and you thought all you had to worry about was salmonella in the eggs-

[hedgehog]

Collaboration between Texas A&M's Center for Urban & Structural Entomology and the University of Arkansas Insect Genetics laboratory is revealing important clues concerning the reasons for the current resurgence of bed bugs around the world and here in the United States......


....In our preliminary investigations we have found significant populations occurring in poultry facilities in Arkansas and Texas, and we suspect that resistant populations of bed bugs have slowly increased in numbers in facilities such as these, and have subsequently been transported from poultry workers to other areas where they have subsequently spread. Population genetic studies of both mitochondrial and nuclear DNA reveal no genetic bottlenecks, yet significant variation with no apparent geographic structure with 19 distinct mt DNA halophytes from only 50 populations from throughout the United States (see below). For this reason, we believe that populations never truly died out in the United States, but were forced to alternate their hosts. Ongoing research on host identification from blood meals of bed bugs is currently being investigated to support this hypothesis.

http://urbanentomology.tamu.edu/bedbugs/bedbugs.cfm

[aquart]

1. RESISTANT bed bugs?

And NYC is infested.

[monmouth]

2. The 4th floor of my building here in West Palm is also infested. Someone

may have traveled and brought them home. Yikes!

[cliffordu]

3. you should be able to get rid of them the same way I

got rid of roaches and ants...

Diatomaceous Earth.


Scratches their little shells and they leak to death.

Spread that shit everywhere. I'd blow a ton inside my mattress if I had to and then put a ribber sheet over the top.

Or get a closed cell foam mattress.

I used to spread it on the carpets and then rub it in with a broom whenever the roaches or ants would invade.

Seriously, it worked like gangbusters.

[defendandprotect]

4. In NYC there was an outbreak of bedbugs at Victoria's Secret ....!!

Maybe this is a campaign to bring back some toxic chemical?

However, I have to say that as many DU'ers as we have here who express all kinds

of concern it is really disappointing to see their lack of concern re animal-eating

and the animal-eating industry -- the violence involved -- the bloodletting and

brutality!

If you're against Global Warming you should be against animal-exploitation of any kind!

[obxhead]

5. I heard an interview on NPR the other day about this. (link included)

Part of the interview they say that bedbugs are by far the hardest pest for professionals to deal with. After hearing it I have decided i don't ever want to have to deal with bedbugs of any kind. :(

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129345182