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.
Showing posts with label Bedbugs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bedbugs. Show all posts
Friday, January 28, 2011
Monday, November 22, 2010
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.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
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.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
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.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
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.
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.
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.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
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.
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.
Monday, August 23, 2010
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
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.
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.
Saturday, August 21, 2010
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.
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.
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Daily News story is no story
There was a story on this in the Daily News that was a non-story; it was about a place that had no bugs and wants no bugs. It got ambiguous when it referred to an infestation, which it had mentioned as non-existent. Get your facts straight. Or just get your facts. I can tell the Daily News that your reporters are below par – I called and emailed many times, spoke to Erica , spoke to Andrew Phillips, emailed others, and had a REAL STORY about a place that has easily thousands of bugs in a room, with over 100 rooms – I told them I could show them all this.
Did they email me back, meet me that day, or call?
NO, NO & NO.
So they ignored a serious story.
WHY?
Another paper sent in undercover journalists and has a real story. That paper is being very thorough, they are working with me on this very carefully, they put more than one reporter on the case, took pictures, and will have a REAL STORY. Not some ambiguous tale about a dog wagging. And that paper will do a real service; it is called preventative journalism. What the Daily News has is called junk. As someone who has lived here since my diaper days, I resent seeing papers like it waste our time. Get some real journalists on it to do some real stories that are of benefit to NY, then I’ll buy it. But till now, there is another paper in town that is working hard and delivering the news. Stay tuned here and I will post more on this...
Did they email me back, meet me that day, or call?
NO, NO & NO.
So they ignored a serious story.
WHY?
Another paper sent in undercover journalists and has a real story. That paper is being very thorough, they are working with me on this very carefully, they put more than one reporter on the case, took pictures, and will have a REAL STORY. Not some ambiguous tale about a dog wagging. And that paper will do a real service; it is called preventative journalism. What the Daily News has is called junk. As someone who has lived here since my diaper days, I resent seeing papers like it waste our time. Get some real journalists on it to do some real stories that are of benefit to NY, then I’ll buy it. But till now, there is another paper in town that is working hard and delivering the news. Stay tuned here and I will post more on this...
Friday, August 13, 2010
Press reaction
So last night some reporters came around, and they got the scoop on this hotel.
Expect a story in a New York newspaper next week, that's all I can say for now.
When it hits, it hits, and the owner will have to answer to New York for his mess
of a hotel.
So sit back, enjoy the weekend, and check back here for a firecracker of a story.
Then we'll see if any of the politicians do their job.
Expect a story in a New York newspaper next week, that's all I can say for now.
When it hits, it hits, and the owner will have to answer to New York for his mess
of a hotel.
So sit back, enjoy the weekend, and check back here for a firecracker of a story.
Then we'll see if any of the politicians do their job.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
REviews of the bedbug palace
Just found on yahoo 2 reviews of the hotel with the thousands of bedbugs.
Seems they are real quality!
Bedbugs are a specialty
By Melvyn, 08/09/10
The first review really summed it up. A year or more later this place is so bad you can get over 1000 bedbugs a month in a room. Men cry out at night from the pain of these insects. The city lets it exist, it may be some sadistic streak on the part of the rich boy mayor who does not care.
User Rating
Bedbugs
By A Yahoo! Contributor, 08/24/09
If you like bedbugs---you will love this dump. It is a disgraceful---unsanitary--horrible buidling--that should be condemned!
User Rating
Seems they are real quality!
Bedbugs are a specialty
By Melvyn, 08/09/10
The first review really summed it up. A year or more later this place is so bad you can get over 1000 bedbugs a month in a room. Men cry out at night from the pain of these insects. The city lets it exist, it may be some sadistic streak on the part of the rich boy mayor who does not care.
User Rating
Bedbugs
By A Yahoo! Contributor, 08/24/09
If you like bedbugs---you will love this dump. It is a disgraceful---unsanitary--horrible buidling--that should be condemned!
