NEW YORK — This is going to make your skin crawl.
Bedbugs--those tenacious, bloodsucking little critters that once were so successfully eradicated from the United States that parents teased small children about them at bedtime--are making a comeback. A big, itchy, coast-to-coast comeback.
In New York, in one Queens apartment building, all residents had to throw out their mattresses and have their entire wardrobes doused in scalding water.
In Madison, Wis., dozens of homes were found to be swarming with the bugs.
In Washington, D.C., a posh Dupont Circle high-rise was so infested that residents called a special meeting.
In New Mexico, one hospital's supposedly sterile rooms were overrun.
At least 28 states--including Illinois--reported an influx of bedbugs in 2002. The bugs have shown up in homes, apartment buildings and even world-class luxury hotels. One entomologist called them "the new scourge of America," and Orkin Inc., the nation's second-largest pest-control company, has predicted a 25 to 30 percent increase in bedbug extermination jobs for the next four years.
"We've seen at least five times as many cases this year as we did two years ago, when bedbugs first started re-emerging," said Frank Meek, Orkin's national pest-control manager.
More than a bedtime rhyme
The reasons for the recent return of the bedbug--or, Cimex lectularius to bug aficionados--appear to be twofold. First, an increase in international travel has brought the bugs, which often stow away in suitcases or clothing, to the United States from countries where bedbugs remain common. In addition, many of the pesticides that virtually eliminated the bugs from the U.S. in the last century no longer are in use because they have proven dangerous to humans.
"We just aren't using good enough pesticides anymore," said Mike English, an entomologist at New Mexico State University. "Basically, you have a whole generation of people who have only known bedbugs as characters in a charming bedtime rhyme, and that generation is also one that is very nervous about many pesticides because they know they have caused problems in the past. But the rise of the bedbug probably shows that we've run too far in the other direction."
Bedbugs are, well, disgusting.
They start out nearly invisible--less than a quarter of an inch long and so light brown they can seem almost transparent. But after they bite a host, and gorge on human blood for nights on end, they turn a deep, mahogany red and can swell to nearly the size of a ladybug.
They drop blood-infused feces all over bedsheets--one of the telltale signs of their presence--and give off a sickly-sweet odor.
And, perhaps worst of all, they are astonishingly resilient. Although they prefer to make their homes in the crevices of mattresses during the day, bedbugs can hibernate in floorboards or even wooden picture frames for more than a year--emerging after the exterminator is long gone, the new bed has been purchased and the residents are back to sleeping peacefully through the night.
Scratching yourself yet?
Danny Lucey knows how you feel. The minute the 22-year-old New Yorker begins to talk about his apartment's infestation with bedbugs, he starts vigorously raking his fingernails over his arms and legs.
"Just thinking about them makes me start to itch," Lucey said.
The bedbugs have spread through Lucey's Queens apartment building, infesting at least seven bedrooms. The guys next door were hit the worst; their mattresses were so infested that the blood-filled bugs were crawling over each other in a scene like something out of a bad science fiction movie.
"We've had the exterminator in, like, four or five times," Lucey said, "and they just keep coming back. I'm getting to the point where I don't even notice when they bite me anymore, but my girlfriend is completely freaked out."
Pest-control experts emphasize that bedbugs usually are not a reflection of bad housekeeping or poor hygiene. They are often simply a case of bum luck.
Strange as it may sound, there is a strong correlation between bugs in the bed and bats in the belfry. Bedbugs often are carried by bats or birds, particularly swallows, that may nest in attics. The bedbugs then multiply quickly because they thrive in the warmer temperatures provided by a building's shelter.
"That's when they begin to make their way through the walls or vents and into the inhabited part of the dwelling," said entomologist English.
Bedbugs prefer to hide during the day and emerge at night in search of food. They are attracted to warmth and the scent of human breath, so they tend to make their way to the bedroom. Unlike ticks or lice, which like to stay on their host, bedbugs will feast on their sleeping human entrees, then burrow deep into the mattress or other dark places.