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Waking up several times during the night with itchy skin, Mr and Mrs E (whose names have been withheld) have not had a good nights sleep in almost a year. They have tried everything from tossing out their belongings including bedding replacing the wooden bed with a metal-framed one, and flea bombing their subdivided apartment numerous times. But they still cant get rid of their unwanted intruders, bed bugs.

Watch Hong Kong is Disneyland for bed bugs video

Theyre getting desperate, because Mrs E is pregnant and due to give birth any day. On a visit to their cramped apartment in Cheung Sha Wan with Francisco Pazos, head technician of pest control company nobedbugs-hk.com, Pazos lifts the blanket and immediately sees the small dark insects crawling on the bed. Many more appear as he moves the mattress.

Judging by the amount of droppings, Pazos estimates there are more than a million bed bugs in the apartment, and classifies the case as an extreme infestation. The neighbouring apartments are likely to be crawling in them, he says.

Bed bugs (Cimex hemipterus) feed on blood, are arguably the most irritating household pests, and are indiscriminate lodgers. They can be found in all types of homes, clean or dirty, big or small.

Pazos next takes us to a luxurious, 3,700 sq ft Mid-Levels flat. One of two domestic helpers suspects the critters hitchhiked to Hong Kong with her employer when he returned from a trip to the mainland. The parasites have since spread to all of the bedrooms.

Bed bug infestations are on the rise - and the pests are hard to kill

Hong Kong is on the verge of a major bed bug epidemic, Pazos warns. There are only two types of households in Hong Kong: those who have bed bugs and those who will have bed bugs.

The Spanish expert, who has dealt with the pests for more than 10 years, says the city is a Disneyland for bed bugs because the high population density and small, cluttered homes are perfect breeding conditions. Seams of mattresses, crevices in furniture and cracks between floorboards are all ideal hiding places for bed bugs.

Pazo says his team receives more than 500 phone enquiries a month. They visit some districts more frequently, such as Tung Chung and Ho Man Tin, but Pazos says this is not a reflection of how severe the problem is in these areas. Rather, middle-class families in these neighbourhoods are more likely to have the financial means to pay for treatment. The cost ranges from HK$1,500 to HK$18,000, depending on the type of treatment, size of the home and the level of infestation.

The resurgence of bed bugs is a worldwide problem. They were almost wiped out in the 1960s through use of the pesticide DDT. The pesticide was later found to have wide-ranging harmful effects, and was banned worldwide in 2001 under the Stockholm Convention. Since then, the critters have made a comeback.

We experienced a sudden reappearance around 2000, followed by rapid population growth, mirrored across most of Europe, the US, Canada and Australia, says Dr Richard Naylor, an entomologist from University of Sheffield, in northern England, who studies the bloodsuckers behaviour.

One theory about the spread of bed bugs in Hong Kong is that they are imported from the mainland, where migrant workers dormitories and trains have spread the pest rapidly across the country. Shenzhen has a large immigrant population and many factory dorms, where bed bug infestations are often reported. Considering its vicinity to Hong Kong, the risk of bed bugs spreading from Shenzhen to Hong Kong is high, says Dr Changlu Wang, an entomologist from Rutgers University in New Jersey.

New York, with a population density comparable to Hong Kongs, suffered a mass infestation in 2010, when bedbugs were reported in hotels, shops and cinemas. City authorities had received more than 8,000 complaints in 2008 alone.

Sleeping in McDonalds better than in a bug-infested bed at home, says Hong Kong McSleeper

Statistics on the number of homes affected are difficult to obtain because many sufferers are too embarrassed to report the problem. There is a stigma surrounding bed bugs. People believe that they are associated with dirty places, which isnt true. But because of this, people tend not to talk about the problem, Naylor says.

Some people may be aware of the problem because not everyone reacts to their bite.

Cheung (who didnt want her full name revealed) took her eight-year-old son to two doctors when he developed rashes on his skin. One doctor laughed off the suggestion the rash could have been caused by insect bites.

Our youngest son was being eaten alive and was misdiagnosed by two different doctors, who put him on antihistamines for several weeks, Cheung says. The drugs made him drowsy but his rashes just got worse. The cause was only discovered after another of Cheungs sons got rashes from bites, and they did some online research.

The easiest way to tell if you have a bed bug problem is by looking for droppings pin head sized black dots normally found on bedsheets, Pazos says. Another way is to blow hot air from a hairdryer into the corners of a wooden bed, which will flush them out. They are typically brown and flat, and up to 4.5mm long.

Bed bugs possess many qualities that make them hard to get rid of. Containing an infestation is notoriously difficult due to how quickly they grow and reproduce. An adult female bed bug can lay about 25 eggs a week. The life cycle from egg to adult takes about six weeks, which means if a single female bug finds its way into your bed, it can keep on laying fertile eggs, and by the time its ready to mate again, its own offspring will be reaching maturity, Naylor says.

