'Super' bedbugs spread across USA, baffle insect experts

The San Fransico Chronicle calls the spread of super bedbugs across the USA "the biggest mystery in entomology."

Do you know if you're safe?
 
"The size and shape of a lentil, bedbugs lay eggs during the day and hide in your bed, clothing and light sockets. At night, they suck your blood, leaving itchy bumps on your skin and little bloody excretions on your sheets. They don't pass diseases, but they are incredibly difficult to exterminate, even following their blood hosts who move to new apartments trying to get away," the paper says.

Exterminators, who charge hundreds, if not thousands, to kill the tiny bugs, say reports of bedbug infestations increased 71% between 2000 and 2005. And judging by the anecdotes in the story, these bloodsucking insects are an expensive menace that can threaten the very sanity of their targets.

"People who throw away all their possessions and battle this for months and spend thousands on pest control only to relocate and have the bugs reappear are really traumatized," the anonymous founder of bedbugger.com tells the Chronicle."They are getting only a few hours of sleep at night, they feel itchy all the time, some go to therapy over it."

SNIFFING FOR BEDBUGS
Man's best friend has joined the arsenal of weapons in the fight against bedbugs, a particularly invasive and hardy pest. These bed bug buddies are given up to 1,100 hours of training, by the same organizations that train bomb- and drug-sniffing dogs, to ferret out the hiding places of these insidious pests, says Carl Massicott. He's the owner of Advanced K9 Detectives, a bedbug dogsniffing service based out of Mitford, CT. Massicott has witnessed steadily increased demand for his service. Bed bugs, apparently, provide him a thriving business.

The service works like this: a handler and dog will enter a guestroom and, within a minute, says Massicott, the dog will be able to determine the presence of live bedbugs and/or their eggs. They alert the handler by sitting and pointing a paw or issuing a sharp bark. It's 95-98 percent accurate, claims Massicott. "My dogs never call in sick, they don't ask for a raise and they don't complain," he says. "The exterminators love us, too. We make their job easier."