Author Archives: Pest Controller

Subscribe today for full access on your desktop, tablet, and mobile device.

82

Let friends in your social network know what you are reading about

The city manager in Augusta, Maine, says the municipal office building had to be sprayed for bedbugs after a man threw a cup of the pests onto an office counter and about 100 of them scattered off.

Try Another

Audio CAPTCHA

Image CAPTCHA

Help

CancelSend

A link has been sent to your friend's email address.

A link has been posted to your Facebook feed.

Associated Press Published 1:49 p.m. ET June 5, 2017 | Updated 4:43 p.m. ET June 5, 2017

New research from the University of Sydney shows that bed bugs are harder to kill because they may have developed a thicker skin, resistant to common insecticides. Sean Dowling (@seandowlingtv) has more. Buzz60

Photograph of bedbugs in various stages of development.(Photo: Submitted photo)

AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) The city manager in Augusta, Maine, says the municipal office building had to be sprayed for bedbugs after a man threw a cup of the pests onto an office counter and about 100 of them scattered off.

City Manager William Bridgeo tells the Kennebec Journalthe man apparently complained Friday to the code enforcement office about bedbugs at his former apartment then left, but returned after he showed the cup of bugs to a manager at his new apartment and was told he couldn't live there.

Bridgeo says the man let the bugs loose in the General Assistance Office where he asked for a form to request assistance and apparently was told he didn't qualify.

Police didn't immediately release the man's name or say if any charges would be filed.

Read or Share this story: http://ldne.ws/2rXtRj9

2:29

1:49

1:25

1:27

1:32

1:37

1:41

1:20

1:12

2:42

1:05

1:41

0:42

1:59

1:01

1:36

9:28

1:22

1:44

17:46

0:55

1:18

0:58

1:08

0:56

0:55

5:10

51:15

1:24

0:56

Read this article:
Disgruntled man releases around 100 bedbugs in Maine city office - York Daily Record/Sunday News

Its no secret that public service is not for the faint of heart. Policy victories are hard won and public frustration routinely boils over in unpredictable ways.

A resident of Augusta, Maine, on Friday afternoon vented frustration at the citys public assistance office by crashing a cup full of live bedbugs onto the office counter, setting loose the pests and forcing the offices to close for the remainder of the day for inspection and eradication.

Theyre your problem now, the man reportedly said, as the bugs scurried over the counter.

Bam, off they flew, maybe 100 of them, City Manager William Bridgeo told the Kennebec Journal.

Photos from the scene show Augusta Assistant City Manager Ralph St. Pierre mopping up bugs from the counter with Windex and paper towels.

Police on Friday were still weighing what charges to level against the man. The suspect reportedly traveled to the city hallAugusta City Center, as its knownearlier in the day to complain about conditions in an apartment building he had recently vacated. He had reportedly showed his cup of bugs to another local landlord earlier in the day.

The City Center employees had good cause to be alarmed. Augusta, like many U.S. cities, has struggled to combat bedbug building infestations. The bugs, drawn by human blood and carbon dioxide, reportedly carry no disease, but their bites cause itching and they are famously difficult to eradicate.

In recent years, public buildings around the country have suffered infestations, often forcing temporary partial closings. Whole floors have been sealed off; furniture bagged and carted away; employees warned against unwittingly bringing bugs home with them in the folds of their clothes.

In New Jersey last fall, bedbug inspector teams monitored buildings containing offices of the department of health, the department of labor, and the justice complex.

Employees at Philadelphias historic city hall were sent home in September 2015 after first-floor sightings led authorities to order the building fumigated.

Over the last year in Lansing, Michigan, rounds of inspections have featured teams of bedbug-sniffing dogs. The dogs trail through buildings looking for bedbugs and bedbug eggs.

Indeed, the Lansing State Journal reported in January that the repeat inspections have made state employees as jumpy as the bugs. An alleged sighting in January brought inspection teams out only to find the alleged bug at the center of the search was just a drop of lifeless dried blood a scab, wrote the Journal reporter.

Read the original here:
A Maine Resident's Vengeful City Hall Bedbug Attack - Route Fifty