History of Bed Bugs
Bed bugs have been documented in entering the United States since the 17th century. Just before World War II, bed bugs became common and widespread use of synthetic insecticides such as DDT (whose use is now forbidden) greatly reduced their numbers.
In the past decade, bed bugs have been making a significant comeback to the United States. International travel and commerce are thought to grow the spread of these insects are readily transportable in luggage and clothing. Bed bugs are found everywhere but generally areas of high turnover such as hotels, motels, dormitories, shelters, apartment complexes and prisons they are more common. Such locations are generally not a reflection of poor hygiene or bad housekeeping. Bed bugs do not discriminate where they want to nest i.e. a 2 or 5 star hotel!
The rise of the bed bug population is difficult and there are no national databases available. What is known is there was a 19% increase of complaints of bed bugs presence from the summer 2003 to winter 2004, according to a March 2005 survey by Pest Control Technology Magazine.
There has been a significant outbreak of bed bugs in all of North America, parts of Western Europe and in Australia. There were over 9200 complaints filed with the New York City Department of Health in 2008 alone. It can be assumed that there more complaints then were filed especially from the hotel industry who would not want to make public their experiences.
Bed Bugs are about the same size as an apple seed and hide in mattresses, seams and other furniture. Female bed bugs lay 200-500 during their lifetime at a rate of 3-4 per day. They emerge at night to feed on human host. This process takes no more than 3-8 minutes. They are a nuisance and though are not known to carry disease can have a large psychological toll on individuals. After be bitten by bed bugs, some people don’t sleep well for months. Businesses and hotels who have bed bugs often suffer financially from the loss of business interruption.
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