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Friday, August 6, 2010
Shocking revelations on www.bedbugregistry.com
Talked to a journalist yesterday who surprised me, they had taken lots of notes and were studying bedbugregistry.com
That was a scary site, as it lists so many places I know, many in the vicinity of the place I am talking about on this site...from the map it would seem that they all may have gotten their infestations from the 8th Avenue building.
So where is Erica of the Daily News who took my email and said she was interested?
I want to start a hapless journalist registry and name and shame the idiots in the trade, some who cannot even spell in their articles.
Am I mean? Maybe...
Monday, August 2, 2010
The NY Post on bedbugs: article by Paul Driessen
Today's NY Post had an article on bedbugs. Written by someone who may have never seen one - they still have not sent anyone round to see the seriousness of the situation of the building infested in their very neighbourhood...
The last post on this site mentioned New York Post columnist Andrea Peyser's pitch to sell DDT to America; it got taken off the market because it was dangerous, and was killing the Bald Eagle.
Below is the post taken with permission from www.hempforvictory.blogspot.com
FOR SALE: DDT
So no surprise that a guest columnist in the same paper is pitching the same product.
He too does it on the back of bedbugs - saying that yes bedbugs are a problem, and the city may not be doing enough about it, but there are many more people suffering from malaria.
Oh how philanthropic it all seems! How the devil appears as an angel of light.
Years ago, when I lived in London, I was a member of ALMA - the Angola-London-Mozambique-Association. We would hear the likes of WHO worker Louis da Gama who spent lots of time in these countries, and unlike Paul Driessen, who writes of bedbugs and malaria today, da Gama did not want to sell billions of people tons of DDT.
If the pesticide companies were so in earnest to treat malaria, they would put money into production of other products. Selling DDT to people sucks. But there are people who well nukes, explosives, child pornography, and, yes, DDT.
The US has a law against it for good reasons. As it has laws against selling nukes, explosives and child pornography.
But getting back to bedbugs. Driessen asserts that they do not kill. Maybe not. After all, they travel from person to person sucking blood. And they are prone to mutate, mainly against pesticides. DDT might only make them stronger.
On bugoutter.com there has been complaint that the Post does not take note of people calling and emailing about a problem building in New York that has up to 2 million bedbugs - with one person collecting 3600 in three months. So let's not think the Post gives a damn about New Yorkers - it is now basically telling them to stop complaining there are worse things.
But what about the livelihood of millions of New Yorkers? If bedbugs don't kill, having no income does. Bedbugs kill the tourism industry, but Driessen does not seem intelligent enough to mention that. He does not have bedbugs, and I bet he does not use DDT either.
I invite him and the Post to look at the problem realistically, and go to the buildings New Yorkers are now calling the Ground Zero of bedbugs.
And of course, I invite them to do an article on hemp too, but that would take a miracle. The paper likes to sell other things that are harmful.
By the way, no surprise that the article under Driessen's was titled "The Building Case for Bombing Iran."
Someone's got to sell those nukes, explosives and child pornography, even if they are illegal many places....
And of course, a few tons of DDT.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Conflict of interest in NYC bedbug board
While the press still pays no attention to the building with the thousands, possible millions of bedbugs, it pays attention to non-commital hype put out by politicians. The New York Daily News on 28 July had a small article, titled "City is biting back at pesky bugs", by Samuel Goldsmith and Adam Lisberg. It said that there would be a bug czar, but when it was not clear; neither did it say how much money was going into this game, as City Coucilwoman Gale Brewer (Upper West Side) could not tell the reporters.
What was mentioned that was telling was the fact that Gil Bloom, who is an advisory board member, is president of Standard Pest Management in Long Island City. So if bedbugs persist in the thousands of apartments, this guy makes money. It they stomp out the bug, he loses out. So no wonder the city is dragging its feet. My loud and plaintive cries for them to do something about this cell of jihadi bugs on 8th Avenue are being ignored while people involved make money, and could stand to make billions out of an epidemic.
