If you haven’t yet had a run-in with these insidious little bloodsuckers, then consider yourself lucky, because bedbugs have exploded as the new international pest to be reckoned with. Cities all over the world are reporting record numbers of bedbug complaints and infestations. New York reported a 34 percent increase every year since 2000, and London claimed a 28.5 percent increase in the number of cases reported each year. Sydney, Australia has seen a 4500 percent increase in treatments for the pests, and the city reported that eight out of every ten hostels is infested with the creepy critters. The Environmental Protection Agency considers them to be enough of a nuisance that they just held a two-day public summit to try to find solutions to the bedbug problem.
On NBC’s Today Show, Tom Costello said, “They’re not just in college dorms and cheap hotels—they’re everywhere.” This video, also featured on the Today Show, shows just how menacing a problem bedbugs have become (watch the video clip).
Most people know the bedbug basics: they emerge at night to feast on human blood, and they’re darn near impossible to kill. But there are many surprising—and shocking—things about bedbugs that you probably haven’t heard.
Bedbugs Never Really Went Away
Public health advocates like to claim that bedbugs were “all but eradicated” in the 1950s and 1960s. The truth? Bedbugs have always been a problem in major cities and urban areas with rooming houses, run-down hotels, and a large transient population, since these areas were less likely to be properly treated with pesticides. The availability of cheap, air-conditioned international travel over the past few decades has allowed bedbugs to spread all over the world.
They’re Immune to Pesticides
In the 1960s, the EPA banned the pesticide DDT because of its potentially harmful effects on the environment and wildlife. Unfortunately, it was incredibly effective in wiping out bedbugs, as well as leaving chemical traces behind that would actually prevent them, too. No pesticide developed since the banning of DDT is anywhere near as effective at eradicating bedbugs. What’s even worse—bedbugs have developed a resistance to the weaker new pesticides, making them even harder to kill.
