News Aug 12, 2010 at 4:00 am

Bedbugs Are Everywhere—and Here to Stay

Comments

1
Diatomaceous Earth works great.
2
I got the crap chewed out of me by bedbugs at the Airport Sheraton and the staff acted like, yeah, that happens all the time Welcome to Portland.
3
To be truely terrified by bed bugs, listen to this episode of This American Life:
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/361/fear-of-sleep/
5
A client got them at The Ace last year. Gross.
6
This is why, anytime I stay in a hotel, I ALWAYS put my suitcase on the metal luggage rack provided in the room, instead of the bed. I don't want to take any stowaways home with me...
7
Other than the heat treatment there is no effective way to kill them. Neither cedar oil nor Sterifab work on eggs or larval stages.
At least the housing agencies are willing to recognize the problem, unlike hotels and limo services that are way behind the curve on this.
http://streetroots.wordpress.com/2010/07/07/bugged-out-rags-or-riches-bedbugs-dont-discriminate/
8
To see apartments/hotels in North America that have bed bug infestations, go to bedbugregistry.com.
9
@ Lake: the article says, like many bugs, they grow. The adults can be half the size of a pinky fingernail but they start out no bigger than the head of a pin. Sort of like ticks.
10
COMMENT DELETED: Defamatory
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11
I used to live in the dorms at Portland State University. COMPLETELY BED BUG INFESTED. I woke up with 30-60 bites all over my body. I moved out immediately and know many others who have done so for the same reason.

I've suffered from sleep issues ever since ---- these things REALLY fuck with your mind.
12
I live at the Jeffrey apartments, a section 8 right next to the St. Francis. We have bug killer vans in the front every week, and the bug guys are not allowed to tell us which apartment rooms have it, but I am friends with the maintenance crew here and they tell me it's on every foor. Every single floor has it. They go through the walls, and get on your shit.

One time the old maintenance guy told one tenant who had a seriously bad case to cover his couch with plastic before taking it to the dumpster area. Well, turns out the retarded fuck didn't do it and - par for the course in a section 8 place - someone nabbed it from the dumpster area that night!

A new poor house just got finished next to ours. I'm sure Elliot tower is pissed off.
13
While honeymooning in Montreal I was bitten by bedbugs. Probably 30-40 bites total, sometimes five or six in a straight line (they stop feeding if you move around, once you've settled they move a 1/2" away and start at it again). My wife, if bitten, showed no symptoms whatsoever. I'll second what some of the other posters have said, they seriously fuck w/ your head. I was feeling phantom bugs crawling on my skin for at least a month afterward. The bites themselves were pretty nasty too. Itchy and burning, worse than a mosquito, not quite as bad as a bee sting. The warm weather made them worse, as did anything to increase my heart rate. Apparently McGill University is a large vector for transmission and more than one set of dorms has been infested by students taking free couches from the sidewalk that are unknowingly infested. Weekend travelers from New York don't help either.

The thing is, up until the 50's folks all over the world had lived with these nasties, many still do (there's also a tropical variety). Unless they bring back the DDT it's my opinion that our 50 year respite from these fuckers is just an insignificant fluke in a much longer (hundreds of thousands of years) co-existence.
14
Stop going to strip bars and you won't bring em home!
15
They are lentil size as adults, but I imagine the babies are smaller. Perhaps that is where the size confusion comes from. I have seen them at Mr. Peeps in Aloha. I almost peed.
16
A friend who works up there told me a building at OHSU was also infested and had to be closed down while extermination and renovation were done. So it is not just motels and strip bars.
17
I NOW FEEL LIKE A STRANGER IN MY HOUSE. I have little CIMEX inside my right ear, ever since being seiged upon there in sleep wednesday. My ear aches and it fluctuates. It surges sporadically, including while sleeping. I have seen only 2 2 wks ago, have infestation caught ''early''. I've educated myself since then, seen only one letter about it a few yrs ago. Scalp, face, neck, hands, arms, etc. bitten w/ the same itchy prickly pain every day and night, and it's perturbing!! The cartoon reminds me of how I appear. How are you coping? Local moral support doesn't appear at large!?; Where's a source? Sacrifice my clothing and anything for it, for what? ...You can't FUNCtion like that.

I reside in a portland apartment housing building, where I've noticed it's as if the critters spread by air -passing through the hallways I can feel the unseeable hatchlings latching on my hair, etc.
This big building Burnside and 19th with high turnover and lots of "street" guests coming, bad Management really needs to up Its caliber if ever's going to be a handle, something being called an epidemic, CIMEX.
18
I agree with Albert. I love how Diatomaceous Earth has no synthetic chemicals, no odor or additives of any kind. It is also a completely natural product, that is inexpensive and non-toxic for humans. It doesn’t evaporate, or get old and stale. It is a natural mineral, and a very effective bed bugs killer. - Johann http://whatkillsbedbugs.org/2011/05/bed-bug-obliteration-6-ways-to-get-rid-of-bed-bugs/
19
I agree with Albert. I love how Diatomaceous Earth has no synthetic chemicals, no odor or additives of any kind. It is also a completely natural product, that is inexpensive and non-toxic for humans. It doesn’t evaporate, or get old and stale. It is a natural mineral, and a very effective bed bugs killer. - Johann
20
It is still an ongoing problem at its 2012

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