take out a loan to get free of bugs.
The problem is growing out of control. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the EPA, and the Department of Defense are all involved. Why the latter? Because this is a real and present danger. If it continues to infest the US, it will bring the US to a halt. People in Ohio sleep outside so bad are the bugs in their houses.
In NY, the press continues to sleep, copying the odd press release from AP, or trying to sell us DDT (which TIME notes is useless). I went to the offices of the Daily News on Thursday, only to be shut out. I called them, and no one wanted to give a name or tell me why they were ignoring a story about the building down the road from them where former servicemen are evicted for cleaning; and where thousands of bugs leave each day to infest America. I guess the Daily News does not care about America or its servicemen. They do care about themselves, with high security all over that building. It's like trying to talk to scared sissies. What are they afraid of? All I had in my hands was the article from the Epoch Times...and of course the dangerous weapons os sarcasm...way too much for them to take. When I asked their names they refused to be identified. What stinking cowards.
The Post did a lengthy piece this week by a rich person - they seem to do one whenever someone rich or trendy gets a bug - who also did not want to be identified - writing under the nom de plume of Cordelia von Bedbug. I wonder if any of it was even true. But that may be just my cynical nature. Which may be due in part to the fact that crackheads write major stories in the press here in NY that are not true or are stolen from other journalists - just ask Jayson Blair of the New York Times; from which I am still waiting to hear back.
In the meantime, I have fired off a letter to Christine Quinn, one of the most powerful politicians in NYC - and so we will see what she does about this. BTW, the building is a one minute walk from her office...

Front page story about bedbugs in Epoch Times

Today the NY Daily News noted that NY was the city that did not sleep because of bedbugs, and that it had the prize for being #1 in the US, followed by Philadelphia.
The Epoch Times did a large front page article about where they are in NY, and how to get rid of them. And I helped with that article. It is not often I am surprised by a journalist's diligence - Justin Brown is one reporter who did a great job (and got fired for it after questioning the local politicians in his reporting on the Kenmore Hotel in NY), and Genevieve Roberts at the Independent/Evening Standard in London are two stars in that world, which for the most part I find lackluster. Now Andrea Hayley shines in my opinion. She took weeks to do this story, looked up the science on the subject, talked to a number of experts and politicians, and actually snuck into a male only establishment late at night to get her scoop.
The site of her clandestine nocturnal escapades is the Vigilant Hotel, situated at 370 Eighth Avenue in Manhattan. It is where I collected 4,000 bebugs in one room in 4 months. From its portals it is estimated that a steady stream of 2,000 bugs a week leave on the residents and the trash. And this has been going on for years, so it is thought by many to be the 'Ground Zero' of New York's epidemic.
For some reason management does not want residents to clean it; former paratrooper Chris Lugo was told to leave immediately after trying to clean his room of bugs, thousands of them he notes in the article.
To be fair to the owner, Hayley called the hotel and interviewed the manager, Mike Snell, who tried somewhat to defend the situation. But there is not much defence here - not for a place where garbage cans go uncovered and mice play in them all the time. Not in a place that evicts people for cleaning. Not in a place where the ceiling style of the rooms harbours mice and bugs - they refuse a court order to change this.
So what are New Yorkers to do about this place that breeds bedbugs? Possibly nothing. Which means that the bugs will win, they will come out and bite you, your babies, your pets, and anything with blood. They will defecate all over anything and leave their outer shells around when they moult. So, as Snell, the Vigilant manager seems to urge, just get used to it. Those are your options. Fight or die.
What things ought the city and its residents do? #1 is take over the Vigilant as a menace to society. Get a hold of the owners - Hayley notes that she couldn't quite track down 'Yumin Management' btb owned by Etsuko Takeuchi - and throw them out. As for individuals, thouroughly clean your apartment. Then get ziploc and snapshut bags and containers, place all papers in the bags and other things that might hide bugs in containers. Get sticky traps around the legs of your beds. And urge your legislators to close the Vigilant.

Office bugs

The Post yesterday (pp. 32-33) had a feature by Chris Erikson on bugs in the office, which is a growing problem. The creatures have invaded CNN, Elle Magazine, and Euro RSCG Worldwide.

Larry Pinto, a consulting entomologist, says that most office managers have absolutely no idea what's coming down the road. Right he is. These bugs multiply at the rate of 200 per year per individual or more.

Another aspect to this, as Richard Cooper of bedbugcentral.com notes, is that people don't always tell their co-workers about the problem. NYC, after 9/11, adopted the mantra, if you see something, say something, and this applies to the critters as well - or else terrorists will be laughing at NY.

Mosque plans lower Manhattan cancelled due to bedbugs

OK, OK, that title is only a spoof. And I am tempted to cut and paste if verbatim here if I weren't afraid someone would sue me for $4.89. Why that amount? Cause that is all I got...so to protect my nest egg from a major plagiarism suit, I am going to be careful and only post the URL to take you to the site...do read. For now, this story is a spoof, but it could well be true in the not-too-distant future.

