Libraries under attack from bed bugs, urine-wielding vandal

The Vancouver library's bedbug problem is virtually under control, but has not been eliminated. Used to be the worst thing you could encounter in a public library was a book with a musty smell.

These days, though, there's a chance an outhouse smell may greet you when you pull a book down from the stacks, or maybe something crawling out from between the pages when you crack it open.

Should you be bringing rubber gloves on your next visit?

Perhaps, if you live in Leamington, Ont., where someone's been soaking library books in urine. Or in Vancouver, where bed bugs have made a reappearance at some library branches a year after a concerted effort to eradicate the pests.

CBC News reports staff at the Essex County Branch in Leamington have discovered 300 books ruined by urine, causing more than $3,000 damage.

[ Related: 300 library books found covered in urine ]

It's happened more than four times in the last three weeks, library chief executive Janet Woodbridge said, adding the damaged books were in an area out of staff sight and not often visited by the public. The frequency of the incidents has escalated, she said.

The books have been taken out of circulation and trashed.

Woodbridge said staff are now patrolling the stacks regularly hoping to catch the phantom urinator, whose motive is a mystery.

"They don't appear to be making an editorial statement," she told CBC News.

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Libraries under attack from bed bugs, urine-wielding vandal