What was mentioned that was telling was the fact that Gil Bloom, who is an advisory board member, is president of Standard Pest Management in Long Island City. So if bedbugs persist in the thousands of apartments, this guy makes money. It they stomp out the bug, he loses out. So no wonder the city is dragging its feet. My loud and plaintive cries for them to do something about this cell of jihadi bugs on 8th Avenue are being ignored while people involved make money, and could stand to make billions out of an epidemic.
Friday, July 30, 2010
War on Bugs is a scam
The front of the Metro yesterday carried the line "New York declares war against bed bugs."
It made me think of a funny story that goes like this. Japanese planes attack US Navy base in Pearl Harbor. The president calls the military in and promises to take action. They do a 39 page report, and then decide to set up a website some time in the future to analyse the situation...
Bloomberg has allocated $500,ooo to such activities. They will have a website and a bug czar some time in the future. Meanwhile, there are lots of websites including this one. And I did not spend $500,000. And further, this site has more information on it as I am telling you where Ground Zero is. All the king's men and all the king's horses have no clue, and the hapless journalists at the New York Daily News, who have been invited to do the story, which is in their own backyard - and those of the New York Post, who also have this site close to their offices - do not respond. Is it because they don't care? Or are stupid? Or afraid of me because I say mean things about stupid journalists and stupid celebrities?
So we wait to see what this bedbug czar is going to do, and I have a feeling I will have a lot more mean things to say...
Once again, anyone who wants to contact me and take some real action about this building full of mice and bedbugs, email me at bugout77@hotmail.com
It made me think of a funny story that goes like this. Japanese planes attack US Navy base in Pearl Harbor. The president calls the military in and promises to take action. They do a 39 page report, and then decide to set up a website some time in the future to analyse the situation...
Bloomberg has allocated $500,ooo to such activities. They will have a website and a bug czar some time in the future. Meanwhile, there are lots of websites including this one. And I did not spend $500,000. And further, this site has more information on it as I am telling you where Ground Zero is. All the king's men and all the king's horses have no clue, and the hapless journalists at the New York Daily News, who have been invited to do the story, which is in their own backyard - and those of the New York Post, who also have this site close to their offices - do not respond. Is it because they don't care? Or are stupid? Or afraid of me because I say mean things about stupid journalists and stupid celebrities?
So we wait to see what this bedbug czar is going to do, and I have a feeling I will have a lot more mean things to say...
Once again, anyone who wants to contact me and take some real action about this building full of mice and bedbugs, email me at bugout77@hotmail.com
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
An open letter to all Americans and New York City residents
Every day we are reading now about bedbugs. To some, an esoteric concept; to others, a reality they wish would be just a concept. Something they never had to deal with or think about. Or even read about.
And we are threatened with reading more and more about them, as the battle to get rid of them is being lost. As we are finding out, many sprays do not work; they are good at developing a resistance to chemicals.
In New York City, they have evolved to take over the niche of the once ubiquitous cockroach. These former insects were once public enemy #1 in our apartments, now they are starting to be welcomed as they are known to be enemies of the bedbugs. What an irony.
Soon, though, the cockroach may be gone from the Big Apple; the much smaller bedbug has usurped their role and is here to stay, it would seem. From Manhattan to the Hamptons, as noted so well in the New York Post on 9 July, they are biting us and sucking our life fluids out while we sleep; if at all we are able to do that, as in some places the infestations have reached such a point that people toss and turn all night as they feel these creatures crawling on them with impunity.
And so we complaining, and journalists write a note or two in the papers; more often, it seems, when the rich and famous are the ones who suffer, as was the case with the Post article. The hoi polloi do not get merit a full page as did the model and her family did.
Which is a shame - because this is a plague about to happen. Yesterday in the Metro as much was said by an anonymous writer, who noted their presence in the home, the theatre, the booktore, the library, the clothing shop - the list went and on.
