Tourists and immigrants 'behind US bed bug plague'
By Charles Laurence in New York
(Filed: 21/12/2003)

Bed bugs have invaded the United States for the first time in 50 years, munching their way through sleeping victims in an infestation described by pest controllers as being "out of control".

European travellers and Third World immigrants are being blamed for bringing the bugs back to the US, with 28 American states reporting recent infestations.

To their shame and horror, wealthy home owners and guests staying at expensive hotels have woken up covered in red, itchy welts, as well as people living in cheap motels and crowded apartment houses.

Andy Linares, the president of Bug-Off Pest Control Centre, said the company - New York's biggest supplier of insect poison - was receiving "more calls than we can deal with".

Mr Linares, a diplomat at the United Nations before he realised that there was "more money in bugs", said: "We are getting calls to five-star hotels and Fifth Avenue addresses from people who will never admit to getting mauled by bed bugs. It's getting out of hand, really out of control.

"Bed bugs are a medieval scourge and they spread pretty much the medieval way - they travel the trade routes just like the rats that spread the plague."

The round, dark brown bugs, less than a quarter of an inch long and virtually flat, are wingless and so like to settle close to their food source. The bed is an ideal hunting ground because their prey lies still. The bugs bore through the skin using a proboscis rimmed with barbs, and double their weight with 10 minutes of blood-sucking.

Although bed bugs are common in many countries, they were all but eradicated in America after the Second World War when returning GIs were doused in the powerful insecticide DDT to rid them of infestation.

However, DDT was banned in the 1960s on environmental grounds and pest controllers are struggling to cope with the bugs' re-emergence. "The harsh products are banned, and we need new materials," said Mr Linares. "It's a stealth situation. These things hide, breed copiously with 500 eggs to a hatch, and are hard to kill."

Requejo Ventura, a Mexican businessman, is suing the Helmsley Park Lane Hotel in New York after allegedly coming under attack from the bugs.

"We had bites everywhere and it was just horrible," he claimed in a lawsuit filed last week.

His lawyer, Alberto Ebanks, said Mr Ventura and his wife were suing on the grounds of their pain and suffering. They were also claiming punitive damages, because the hotel's alleged reluctance to face up to the pests worsened their ordeal.

Instead of sending the Venturas for medical help, the hotel moved them to a different room. As a result, the couple took the bugs back to Mexico, infecting their own homes. They eventually had to dig up the floors before the bugs stopped biting. "Their bodies were just covered in them," said Mr Ebanks.

Steven Eckhaus, a lawyer for the hotel, said the case "had no merit". He added: "The Park Lane is a terrific hotel. It does not, and never has, suffered from bed bugs."

The New York metropolitan area and California are the most heavily infected states because bed bugs thrive in densely populated urban areas. They have also been found in Pennsylvania motels and forced the closure of a student dormitory at a mid-Western university.

Mr Linares identified European travellers as the chief culprits in infecting US hotels. Americans themselves were also coming back from Europe infested with the bugs, which also came over in cargo containers.

Another source of infestation was immigrants from poor countries, he said. "Traditionally, the heaviest infestations are in the most crowded living conditions, where people are living in badly maintained buildings with old furniture," he said. "That's the perfect breeding ground for bed bugs."

If exterminators' poisons did not kill the bed bugs, he said, the only way to purge a room was to throw away the furniture and carpets, demolish cracked or rotten walls and buy new beds, mattresses and sheets.