Bed Bug Scare at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan NY

On September 24th 2009, John Jay College of Criminal Justice shut down and sealed off one of its midtown campus buildings and cancelled classes. I’m sure most of the students didn’t mind, but for the sake of this article the reason is because of a Cimex Lectularis, the common bed bug, which has hit New York City by storm.

All classes at the North Hall of the building, at 445 West 59th street, were postponed and rescheduled. All other classes at the colleges’ other campus buildings were held as scheduled. College officials said the first sign of a problem was reported in mid-August when staff members from the financial aid and registrar’s office were affected with skin rashes. Over the course of a month the number of people with rashes grew.

The school ordered a deep cleaning on September 14th and one bed bug was found, and later a second bed bug was discovered. On the following Tuesday, September 14th, school officials brought in a team of exterminators with bug-sniffing dogs to do an inspection on North Hall’s first floor. The team confirmed the presence of bed bugs. Further inspections on the second and third floors concluded with more bad news for the college. Evidence of bed bugs was found in almost half the rooms on the second floor and only minor evidence on the third.

Other buildings of the campus were also inspected, but nothing was found. The affected rooms and areas were treated over the weekend of September 26th. The building was opened the following Monday to faculty members and classes resumed Tuesday. Many students and faculty members were asking, “why are the bed bugs here?”, since they are referred to as “bed” bugs. Despite their name, bed bugs can survive in various locations. They have been found on, trains, buses, cabs, and other furnishings besides beds such as dressers, night tables and Couches.

There’s actually also been movie theaters’ that have been shut Dowd due to bed bug infestations. We at Beyond Pest Control have even sprayed taxicabs for bed bugs. Bed Bugs were almost eliminated due to the use of DDT. DDT has since been banned from use. Bed bugs have become wide spread and very persistent, especially in New York City. They have become such a monumental problem that a bed bug advisory board was established in March.

There are other colleges that have been hit by this epidemic pens, textbooks and new clothes are among the must-haves for college students heading back to school, but the most common back to college item may well be the Bed Bug. Around the U.S. are reporting a scourge of the little buggers infesting dorms, and the problem is only gets worse when they hitchhike on their hosts going from room to room and Class to Class.

College campuses are really the perfect setting, “We have large numbers of students coming from all over the country and, in fact, all over the world every single semester, and it’s inevitable that somebody is going to bring bed bugs with them. And once the bugs are brung in, they can rapidly spread because of all the interactions between students by visiting each other’s rooms and classes even college professors and faculty are in as much danger as the students.

Your Cooperation Is Crucial: Our prime objective is to eliminate all of the bed bugs from your space in a proper timely manner, and your cooperation is crucial in this process. One important thing for you to do is to try not to panic and freak out. We all know that having bed bugs can be a very traumatic experience. But be certain that we will make sure the problem is exterminated, and we will do this as quickly as possible.

Your participation is necessary and very important;

What you should not do:

1) Do not put any items in the garbage or remove them from your room

If your belongings are not removed properly you may unintentionally spread the infestation into the halls and other common areas. We say this because once your stuff has been thrown out it may be picked up by another unsuspecting student and then spreading the problem to their room.

2) Do not make any attempts to treat the bed bug infestation on your own. Do it yourself methods do not work.

Any measures that you may take to control the bed bug situation on your own may make matters worse, and may cause unexpected problems for others living around you. The student that is affected by bed bugs should advise housing, who should then take the appropriate steps to eradicate the problem. Those steps should include seeking out the help of a pest control specialist.

3) Do not move to another room

Even though your initial instinct would be to get out of the room and sleep somewhere else, if you do this you run the risk of taking the bed bugs with you in your sleep over bag. Instead the student affected should contact the housing department of the school immediately so that the proper corrective measures may be taken. Besides reporting any assumed bed bug activity to the housing department, there are a couple of other things that you should do to help in minimizing the possibility of spreading the bed bug problem.

1) Clear out your clothes and general clutter that is found throughout the affected room and place them in tightly sealed garbage bags.

Not only does your clutter provide the bed bugs an ideal place for them to hide that cannot be treated, but it also makes completing the bed bug service very complicated.

News Articles

An article found in The Sun Chronicle says “The problem with increased awareness is that bed bugs now attributed to unexplained bites,” said Beth Moriarty, director of residence life and housing at Bridgewater State University. “It could have been a spider.” she says.

It goes on to say that “the college has had no confirmed infestations of the traveling pests, despite that dorms and other communal-like places where people may have traveled and unsuspectingly brought back the unwanted souvenirs, are the most likely to become subject to the social insects’ invasion.”

It says that “some students at a Georgia university dorm got a rude awakening last month after bed bugs were discovered in two rooms. More than 70 students reportedly had to take up sleeping in the gym while a professional exterminator treated the dorm with heat and chemicals.”

http://www.thesunchronicle.com/articles/2010/10/27/news/8101162.txt

Bedbugs close the Community College of Allegheny County Downtown

An article found by Sally Kalson on Wednesday, October 13, 2010 for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

It says “Community College of Allegheny County has canceled all classes in its Downtown center for the rest of the week to deal with a bedbug problem.” The classrooms are on the 11th floor of 625 Stanwix St., above a 10-story garage and directly beneath the Allegheny County Housing Authority’s main offices. The building also has an adjoining tower with 11 floors of apartments. Those residences, which run from the 14th to the 25th floor, do not have any common surfaces with the CCAC part of the building, building manager Krystal Jordan said.

The apartments also have a separate entrance and elevator, she said, so it’s unlikely the bugs would migrate to or from the apartments. Still, she said, some tenants who heard about the bugs had been calling to express concern. CCAC spokeswoman Cassandra Hough said the bedbugs were found at the end of last week. Classes were canceled in that room, she said, and a trained dog was brought in on Sunday to pinpoint areas of concern. Ms. Jordan said she was not made aware of the problem until Monday.

She said she offered to bring in exterminators right away, but the college declined. On Tuesday the college accepted the offer, she said, and the exterminator was to begin working last night with dogs sniffing the entire floor and beyond, if necessary. Guillermo Cole, spokesman for the Allegheny County Health Department, said the department would send an investigator today to determine the source of the problem.”It could be isolated or it could be coming from other floors,” he said. “Bedbugs can move up and down and side to side. They conceivably could have migrated from another unit, but not necessarily.”It’s important to get to the source, he said, so the problem does not reoccur.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10286/1094722-53.stm#ixzz13b18YNTw

Another article found on 10news.com says that “San Diego State University officials said they are aggressively handling reports of bed bugs invading dorm rooms on campus.

The school said they are educating resident advisers and students about what to do if they see anything that resembles bed bugs. SDSU student Michael Sladek said, “They were just telling us to wash your sheets.” Chris Conlan with the San Diego County Vector Control Program said the problem is resurfacing because populations are growing more resistant to certain insecticides. Another possible reason may be that people can’t afford to pay for the treatments.

“We have a lot more community housing, and it’s easy for them to spread in those situations,” said Conlan. Conlan said professional treatments are the only solution to get rid of them. Exterminators urge residents to not throw out furniture before it is treated because it is likely someone will pick up the furniture and bring those bugs into their own homes.”

http://www.10news.com/news/25408981/detail.html

For more info please Call Beyond Pest Control At (718)777-2345 Or check us out at https://www.nypestpro.com

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