This ability to inbreed means they can mutate, and produce stronger detoxifying enzymes that can break down insecticides. They can grow a thicker protective exterior that prevents insecticides from harming them.

Modern populations of bed bugs now have widespread resistance to every major class of insecticide, Naylor says. So its not surprising that people are struggling to control the insects using conventional insecticides.

Most of Pazos clients have already tried terminating bedbugs with flea bombs or by employing pest control companies, to no avail. [Flea bombing] is the worst thing you can do, Pazos says. They feel uncomfortable and will stop feeding for a night or two, but they will come back when they are hungry. It only makes them more difficult to kill because they hide deeper inside the walls.

Pazos has found another way of combating bed bugs that he says has been particularly effective. He uses an amorphous silicon gel powder, which he dusts on every surfaces of an infected apartment, and kills the insects by dehydrating them. It is completely harmless, he says. To prove his point, a colleague dips his finger in the powder and slips it in his mouth. (Not all types of silicon gel are non-toxic, Pazos stresses.)

Another, more expensive, method, is to raise the temperature of an apartment up to 60 degrees, which Pazos can do using special equipment. It is almost like a sauna, he says. Bedbugs die when the temperature reaches about 48 degrees, but Pazos maintains the heat for three hours so it penetrates walls, furniture and mattresses.

Pasoz shows how the heat treatment works, on a visit the cluttered flat of an elderly couple in Shau Kei Wan. It was one of the worst cases he had seen. When he first visited, the bed bugs, which are normally inactive in daylight, were crawling on the floor. The elderly man, who suffered the most, had thrown out the mattress and was sleeping on plastic sheets to prevent bites.

I wanted to cry seeing how my old man suffered, his wife says.

Its been five weeks since Pazos and his team first visited the flat. They have since done one heat treatment and applied the silicon dust three times. Like a detective on the hunt for evidence, Pazos lifts up the wooden bed panel and, bingo, he finds fresh bedbug droppings.

Despite rounds of chemical warfare and turning up the heat, Pazos job is not yet done.

Tips to deal with bed bugs

Excerpt from:
Is Hong Kong on the verge of a major bed bug epidemic? We talk to the experts and get some tips - South China Morning Post

(Ashton Staniszewski/Orkin)

The two-bedroom apartment in the North York area of Toronto appears to have been ransacked. Cupboards are thrown open and emptied, dresser drawers are overturned on the floor, the mattress is stripped and flipped against the wall. This is good prep, says Ed Bandurka, a branch manager with Orkin Pest Control. If she hadnt done this, we wouldnt be able to do our job today.

The job hes referring to is bed bug extermination, a multi-step process of vacuuming every nook and cranny of a residents furniture, hosing it with piping-hot steam to kill all bugs and eggs, and spraying a pesticide for good measure. Its the biggest service Orkin provides in the GTA, mostly tending to calls from landlords of multi-residential buildings. Today, Bandurka and pest control technician Jamey Osmond will be treating three units the buildingall repeat visits.

Lets have a look, Osmond says, flicking on his flashlight to examine the corners of the wardrobe drawers, their light wood speckled with tiny black stains of digested blood. Lets see if we can find you something.

Bingo, Bandurka declares from the other room where hes studying the underside of the box spring. A cluster of what looks like tiny apple seeds is stuck together under a flap of fabric. The brownish black mass shows every life stage of bed bugs, from egg to nymph to the slightly larger adult. As we scan the apartment, its clear the bugs are thrivingon the bed, in the dressers, on the couch, and probably elsewhere. The tenant says shes had them for close to a year. Leaving the bedroom, the unmistakable scuttle of a cockroach catches my eye. They must have roaches too, Bandurka says, nonchalant. A cursory glance at the kitchen confirms the hunch. Their droppings, pepper-like specs, are all over the counters and appliance, and a half dozen nymphs are feeding on grease on top of the oven. Watch yourself, Bandurka says, gesturing me to move aside as I stare, both disgusted and compelled, at the bugs. You dont want that guy falling on your head, he says pointing to the roach crawling on the ceiling directly above me. Is this a bad infestation? I ask, assuming its an unusually unfortunate scenario. Nah, Osmond says. On a scale of one to ten, Id say its a three.

Pest problems across Canada are severe and widespread, particularly in urban rental stock. No matter how clean and careful you are, theyre not always avoidable. In Toronto, the city is about to implement a bylaw to help get the problem under control by proactively requiring landlords to implement pest control programs and prohibiting them from renting any unit that has pests, namely cockroaches, bedbugs and rodents.

(Click to enlarge)

The news comes as a victory to tenants unable to escape bugs and other vermin. The problem is, with the majority of rental units showing signs of infestations, cracking down on resilient pests in densifying metropolitan areas presents a dilemma. If the city is serious about withholding units showing any signs of pests, it means eliminating rental stock from a market thats already tightly pinched. In Toronto for example, where the vacancy rate is about 1.3per cent, the waitlist for affordable housing is pushing 100,000 units. Meanwhile, some estimates show that close to 83per centof low and middle-income tenants in the city have had cockroaches in their apartment, and 30per centhave had bedbugs. Fully enforcing the sort of bylaw Toronto has passed would trigger a supply crisis in an oversubscribed market, while saddling landlords with extermination costs theyd likely pass on to tenants. In Toronto, rents are already sky-high. Temporarily condemning rental units that have pests would mean added strain on an already undersupplied market. On the other hand, any leniency with the bylaw, and pests will persist.

