The people of New York used to worry about the growing population of rats that was pestering their city, but these days they have something else to be concerned about. Bed bugs have invaded New York in a big way, a very big way. In 2004, there were 82 confirmed incidents of bed bugs in New York, in 2009, there were 10,985. That is a huge rise by anyone’s standards.
It used to be alleged that bed bugs were a poor family’s problem because they lived in squalor. This is not true, they like all classes of people and all types of homes. Recently, part of a hospital was closed down in Brooklyn because of bed bugs and before that two fashionable clothing stores owned by Abercrombie had to be de-infested in Manhattan.
These bugs really do not care where they live. Bedbugs move from one location to the next by a process widely known as hitch-hiking. If you bought clothing from an infected Best Pest Control Spray For Homes shop, there may be a bedbug in the lining or there may be a couple of eggs in a pocket, when you have taken your new garment home, you will start a new infestation there.
Or you could be seated in a bus and one will creep up your back and under your collar where it can sleep or lay eggs. When you get home, you will hang your coat up and the bug will go Neem Oil Bed Bug Spray Recipe searching for food within five days. If it was a pregnant female, then you could have eggs hatching out within ten days. Females can lay a couple of eggs a day for months on end.
It is a rule of thumb, that once you are able to spot bed bugs, you have an infestation, because we are not generally on the look out for them, they are very shy and they usually only come out in the twilight before dawn, while you are asleep.
Joel Roodman, the film-maker and his wife, Ms Taft, a former top fashion model, were ‘shocked and horrified’ that their $18,000 holiday rental was ‘crawling’ with bed bugs. One New York pest control company said that they are being more and more often being called to commercial buildings such as ‘… banks, grocery stores, cinemas, judges’ chambers, schools, dentists’ offices – everywhere’.
Needless to say, hotels are also being affected. One complainant reported finding a sated bedbug. When he complained to the receptionist, he was told: ‘Welcome to New York’. In an incident map of the top ten cities infected by bed bugs, New York came in second. Columbus, Ohio was first and Toronto, Canada was third.
Fortunately, bed bugs do not convey diseases, but they are pretty horrifying creatures. They insert two tubes into their victims, one squirts in spittle which contains anticoagulant and anaesthetic and the other sucks blood.
They like to strike an hour before dawn and they have usually sated themselves within five minutes. The red marks and itchiness that most people feel is an allergic reaction to the bed bug’s spittle.
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