EPA Public Meeting on Bedbugs

This notice showed up in the comments below and I thought it would be worth posting for those who were interested in attending.
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There is a resurgence of bed bugs and the EPA is having a public meeting on the issue. Details below:
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ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

[EPA-HQ-OPP-2009-0190; FRL-8407-1]

National Bed Bug Summit; Notice of Public Meeting

AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

ACTION: Notice.

SUMMARY: EPA is planning a meeting to be held on April 14 through April 15, 2009, on the topic of bed bug resurgence in the United States. The aim of the session will be to share information and knowledge on the topic of bed bugs and their newfound resurgence, provide a venue to identify ideas and opinions for their control, and develop recommendations as how affected stakeholders, communities, and local jurisdictions can begin to address the emerging nationwide bed bug problem. The agenda for this meeting is under development and will be posted on our website in advance of the meeting and also placed in the docket for this meeting.

DATES: The meeting will be held on April 14 and 15, 2009, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on the first day, and from 9 a.m. to noon on the last day.

To request accommodation of a disability, please contact the person listed under FOR FURTHER INFORMATON CONTACT, preferably at least 10 days prior to the meeting, to give EPA as much time as possible to process your request.

ADDRESSES: The meeting will be held in the EPA East Building at 12th and Constitution Ave., NW., Washington, DC. For directions, go to: http://www.epa.gov/epahome/hq.htm.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Karen Angulo, Registration Division (7505P), Office of Pesticide Programs, Environmental Protection Agency, 1200 Pennsylvania Ave., NW., Washington, DC 20460-0001; telephone number: (703) 306-0404; fax number: (703) 308-0029; e-mail address: angulo.karen @epa.gov.

This Federal Register information came from http://www.CyberRegs.com.

NYC Documentary on Bed Bugs

I'm posting this on behalf of a NYC freelancer doing a documentary on bed bugs. If you're interested, please contact Sally at the e-mail listed below.
-ch

I am looking for people to be part of a short documentary about bed bugs and New York City. The piece will be for the film festival market and will have a total running time of around 15 minutes. If you have a story that you feel the need to share,I would love to hear from you, - the more extreme and dramatic the better! The time committment would be around 3 days spread out over a couple of months. The goal is to start shooting in March.

Please contact me directly sally_ogrady [at] yahoo [dot] com.

Follow-Up

The exterminator came on Wednesday last week and I think that we've seen the last of bedbugs in this apartment for a long, long time.

Contributing to the quick and painless process this time around was the fact that I caught the signs early and I found a live one right away, after only three bites. I had an exterminator in exactly two weeks after getting the first bite and he was exceptionally thorough. We did all the laundry, even though it was only for three bites. And now it has been nearly a week and a half since I last got any bites.

I'm crossing my fingers that this is it once and for all, but I'm grateful that it didn't get to be as bad as the first time. It says a lot for being informed and getting a professional in to do the job as soon as possible.

One thing we did NOT do, and I want to point this out, because sometimes people panic and make the situation worse: We did not spray any contact killers around the bed. I did not want to drive any bugs deeper into the walls where they'd become more difficult to kill. That meant using myself as bait and possibly getting more bites. But a few more bites and dead bedbugs would be better than getting sporadic bites for the rest of my life. If you're thinking of using contact killers, I strongly recommend asking the advice of a professional before using them to be sure you don't do the cause harm.

Thanks for all your concern and support. I think I'm going to go back into retirement, now. :)

Reinfested.

Yep. Billy and I have bedbugs again. I noticed my first suspicious bite on August 1 and when on August 9 I saw two more, I called the super, even though I only had circumstantial evidence.

This is where I know my super and management company ROCK. No questions asked, he just went ahead and made an appointment for the exterminator to come in ASAP and told me he'd be contacting my neighbors above me and below me to have their places exterminated as well. And then he said he'd come in himself to caulk any cracks in the floors along the walls. All this after telling me that no one else had been reporting bedbugs in my building for quite some time.

Realizing that I could be overreacting, I was still grateful for the immediate and thorough response. It was only three bites, but it's better safe than sorry, and I wasn't about to let a potentially and relatively light infestation become something much worse without proof.

Well, I got my proof last night. In the form of a bedbug climbing up my bedroom wall just before I went to bed. I squashed it and saved it in a Ziploc bag and I am now even more grateful that the exterminator is coming tomorrow morning, 9am.

I can't believe I have to go through all this shit AGAIN. We bought large heavy duty trash bags to put our clothes and linens into since of course we can't get into the laundry room until tomorrow night. We'll be pulling the furniture out away from the walls before we go to sleep tonight and vacuuming all the floors, removing the vacuum bag into another sealed bag and going directly into the trash compactor. With luck, we'll get rid of the fuckers in one shot. I'm hoping there are only one or two of them in the apartment at this point, since I only got three bites in two weeks. I don't honestly care how many there are, so long as every last stinkin' one of them DIES.

Still Retired, But...

I'm still in bedbug retirement mode, but I wanted to point out this particularly helpful resource, aptly called The Bedbug Resource. It is put together and run by a pest professional/entomologist who has dedicated a large part of his life to the study of bedbugs. Please take a look.

And, as always (well, recently), please redirect yourself to the Bedbugger blog, which has loads of commentary and tips for people who are suffering with bedbugs. It is updated far more often than this site and probably at this point has more information than this site will ever have.

Queens Residents Needed for Queens Tribune Article

Theresa Juva of the Queens Tribune is looking for Queens residents who are dealing with current bedbug infestations who would be willing to be interviewed for an upcoming article. I know there are a LOT of people who have written in saying their Astoria apartments are infested, so if you are interested, please contact her by email at your earliest convenience.

Redirect

An apology is likely in order.

Bedbugs have been showing up just about EVERYWHERE in the news recently, most notably, perhaps, in today's New York Times article in the real estate section. Membership in the Yahoo! support group has surged in the last three weeks. E-mails have been flooding in and I have not been able to respond.

I simply have not been able to keep up, and I apologize.

However, I would like to point you in the direction of someone who has not only taken the reins but has done an excellent and incredibly thorough job of putting together loads of useful information for people who want to learn about and get support for dealing with bedbugs. Please check out this site. It is everything I wish this site could be.

I don't know if I will be able to come back to this site, but honestly, it feels more right to pass the baton at this point. I have been bedbug-free for 13 months now. Of course I am always willing to provide support to those who need or want it, but the best information is elsewhere for now.

Thanks for visiting and for all your support over the last year. As always, my best to you in your quest to defeat the enemy.