LITTLE ROCK The old saying Dont let the beg bugs bite appears to be taking on its traditional literal meaning in Arkansas as bug experts and exterminators say the pesky critters are increasingly showing up in hotels, motels, apartments and homes.
The tiny pests, for years a problem in lodging on the East and West coasts, have found their way to Arkansas, said John D. Hopkins, an associate professor and extension entomologist at the University of Arkansas.
They travel, thats pretty much how they move around. Theyre hitchhikers and thats how they get to your place, you bring them or someone else does, Hopkins said.
Arkansas has been insulated just a little bit because of its more rural, inland location, but even here, they are on the increase, he said.
Denise Edwards, one of the owners of Clark Exterminating in North Little Rock and Benton, said last week that the number of calls her company receives for help with bed bug infestations has risen from one or two a month to up to five a week in the last six months.
Weve definitely had an increase in calls and its not strictly hotels and motels, she said. More and more people bring them into their homes or apartments when they return from vacations in other states, she said. Apartment complexes, especially, can have them quite severely.
The problem has increased to the point that the Legislature this year got into the pest control business, sort of, by passing legislation requiring all mattresses sold in the state to bear a label stating whether they are new or contain previously used materials.
Sen. Jeremy Hutchinson, R-Little Rock, who sponsored the legislation that became Act 1420 of 2013, said many of the used mattresses being sold as new pose a number of health hazards, such as the presence of body fluids, and also have the potential for bed bug infestation.
Bed bugs were a big part of the problem, Hutchinson said.
Bed bugs are a nuisance but they do not transmit or carry diseases between people, said Ed Barham, spokesman for the state Department of Health.
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Bed bug infestation on rise in state | Arkansas News
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