What Spreads Faster Than Bedbugs? Social Stigma (you can thank the enviro-whackos for this one!)

The New York Times ^ | 2010-08-21 | Emily B. Hager

[rabscuttle385]

Jeremy Sparig spent months fighting bedbugs. Now, to some people, he is like a mattress left on the street, something best avoided in these times.

“They don’t want to hug you anymore; they don’t want you coming over,” said Mr. Sparig, of East Williamsburg, Brooklyn. “You’re like a leper.”

At the Brooklyn district attorney’s office, which recently had a bedbug breakout, defense lawyers are skittish about visiting, and it is not because of the fierce prosecutors.

Even Steven Smollens, a housing lawyer who has helped many tenants with bedbugs, has his guard up. Those clients are barred from his office. “I meet outside,” he said. “There’s a Starbucks across the street.”

Beyond the bites and the itching, the bother and the expense, victims of the nation’s most recent plague are finding that an invisible scourge awaits them in the form of bedbug stigma. Friends begin to keep their distance. Invitations are rescinded. For months, one woman said, her mother was afraid to tell her that she had an infestation. When she found out and went to clean her mother’s apartment, she said, “Nobody wanted to help me.”

Fear and suspicion are creeping into the social fabric wherever bedbugs are turning up, which is almost everywhere: “Public health agencies across the country have been overwhelmed by complaints about bedbugs,” said a joint statement this month from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Environmental Protection Agency.

[sionnsar]

Sure glad I have NO trips to NYC in my future -- and that runs several years out.

It was kind of nice in 1999, not at all nice around 1981, and in 2008 seemed to be slipping backwards. But whatever. Been there, done enough, and am happy to leave NYers to continue gazing at their own navels thinking it's the whole world. Please keep thinking that. Please.

Clemenza, you get an exemption. You have a bona fide preference.

[goat granny]

Lots of DDT BS around,...when I was a kid, the city use to go down every street in Detroit and fog to kill misquitos and bugs.....Lots of us 70 and up adults didn’t suffer any problems.....Malaria was almost a global wipe out now it kills millions in the third world.....A lot of us adults have been around long enought to spot bull shit when we hear it...

[goat granny]

LOL good answer....just what I want to sleep in...

[okie01]

.....Lots of us 70 and up adults didn’t suffer any problems.....

Sometimes, we even followed the truck down the street...and played in the mist.

[Ken H]

Even Steven Smollens, a housing lawyer who has helped many tenants with bedbugs, has his guard up. Those clients are barred from his office. "I meet outside," he said. "There's a Starbucks across the street."

I'm sure the owner of that Starbucks will be glad to read this.

[DJ MacWoW]

Biblical pestilence in NYC? Who would have expected that?

[DJ MacWoW]

But GG, you’d be sleeping alone and bugless. :-D

[Cacique]

btt

[goat granny]

OMG we actually road bikes without helmets, climbed trees for fun and my mother caught me using the next door neighbors fense to climb on the roof of our garage...it was great up there for an 8 year old....had to get sneaky after mom caught me.....oh the horror and humanity....;O)

[goat granny]

LOL only sleep alone recently, my lab has hip problems and wont jump up on the bed anymore....but that bitch was somewhat of a bed hog....and I don't have to vacuum my bed anymore

[JSteff]

This stuff kills them because it cuts into the shell and they dehydrate. You can buy it at any garden nursery for about 10$

And it has staying power. We sprinkled it on the concrete below the sub-flooring we were installing in the basement before we turned that into living space. That was nearly 15 years ago, and we have never seen any live bugs down there.

That is really amazing as the basement has a sliding glass door to the back yard and the kids always went in an out that to play. We even had a exterminator check the house a few years ago because on of the other townhouses in our building had termites. None were found in ours.

The only bad thing is it is dusty and you need to wear masks while initially building like that with it. A physician friend back then had said it might cause silicosis if breathed in any quantity. Made sense, so we did.

[okie01]

We rode in the back of the pick-up, too.

Not to mention playing dodgeball in grade school.

Worse, we went rabbit hunting...with our own shotgun. And varmint hunting, as well...with our own .22 rifle. And went fishing...down on the creek where water moccasins were known to hang out.

It wouldn't be much fun being a kid nowadays..

[JSteff]

Yes. The only drawback is the dust.

Also, it is NOT fast acting. The targeted insects travel over it (when dry) and it cuts them. Then they die later. Oh and it can be eaten when wet. It really only works on things bigger than bugs and mainly when dry.

[goat granny]

In High school, the ROTC brought their own rifles to school once a week for class...no drive by shooting either...people didn’t change, society did and now everything is to be feared...yuk.....and crooks are just victims of society, double yuk

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

To: IrishCatholic ***...when I was a kid, the city use to go down every street in Detroit and fog to kill misquitos and bugs.....Lots of us 70 and up adults didn’t suffer any problems***

Same here. we used to go out into the spray when they sprayed DDT for mosquitos along the Animas river in Farmington,NM back in 1956.

In the military we sprayed the inside of our KC-135 with DDT to keep the mosquitos down while on the flight line in Thailand.

[snowflake2428]

A minor nuisance? From what I’ve heard it’s IMPOSSIBLE to get rid of them. They not only hide in furniture, cushions, mattresses, pillows, etc., but also behind electrical outlets and vents and in hard-to-see places. I’ve read about people that just pick up and leave everything behind in their houses and apartments because they can’t get rid of them. I have some friends that no longer travel to Vegas or Hawaii because of the problem.

[Apercu]

COMPARED is the operative word. Bed bugs don't kill people thru disease a la mosquitoes.

[BufordP]

I think Rachel Carson is singularly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of millions of people.

John Stossel on DDT

[Clemenza]

Thanks for the kind words. Some of us our two maladjusted to live anywhere else. Besides, it is high comedy making fun of your neighbors, particularly those who were not even raised in the area, yet adopt all the pretensions of the Manhattan/Park Slope Axis of Dweebals.

[Clemenza]

Thanks for the kind words. Some of us ARE TOO* maladjusted to live anywhere else. Besides, it is high comedy making fun of your neighbors, particularly those who were not even raised in the area, yet adopt all the pretensions of the Manhattan/Park Slope Axis of Dweebals.

*I just returned from imbibing too much sangria, so my spelling was off in the earlier post.