Bed bugs in Washington, D.C.? Yes! And growing in number …

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The Washington City Paper has a cover story today on bed bugs! In it, Audrey Dutton reports on the status of bed bugs in that city, and on the citys plans to fight the problem.

We have known there were lots of bed bugs in D.C. for a long time. The Norwood Apartments tenants we mentioned back in 2007 have been battling them for years, with 10 units still infested, according to Dutton.

We havent heard from the ladies of D.C.s Phillis Wheatley YWCA in a while, but I fear they may still be infested too.

And so this is very good to hear: the citys Department of Health is taking a keen (and hands-on) interest in bed bugs. The article notes:

Gerard Brown, who heads the departments rodent-control division, first spotted an issue with bedbugs in June. Ever since, these tiny pests have eaten up a sizable chunk of his anti-vermin portfolio.

Browns people operate under a different set of rules from the [D.C. Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs, which enforces the city's housing code] instead of monitoring the infestations, the Department of Health can actually treat them and does so regularly in homeless shelters. It tries various methods to educate the public, including working with neighborhood groups to get the word out. Its also been tracking reports since June.

When we realized that it was a beginning to be a problem, then with the support of the mayors office and our directors office, I started doing research, says Brown.

So far Brown has taken calls on more than 50 properties. Almost one-fifth of those are hotels. The rest are single-family homes, apartment buildings, a school, and a dialysis center where a patient was infested. When Brown goes out to deliver presentations on bedbugs to community groups, senior housing centers, halfway houses, or property managers, he hears even more reports, he says. He was approached by a government worker whose own apartment building was totally infested.

Since the Department of Health is involved in dealing with bed bugs, they are developing a keen understanding of the reasons bed bugs are spreading and why theyre so tenacious, especially in multi-unit dwellings. Dutton reports,

One of the reasons for the bugs ubiquity in multi-unit dwellings is that that property owners dont want to pay to treat multiple units. So bugs in the unit that exterminators are paid to treat just pick up and move next door, or upstairs or downstairs. Two weeks later, a fresh crop of baby bugs hatches and settles into its new home.

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