Man, I can not believe that bedbugs are our XXIth century plague. See, I was expecting some shit like leprosy, ebola, bubonic plague, some weird-ass killer fungus or even some superbug but never bedbugs. And don’t get me wrong folks, don’t get me wrong. I am glad it’s bedbugs and not SUPERBUGS but…  you know, it just weird. Like, it’s not deathly, just incredibly annoying. All those biblical prophecies were just exaggerating.

Hit the break and learn more about this problem and what you can do.

“It’s an epidemic — absolutely,” said Dini M. Miller, an associate professor at the Dodson Urban Pest Management Laboratory at Virginia Tech and urban pest management specialist for the state of Virginia.

“What’s happening is because they have showed up in these different kinds of places that didn’t expect them. It’s big news.”

The surge in bedbug infestations comes about 50 years after experts thought the United States was rid of them.

“We were very arrogant to think that they were gone forever,” Miller said. “We really shouldn’t be surprised to see them coming back like this. . . . While they weren’t here in the United States, they were present in other nations.

“The reason we have so many bedbugs is, we are not very good at getting rid of them anymore,” Miller said. “We have sort of reached a threshold level where they are so resistant to insecticides that we can’t control them. Consequently we get large numbers of bedbugs, and they get transported around.”

Damn right we are not good at getting rid of them anymore, you dillweeds banned DDT! That shit used to be great to get rid of insects. And humans too! Isn’t that great? Wait, WHAT!? Oh yes… DDT is also mad carcinogenic…  Well, I guess we’ll have to learn to coexist with them.

“We do not recommend trying to take care of it yourself,” Lupini said. “You are going to fail.”

Jeez… good to know, thanks for the encouragement.

Pesticide treatments include applying chemicals and heat. The bugs and eggs are killed at high temperatures. Lupini said they often use both methods to get the problem under control.

Franklin Scherra, environmental health supervisor for Chesterfield Health District, said his office has handled about three infestations in hotels this year.

“If we find evidence, we have them put that unit out of service, and any adjacent units and units above and below,” Scherra said. Inspectors then come back to make sure treatments have eliminated the problem.

“It can be a pretty expensive proposition,” he said.

Now, in case you got paranoid (Don’t worry, it’s normal. But visit a psychiatrist if paranoia lasts more than 8 hours), here are a couple of tutorials by eHOW.com on how to deal with this problem:

How to Prevent Bed Bugs
How to Detect Bed Bugs
How to Get Rid of Bedbugs
How to Kill Bed Bugs

And to read the rest of the article visit timesdispatch.com: Bedbugs stage comeback in U.S.

In the meanwhile, if you need me, I will be fumigating the shit ouf ot this bunker. I hate bugs. All of them!

Image courtesy of farm1.static.flickr.com (Not the same source as the original article)