Pest infestations are exceptionally common, says Michael Thiele, an Ottawa-based lawyer who works extensively on residential landlord and tenant disputes. Thiele recalls representing a client at the Ontario Rental Housing Tribunal in the early 2000s when an adjudicator said during the hearing that he would be shocked if every rental building in Ottawa didnt have a pest problem, says Thiele. I think that is the reality all over the province.

Bandurka generally agrees, conceding that in cities across Canada, one can find apartment buildings where every unithassomething in some way, shape or form. But he emphasizes that theres a spectrum of severity and not every building deals with the big threeroaches, rodents, and bed bugswe fear most. Some may have ants or spiders, which are unpleasant, but relatively easy to exterminate.

The bylaw is a start, Bandurka says of Torontos plan, adding, as you might expect from someone in his industry, that buildings should have dedicated pest control programs in place with certified professionals.

The bylaw, Rent Safe TO, will require every apartment building thats three or more storeys with 10or more units be inspected by a bylaw enforcement officer. If the city finds health or safety hazards, including pest problems, theyll ask the landlord to deal with them. If they find on re-inspection the landlord hasnt complied, they can levy finesas high as $100,000.

RELATED: How the bed bug took over the world

Its not just a slap on the wrist, says Toronto City Councillor Josh Matlow, who introduced the bylaw. Its a big, six-figure number to send a message that if you are going to be willfully negligent, then were going to hammer you.

The trouble is that not everyone with pests has a negligent landlord. Certainly foot-dragging owners and building superintendents exist in abundance across Canada, but others are trying to eliminate pests, to no avail.

From this writers own experience with cockroaches, I know it requires a militant discipline to eliminate food sources and administer treatments at the right times in the pests life cycle. If you wait too long between treatments, theyre back with a vengeance. Its a surprisingly involved process, and many landlords simply dont have the time to stay on top of the problem. Even if theyand tenants take extra care, cockroaches can live for a week without water and a month without foodplenty of time to reproduce. Plus, they eat the carcasses of their kin if theres no other food available, making their annihilation potentially impossible. One tenant I spoke with, who lives in a 1970s era high rise in Torontos west end, has had cockroaches for all eight years hes lived there, despite having pest control treatments every Thursday. I moved out of my own roach-infested apartment after a year of failed treatments, leaving most of my furniture behind so as not to bring the pests with me.

(Toronto Star/Getty Images)

Folks whove had bedbugs will tell you those pests are no better. Back in 2014, Ray Noyes, a tenants rights advocate based in Ottawa, wound up in the hospital after needing four months of weekly blood transfusions because of an acute bout of anemia. I could only walk for about two minutes before sitting down and resting for five minutes to catch my breath, says Noyes. Though the doctors knew Noyes had bed bugs at home, they didnt piece it together that the pests were draining his blood. It wasnt until his apartment was treated for the seventh time that Noyes started regaining his energy and connected the dots himself. Noyes cant count how many times his apartment has been treated since, but says, while the problem is being managed, to this day, I have the great-great-great-great-grandchildren of those vampires still hanging out in my unit.

Noyes is a member of the Ottawa branch of Acorn, a non-profit that advocates for, among other things, tenants rights, particularly those of people who are low-income. The organization is lobbying for landlord registries in the capitalwith the same objective of Torontos new bylaw: to hold landlords accountable for maintaining safe and clean rental stock, and doing so in a proactive, rather than complaint-based, way.

While Noyes considers Rent Safe TO a step in the right direction, he says theres potential it wont fix the problem. If theyre going to prevent people from renting out units where theres a pest issue thats not being dealt with, and then they deal with it in some sense, its just going to be more of the same, he says. Its going to be bandaid solutions. Part of the problem is the nature of the worst peststheyre resilient and they reproduce at alarming rates. The other factor, says Noyes, is the for-profit pest control industry that he doesnt believe is getting the job done. To me, in a dream world, pest control would be like the paramedic service, he says. It would be a public health service instituted by the municipality or province.

Torontos new bylaw comes into effect on July 1, but it will be years before the City knows whether it reduced the burgeoning pest problem. If it does, other cities may follow,witheither bylaws or licensing programs similar to the one to which restaurants are subject. The status quo is unacceptable, says Councillor Matlow. Based on every nightmare story Ive heard, Im confident that the city needs stronger tools than to just say pretty please do it. But if you have the rules and you dont have anyone to enforce them, he adds, they have no weight.

Read the original post:
Are bed-bug bylaws a good idea? - Macleans.ca