This week and last I have spent my time alerting city authorities and the press about a building that houses up to two million bedbugs, which it has had, according to the manager and occupants, for about ten years. This year all parties agree is the worst ever, not surprising, as New York is in the grip of a heat wave and these buggers like it hot. I specifically metioned the danger of having so many in a hotel with over 100 rooms, and that each room had up to 300 in day. Collected in one jar of alcohol are 3,500, all gathered in the space of three months in one room. Other evidence, such as sheets stained with blood and tell-tale marks of their droppings, was offered to journalists. But they did not care. They took lots of time lately to tell us of the likes of Lindsay Lohan, her trip to France and her trip to jail, but for the citizens of the US and the residents of New York City, they did nothing. Calls and emails to the Post and the New York Daily Mail were a waste of time.
So I am writing to everyone to tell them that there is a danger. A place so badly kept that mice run free, their droppings collecting on the wire ceilings of rooms which are full of inescts that can multiply at the rate of 200 times a year. A place that has been run this way for years, so that the bugs have had time to develop a cell, from which a number of them hitch rides every day on the residents and then infect the city. And in which one resident has been diagnosed with scabies.
This is a disaster. And no one is taking note, for whatever reason. The most that gets done is that the landlord, after a court case goes against him, does some extra spraying - which has been observed to be completely ineffective. The measures indicated to him as necessary he has not taken. The halls are full of crevices where these creatures breed, and so great are their numbers that this place has been called the Ground Zero of bedbugs. It will destroy New York if this issue is left alone.
And it may well be left alone until all buildings in New York have these insects, which no one seems to be able to rid us of. Then it will spread from New York to other cities. At a multiplication rate of 200 a year, we cannot waste time with reluctant journalists and lazy city officials.
So I am writing an open letter to all Americans and residents of New York City, and also to the Mayor, whose ultimate responsibility this is. You cannot afford to have such a disgusting place in your country or your city.
Once, when a new resident moved in, I got to talking to him; he, like me, was in the service, so we talked shop about our days - he had tales of Khost, Afghanistan, and I told him about Gitmo, Cuba. He had been many places, some in the Third World, and he remarked that this place, right here in the US, was worse than anything he had ever seen. So he went out and bought some cleaning supplies and set about making his room habitable. Well, at 3am, the manager found him disinfecting his bed, and told him right then and there to leave.
That is how this place treats former servicemen. It is a disgrace beyond words. And it is also a disgrace that the city administration and the press in this town allow this kind of hotel to go on breeding these pests.
For anyone out there interested in helping - contact me at bugout77@hotmail.com
I am happy to meet face to face and give my real name to serious people and of course any journalists looking to do the right thing.
And we are threatened with reading more and more about them, as the battle to get rid of them is being lost. As we are finding out, many sprays do not work; they are good at developing a resistance to chemicals.
In New York City, they have evolved to take over the niche of the once ubiquitous cockroach. These former insects were once public enemy #1 in our apartments, now they are starting to be welcomed as they are known to be enemies of the bedbugs. What an irony.
Soon, though, the cockroach may be gone from the Big Apple; the much smaller bedbug has usurped their role and is here to stay, it would seem. From Manhattan to the Hamptons, as noted so well in the New York Post on 9 July, they are biting us and sucking our life fluids out while we sleep; if at all we are able to do that, as in some places the infestations have reached such a point that people toss and turn all night as they feel these creatures crawling on them with impunity.
And so we complaining, and journalists write a note or two in the papers; more often, it seems, when the rich and famous are the ones who suffer, as was the case with the Post article. The hoi polloi do not get merit a full page as did the model and her family did.
Which is a shame - because this is a plague about to happen. Yesterday in the Metro as much was said by an anonymous writer, who noted their presence in the home, the theatre, the booktore, the library, the clothing shop - the list went and on.
This week and last I have spent my time alerting city authorities and the press about a building that houses up to two million bedbugs, which it has had, according to the manager and occupants, for about ten years. This year all parties agree is the worst ever, not surprising, as New York is in the grip of a heat wave and these buggers like it hot. I specifically metioned the danger of having so many in a hotel with over 100 rooms, and that each room had up to 300 in day. Collected in one jar of alcohol are 3,500, all gathered in the space of three months in one room. Other evidence, such as sheets stained with blood and tell-tale marks of their droppings, was offered to journalists. But they did not care. They took lots of time lately to tell us of the likes of Lindsay Lohan, her trip to France and her trip to jail, but for the citizens of the US and the residents of New York City, they did nothing. Calls and emails to the Post and the New York Daily Mail were a waste of time.
