If you have lived in New York in the past year, you are probably aware that bedbugs have made a serious comeback. Stories about the tiny bloodsuckers have filled the papers and are regularly featured on TV news. But is this problem really big enough to warrant the 13 bedbug stories the NY Times has published in the last month alone? Should New Yorkers be panicking about the oncoming bedbug plague or is this the Y2K of this decade, a minor impact with a LOT of buzz?
The issue is not limited to New York, last month more than 360 scientists, pest control experts and officials paid $450 each to attend a Bed Bug Summit outside of Chicago. I am fortunate to have never shared my sleeping quarters with these most ungracious house guests, but I have spent an awful lot of time fretting about them. Friends of mine have stopped going to movie theaters, grown paranoid about visiting others apartments and even paid big money for preemptive extermination efforts.
How many New Yorkers are actually dealing with bedbugs in-the-flesh and how many are just stressed by the looming threat of arthropod invasion? Take my survey and let me know what your own experience has been: Bedbugs: Plague or panic?