http://www.thespoof.com/news/spoof.cfm?headline=s2i81136

Some basic facts about bedbugs

It seems as if the press cannot get the story straight. For instance, on bedbugger.com, it is noted that CBC in Canada used an image of a beetle, and a rather nice golden one at that, who does not deserve to be tarred with the loser image of the bedbug, on their bedbugs story. Then ABC and CBS did the same; copying each others' mistakes.
We also hear that DDT is supposed to get rid of them; au contraire, they actually increased when DDT was used. One wonders if someone is trying to sell this illegal chemical. Use it and the Bald Eagle will be destroyed - it was banned for this very reason in 1972. It is also bad for humans.
Then there are all the ads for sprays; it has been proven that most of these do not work. Bedbugs are good at developing immunities.
Then we are told they can go without food for six months. Actually, they can go up to 15 months without a drop of our precious blood.
And it seems that they are nocturnal: no, they come out whenever they can, day or night, summer or winter, though they are somewhat of a warm weather fiend. They do not all hibernate in the winter, that is false.
And one more attempted falsehood is the insinuation that they come from the poor and/or immigrants. In reality, they seem to like the Upper East Side, the Hamptons, upscale clothing shops, rare book rooms, etc. Now they are in the Empire State Building.
Truth is that they find rich fabric, especially sumptuously pleated material, a good place to live.
And many journalists forget to check their reproductive rate, which beats rabbits any day; a female can lay up to 400 eggs in her lifetime, and they can reach sexual maturity at six weeks. In cosmopolitan places they start having their sexual adventures early, as there is plenty of human flesh to suck. So we need to get our facts straight and not waste time with ineffective sprays and false hopes that they will just go away during the day and all go to Florida for the winter. Unless prompt action is taken, they are here to stay.
By the way, I have written a letter to the New York Times in which I am giving my real name if they care to publish. Fear and social stigma are not for me, but for cowards and slumlords who do not bother to keep their buildings clean.

Recent News on bedbugs in New York

The front page of the New York Times carried a story about the 'social stigma' of bedbugs...
it seems Jeremy Sparig is, in the words of some, a "mattress left on the street, something best avoided in these times."
If so, Sparig has losers for friends. I will be mentioned in an upcoming article and am not afraid to tell people who I am. For one thing, it's hard to fight this and be anomymous. That's for cowards. Sparig says he is like a leper...
No one having to fight bedbugs ought to go through this. They are not contagious, and if one is clean, and washes out one's clothes, they do not need to travel with you. They hitch no rides on me, I was in the military where we learned to fight these things by being neat. The first thing we did in bootcamp was fold our shirts in equal thirds. So it is not hard to keep the bugs at bay, or at least at home. And then we had ratguards on all the ships, which is a good idea, and can be copied in designing bug-guards around the legs of the bed.
My landlord was probably counting on this fear to keep people from coming forward, many work in some famous places and would not want their boss to know, so I guess it's fair to say some people ought to remain anomymous, but for everyone to do so is cowardice. There is a plague upon the city and the men must be men and stand up and fight it.
Some stories from Thursday and Friday include a note in the amNewY0rk about bedbugs biting in the Times Square AMC 25-plex. Movies theatres are prime targets, and anyone wise would stay out of them. Use common sense: rent a DVD and watch it at home. The AMC did not replaces all its seats - and bedbugs run fast and spread. In a minute they can go the length of a room, so taking out two seats is just a joke. AMC Magic Johnson theatres in Harlem also got them: word to the wise, stay away, unless you want to give blood to these creatures of darkness. And, as I just read in the Audubon Field Guide to North American Insects and Spiders, they can live for 15 months without food. So they may lurk for over a year in these dark spaces full of carpets, soft seats, curtains, and other places of interest to the bloodsuckers.The Daily News had much the same story, with Erica Pearson, presumably the same Erica who did not ever get back in touch with me, contributing. It seems it takes two journalists to write 250 words...the story also says that the bugs are hitting prisoners in Riker's. So, don't do the crime unless you want lots of weird looking cell mates. In the Metro, Amy Zimmer says they will be as common as mosquitos. And unless we get Bloomberg to act right away, they will be...even more, as bedbugs are year round pests - do not believe the stupid stuff some journalists are telling you about them hybernating in winter...they are less numerous, but they bite all year round; nor are they nocturnal - they come out when their meal is sleeping, but if you sleep during the day, well, there is no rest to these wicked creatures. You will be eaten alive day or night. Journalists ought to check facts more.
Boy am I mean on the hacks! But they deserve it. The truth about bedbugs, and their HQ on 8th Avenue, known to locals as Ground Zero, ought to have been printed long time ago. But it is being printed now, I hear it will be in on Wednesday, but do not waste your time looking in the Daily News of the NY Post...the reporter has been on this for weeks and will give their readers something worth reading.
And then I expect to hear back from Mayor Bloomberg, and others who do not seem to know how to do their jobs.

Daily bedbugs stories in Daily News

Looks like the Daily News does not care enough to send a reporter round to the 'Ground Zero' around the corner almost from their offices, but they do like to do stories and cartoons on bugs...Yesterday's paper carried on p.6 a story about Jeremy Sparig, who won the right not to pay almost a years' rent in B'klyn where his apt. was infested. His was a sad tale, but nothing like what we are experiencing near the Daily News offices.
Then they had a cartoon about a couple in bed with the bugs on p.21. Today They mentioned again that bugs haunt the offices of the DA in B'klyn - p.3 - noting that the Secret Service has offices there. So thanks, now Al Qaida knows where the USSS is located in NY. Not so secret evidently...
But while the DN is telling Al Qaida where the USSS is, they are keeping secret the fact that bedbugs are in ALMOST EVERY GOVERNMENT OFFICE IN MANHATTAN - I got that surprising bit when the journalist called me to tell me they had spoken with Gale Brewer, the bedbugs advocate for NY; I happen not to be in her constituency, but in Christien Quinn's, and we will be having a word with Ms. Quinn.
This journalist is really on to this story, which we think will run as a serial as it is really too large to put in one article.