So I am writing to everyone to tell them that there is a danger. A place so badly kept that mice run free, their droppings collecting on the wire ceilings of rooms which are full of inescts that can multiply at the rate of 200 times a year. A place that has been run this way for years, so that the bugs have had time to develop a cell, from which a number of them hitch rides every day on the residents and then infect the city. And in which one resident has been diagnosed with scabies.
This is a disaster. And no one is taking note, for whatever reason. The most that gets done is that the landlord, after a court case goes against him, does some extra spraying - which has been observed to be completely ineffective. The measures indicated to him as necessary he has not taken. The halls are full of crevices where these creatures breed, and so great are their numbers that this place has been called the Ground Zero of bedbugs. It will destroy New York if this issue is left alone.
And it may well be left alone until all buildings in New York have these insects, which no one seems to be able to rid us of. Then it will spread from New York to other cities. At a multiplication rate of 200 a year, we cannot waste time with reluctant journalists and lazy city officials.
So I am writing an open letter to all Americans and residents of New York City, and also to the Mayor, whose ultimate responsibility this is. You cannot afford to have such a disgusting place in your country or your city.
Once, when a new resident moved in, I got to talking to him; he, like me, was in the service, so we talked shop about our days - he had tales of Khost, Afghanistan, and I told him about Gitmo, Cuba. He had been many places, some in the Third World, and he remarked that this place, right here in the US, was worse than anything he had ever seen. So he went out and bought some cleaning supplies and set about making his room habitable. Well, at 3am, the manager found him disinfecting his bed, and told him right then and there to leave.
That is how this place treats former servicemen. It is a disgrace beyond words. And it is also a disgrace that the city administration and the press in this town allow this kind of hotel to go on breeding these pests.
For anyone out there interested in helping - contact me at bugout77@hotmail.com
I am happy to meet face to face and give my real name to serious people and of course any journalists looking to do the right thing.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Bugs in the Big City
Bedbugs like cities; lots of warm bodies to snuggle up to I suppose. In India, they are taking over the dorms of the Indian railway men, who are complaining to their bosses. They collect the insects to show them proof, but it was not clear from the article, posted at bedbugger.com - if these are live or dead.
The Indians are wise to collect the bugs - I have 3515 in a bottle of alcohol, so they are not getting out. The press in NY has ignored my pleas for them to do this story - NY Post is a pathetic joke, with Amber Sutherland, who is noted for her plagiarism, and a receptionist who just wasted my time yesterday.And no word from Juan Gonzalez at the NY Daily News whom I emailed. On Thursday, my hotel will send in exterminators, but I can find no listing for them - Superb - so I suspect they are unregistered. Who knows what they are spraying. We can all lose our tourism industry due to these bugs.And oh, got a reply from the DHCR on Sat., 24 July, telling me that the landlord claims the mice, roaches and bedbugs were taken care of. It was dated 21 July and said I had 5 days to respond if this was not the case. It sure wasnt't. But getting up there on such short notice was a pain - I tried to get their # off the net, but a real person does not answer the phone, so my hope of faxing them was out. Had to take the train to Harlem, and proceed to 133rd and B'way and find 94 Old B'way, which is an obscure street that only exists between 131st and 133rd. Got them just before 4pm, which is the deadline, and they looked at the form like they'd never seen it before...probably they haven't had anyone make this last minute deadline which is slanted towards the landlords in an age of new laws giving away much to landlords. But I got it in, and made them give me a copy with their seal as proof of delivery.So we will see. If anyone out there gives a damn - including any journalists, get off your butt and get in touch with me. But then, some say I bark too loud; so you may just prefer to sit there and do nothing and have the bite of the bugs.
