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.