Bedbugs Are Back in New York City
Posted on November 29, 2005
There are plenty of fears these days terrorism, hurricanes, bird flu and global warming but a recent New York Times article says an old fear is hitting New Yorkers in their beds. The Times says bedbugs are back in New York City with a vengeance. Bedbug violations have soared this year.
Last year the city logged 377 bedbug violations, up from just 2 in 2002 and 16 in 2003. Since July, there have been 449. "It's definitely a fast-emerging problem," said Carol Abrams, spokeswoman for the city housing agency.The bedbugs are very difficult to remove and bedbug victims often become obsessed with their unwanted bed partners.
Like many "bedbug victims," as some call themselves, Josie Torielli has become consumed with the biology of bedbugs since she found them in her home last year. She blamed mosquitoes for the blotches on her body until she turned on the lights one night and found a few of the fiends crawling across her sheets.The article says female bedbugs lay 500 eggs in a lifetime and that bedbugs can survive for an entire year without food.She thought she had them conquered, but last week, after nine months of peace, Ms. Torielli discovered the telltale red spots on her sheets, the result of blood-engorged bugs crushed during the night.
"I've become obsessed," said Ms. Torielli, 33, a student who lives in Hell's Kitchen, in Manhattan. "I switched to white sheets so I can see them better, and I've set up a bedbug jail in a Tupperware container that I put on the windowsill to torture them with daylight. It's all-out war."