( you can contact us at bugout77@hotmail.com )
The Indians are wise to collect the bugs - I have 3515 in a bottle of alcohol, so they are not getting out. The press in NY has ignored my pleas for them to do this story - NY Post is a pathetic joke, with Amber Sutherland, who is noted for her plagiarism, and a receptionist who just wasted my time yesterday.And no word from Juan Gonzalez at the NY Daily News whom I emailed. On Thursday, my hotel will send in exterminators, but I can find no listing for them - Superb - so I suspect they are unregistered. Who knows what they are spraying. We can all lose our tourism industry due to these bugs.And oh, got a reply from the DHCR on Sat., 24 July, telling me that the landlord claims the mice, roaches and bedbugs were taken care of. It was dated 21 July and said I had 5 days to respond if this was not the case. It sure wasnt't. But getting up there on such short notice was a pain - I tried to get their # off the net, but a real person does not answer the phone, so my hope of faxing them was out. Had to take the train to Harlem, and proceed to 133rd and B'way and find 94 Old B'way, which is an obscure street that only exists between 131st and 133rd. Got them just before 4pm, which is the deadline, and they looked at the form like they'd never seen it before...probably they haven't had anyone make this last minute deadline which is slanted towards the landlords in an age of new laws giving away much to landlords. But I got it in, and made them give me a copy with their seal as proof of delivery.So we will see. If anyone out there gives a damn - including any journalists, get off your butt and get in touch with me. But then, some say I bark too loud; so you may just prefer to sit there and do nothing and have the bite of the bugs.
( you can contact us at bugout77@hotmail.com )
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Bedbugs set to ravage Manhattan while Mayor and DHCR sleeps
New York City is on the verge of having a massive infestation of bedbugs - and the only press we seem to get is when a rich model gets a few bites. Then she runs to the ER and gets prescriptions.
This site is for real information - and BTW, no ads, as it is not set up for me or anyone to make money. I have a serious complaint that affects everyone, and I hope to share information so that the city will take real action against landlords that are the problem.
For instance, there is a hotel that allows hundreds of bedbugs to exist in a single room. It have over 100 rooms. Garbage cans in the halls at the time of this writing are not covered, so rodents rule. They defecate on the wire ceilings of the rooms. One person has been diagnosed with scabies from this place.
Judge Kaplan in Housing Court signed an order for them to fix things, including the ceiling of the complainant, on 10 June 2010. So far no action has been taken, other than to occasionally cover the garbage cans on the third floor.
What does all this mean to New York? It means that hundreds of thousands of bedbugs roam free every year. One female lays up to 400 eggs in her lifetime. 400 x hundreds of thousands and you get the picture. Every day dozens of bedbugs are transported by the residents to other places in NY. 365 x dozens. You get the picture. 400 x dozens x 365. You get bedbugs.
So what is the city doing? NOTHING. The 311 calls so far only result in this being logged - but the only action taken is that the owner hires a pest company to spray. The next week we get more bugs. Superb Pest Control is the company he uses, and one resident complained the staff were threatening and rude and did not tell him the name of the chemical they were using. Maybe it was water. The bedbugs did not seem to mind.
DHCR, the NYC agency charged with keeping us from getting nasty epidemics from bad buildings, has not solved the problem. It has been clearly pointed out that the bugs reside in the thousands of cracks in the walls and ceilings, and that the wire screen ceilings are especially bad. One resident painted his room to seal the cracks, but since the ceilings and door allows vermin to come in, he was fighting a losing battle. They bite him all night and it makes bloodstains all over the sheets.
This is the future of the city unless Bloomberg and his crew get off their butts and do their job. We will continue to attack any slack city officials on this site until they do their job completely and quarantine such buildings.
But what about the press? Are they going to only report on rich people and their hangouts - like Abercrombie & Fitch - or are they going to pry a journalists off the Linsday Lohan watch and get them to report on something that is serious for a change?
The Post ignored this so far. We will continue to report on the lack of reporting, if we have to stand outside their offices and hand out fliers. And that goes for the mulit-billionaire Mike Bloomberg who is too busy playing golf - we pay him to take care of the city, not play all day like a child. He wants $100 million for new offices downtown? Get real. Stop supporting only your rich friends and do your job.
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