Bed bugs are difficult to eradicate so anyone thinking of offering accommodation to Olympics 2012 visitors should read this. You don't want your house to smell of paraffin, or of the peculiar sweet smell that bed bugs themselves give out, for months. Not to mention the bites and the expense of replacing all your bedding and soft furniture.
Something biblical has been happening in New York. First, the threat of a hurricane – now, a plague of insects. Of course, there have always been rats: folklore has it that in Manhattan, you are never less than a few feet away from a pair of copulating rodents. Cockroaches, too, are everywhere, ... But nothing has grossed out New Yorkers more than this summer's epic infestation of bedbugs. Normally, New Yorkers have the stoicism of Brits during the Blitz, but now pavements have been lined with discarded furniture and mattresses. Luxury department stores and even the Empire State Building were supposed to be infested. Then someone inside Google's headquarters tweeted that employees there were scratching, too.
One Brooklyn resident described being ostracised by her friends once they found out she had them: "You're like a leper," she told a reporter.
Apparently, Britain is also set for an epidemic – Rentokil claims the number of bugs has shot up by nearly a quarter in the past year, and visitors to the 2012 Olympics will apparently be ferrying in millions more. In which case, I'm sure you'll all show a stiff upper lip that will put these panicky New Yorkers to shame.
Source: Daily Telegraph 6 September 2010
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/7983684/The-hurricane-was-a-breeze-compared-to-the-bedbugs.html
And if you make your living from offering accommodation to visitors to Greenwich, you would not want your house to appear on any UK version of the Bed Bug Registry
Bed bugs are easy to transport in luggage and very hard to get rid of. For this reason they have become an especial nuisance for hotels, dorms, hospitals, movie theaters, libraries, and other public spaces. You can't tell whether a building or hotel room has them based on cleanliness - the bugs can thrive anywhere there are cracks and crevices to hide in.
Until a reliable, safe pesticide becomes available, avoiding bed bug encounters will be the only reliable way to ensure they don't spread into your own home.
