Monitor staff

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July 02, 2009 - 8:06 am



They are sleeping, sometimes outdoors, sometimes in their cars, so the bedbugs can't bite. New Hampshire, like much of the rest of the world, now has a bedbug problem, and troops are being marshaled to combat the invasion. In Manchester an apartment complex is being evacuated for two weeks so exterminators can make war on the blood-sucking insects that infest it. The furniture residents leave behind will be destroyed and clothing laundered and dried at high temperatures to kill the insects, their larvae and their eggs. An attempt will also be made to kill the cockroaches, which unlike bedbugs, can transmit diseases to humans.

Bedbugs have been found in habitations both humble and, like Leona Helmsley's New York hotel, luxurious. They've invaded a hotel in Nashua, apartments in Concord, homeless shelters and college dormitories. Their presence is not a sign of poor hygiene. But people who buy used furniture or luggage that could harbor the insects, or who bring home castoff items found on the street, are more likely to suffer an infestation.

Though not disease carriers, bedbugs are extremely difficult and costly to get rid of, and they can drive those whose homes are afflicted with them mad from rashes, itching, loss of sleep and stress. The insects can go more than a year without feeding, hiding in cracks, crevasses, mattress seams and backpacks until a new meal enters and falls asleep. After they feed, sheets are flecked with the drops of blood they excrete.

Bedbugs are reddish-brown, apple-seed-sized insects with six legs - eight means the critter could be a tick, mite or spider. Thanks to DDT and other pesticides, bedbugs were once relegated largely to folklore in the United States and other industrialized nations. But DDT was banned, the bugs became more resistant to pesticides, and the age of international travel made it easy for them to hitchhike from nation to nation.

Desperate to solve their problem after repeated spraying failed to eliminate the parasites, residents of the Manchester complex contacted the American Friends Service Committee. That organization joined with the Granite State Organizing Project, a host of social service agencies, public health officials and the owner of the Manchester complex in an effort to solve the problem in a way that would teach others about the threat and how to deal with it. The coalition, which now has a website (nhbedbugs.com), is recruiting volunteers and seeking donors willing to contribute new or bug-free used furniture, mattresses, cleaning supplies and other items.

Once they're found, eliminating bedbugs means hiring an experienced exterminator, according to the state Department of Agriculture. Effective pesticides must be applied by a licensed professional, since improper use can be cause more problems than the bedbugs. Several applications will probably be necessary.

All it takes to bring bedbugs back to your home is one night in a infected hotel or motel. The bugs can travel quickly and will hide in clothes and seams in luggage. It's a practice that hasn't been second nature for nearly two generations, but experts advise, before spending the night in new lodgings, checking mattress seams, couch cushions and crevices in nightstands first. If even one bedbug is spotted, alert management and get either a bug-free room, which isn't always easy because the insects travel from room to room through gaps in floorboards, or find another hotel. The state doesn't track outbreaks of bedbugs, since they do not transmit infectious diseases. So vigilance is in order if you want to sleep tight and not let the bedbugs bite.