Bed Bug Plague – Bed Bug Plague Hits Utah

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Bed bugs may not sound as frightening as a global flu pandemic, but the hungry bloodsuckers have already attacked hundreds of thousands of unsuspecting Americans while they slept.

Nowtheyre crawling into the crevices of Utah homes and feasting on the residents of the Beehive state. Salt Lake County has seen its bed bug complaints nearly double between 2007 and 2008, from hotels to homes.

The only good thing you can say about bed bugs is they do not transmit disease, said Diane Keay, a Salt Lake Valley Health Department supervisor. The real problem seems to be horror.

Humans are a bed bugs main course. The nocturnal creatures often strike while the person is sleeping, leaving their victim with uncomfortable, itchy welts. Rich and poor are vulnerable: homeless shelters and home owners have the same enemy.

In the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, bed bugs were commonly found in U.S. hotels, hospitals, theaters and trains, according to Michael Potter, a professor of entomology at the University of Kentucky. But an alert public and aggressive chemical campaign proved highly successful. Insecticides and pesticides such as DDT, some of which were easily available at the drug store, decimated bed bug numbers.

Anyone who had a bedbug problem could now have the tools to absolutely go to war, he said.

In the late 1990s, for reasons that are not entirely clear, bed bug populations exploded in major urban areas across the world. Though questioned by some, a common explanation is the increase of international travel. Many bed bugs also seem to have developed a resistance to insecticides, making extermination costly and difficult. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency rules have restricted the use of some effective pesticides, Potter said.

The crisis sparked an April bed bug summit in Virginia, which drew the National Pest Management Association, the New Jersey Apartment Association, the New Mexico Department of Agriculture and many others.

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Bed Bug Plague - Bed Bug Plague Hits Utah

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