For decades, bed bugs were rarely heard of in the United States and other developed nations. They were effectively wiped out with the introduction of DDT. Then in the 1990s, they showed right back up again, having held onto luggage, clothing and other materials to catch a ride. DDT was banned by that point, and few exterminators still had the skills to wipe them out again. While they don’t typically transmit diseases, they can inflict physical and psychological damage. The tiny pests can easily hide, and even remain alive without feeding for 18 months.
Most people might assume that bed bugs are only seen in low income neighborhoods, associating the pests with poor living conditions. However, that is quite far from the truth. Bed bugs will go anywhere, regardless of how clean or how expensive a house might be. Just one female bug can lay 500 eggs and create a full infestation.
Although health department estimates may claim otherwise, New York City’s Upper East Side is widely infested with bug bites. Numbers are reported through 311 calls, but the only people likely to call the number are renters who want to make sure their landlords are held accountable for the infestation. If a wealthy family in an expensive building notices an infestation, they might be less likely to report it because the value of their house will decrease.
Because of this reluctance to document the problem, reports have emerged of buildings with enormous infestations because no one wanted to deal with it. It only takes one person to spread the bugs to many other people.
Bed bugs don’t care about dirt. They just want your blood. (Like a vampire. You don’t imagine vampires living in terrible conditions, do you?) It doesn’t matter how frequently you clean; bed bugs are experts at burrowing into fabric or wood to hide and lay eggs. They bite in the middle of the night, when you are sleeping and not moving around.
It is estimated that up to 30 percent of people don’t even know that they have bed bugs because they have no reaction to the bite. Bed bugs first inject an anesthetic before drinking blood. The anesthetic makes it so that the person can’t feel the bite itself. The swelling, redness and itchiness from the bites is really an allergic reaction to the anesthetic. For those that aren’t allergic, they won’t notice the bites and may never see the bed bugs, so they don’t know they have a problem. This is particularly an issue because they can spread the bugs throughout their community and to their friends without even knowing it.
Particularly for families that are well-off and travel around the world, they can pick up bugs anywhere and bring them right back to their homes. Bugs can hang onto luggage without anyone ever noticing. No one wants to talk about the problem, which only contributes to a larger infestation that is harder to remove.
Bed bugs aren’t going to go away anytime soon. It will be important to educate the public, and not just those in specific neighborhoods, about the telltale signs of bed bugs and how to remove them. It’s disgusting and terrifying, certainly. Who wants to go to sleep if they know they’re going to be bitten by tiny creatures in the middle of the night? But the only way to beat them is to be vigilant and thorough.