Aug 3, 2006 11:19 am US/Central
Duluth Bedbug Reports Part Of A National Trend
Duluth, Minn. (AP) ―
Sleep tight and don't let the bedbugs bite, your mom warned you. At one apartment complex in Duluth, that got difficult after an infestation of crawly creatures.
Residents of the Tri-Towers Apartment and Senior Complex recently got a one-page letter informing them of the unwelcome visitors. It's the building's first infestation, but entomologists say reports of the pest are getting more common.
Michael Potter, a University of Kentucky entomologist who maintains a Web site on bedbugs, said incidents of infestation seem to be skyrocketing. His site, which had 1,312 hits in 1998, is on track to get more than 1 million this year, he said.
"This will go from what was once a childhood nursery rhyme to an everyday thing in people's minds," Potter said.
At Tri-Towers, a Section 8 building run by the Duluth Housing and Redevelopment Authority, the critters got inside when a resident brought in an infested mattress from another building, said Rick Ball, executive director of the housing authority.
Ball said the resident threw it into the building's garbage area after realizing it was infested, but didn't tell anyone. Another resident saw the mattress and brought it back inside, then reported it when the bugs were discovered.
The flat, brownish bugs vary in size from 3/16 to 1/4 inch. They hide in cracks and crevices during the day, and come out at night to feed on a warm-blooded host -- preferably humans. They secrete a fluid that makes their bite painless as people sleep, but often leave behind hard, white itchy welts, said Colleen Cannon, an entomologist with Plunkett's Pest Control in Minneapolis.
No one's sure what's behind the increase in bedbugs. Cannon said it could be due to the U.S. ban on the pesticide DDT, once used to kill bedbugs. She said most DDT remnants in cracks and crevices of homes have worn off, once again increasing opportunities for infestation.
Ball said the Tri-Towers are now free of the pest, but they are still being monitored by exterminators.
"We dealt with this as thoroughly and as quickly as we could and as any property manager would," he said.
(© 2006 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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