Remember when I told you about my neighbors who had the bedbug infestation in their apartment? Well they moved away, but my bedbug fear didn't leave with them. Two weekends ago when I went to a friend's wedding in Texas, my fiancé had me read this Time article about our nation's bedbug fears. I shrugged it off along with her statements that we shouldn't put our luggage on the hotel bed. When I pulled back the sheets to see a bug lounging on my spot in our hotel bed, I let out a scream worthy of those you'll hear in Halloween-haunted mazes this weekend. It turned out to be a baby silverfish but it made me take this bedbug fear more seriously.
According to the Time article I'm not the only one with bedbug fears. A survey in August found that 20%
of Americans said they changed their plans to go to a public place for
fear of bedbug infestations, even though only 9% knew someone—themselves
included—who had been infested. Last week they found a bedbug infestation in a federal building here in Washington, D.C. and infestations have increased so much that the D.C. Department of Health is having a bedbug summit in January.
I have also found many more resources about bedbugs for you than I did back in December.
- The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that the bugs do not transmit disease and the National Institutes of Health go into greater detail about their health risks.
- The Environmental Protection Agency, which incidentally has headquarters in the federal building where they found the bedbug infestation, has a handy resource page for bedbug prevention. They have resources like common myths, how to prevent infestations, where to identify them in your house, and most importantly how to exterminate them.
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