How bedbugs invaded New York
New York City is under attack from a mass infestation of bedbugs that is leaving a trail of itching, sleep deprivation and panic in its wake.
Ed Pilkington guardian.co.uk, Thursday 21 October 2010 20.59 BST
Since the early days of moving pictures, a favourite staple of Hollywood has been to imagine New York city being invaded by nasty creatures that hide in dark corners. The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, one of the first monster films, starred a dinosaur that emerges from hibernation to crunch its way up Fifth Avenue, spreading mayhem in its wake. Then, of course, there was King Kong perched atop the Empire State Building. More recently, the zombies roaming Washington Square in search of Will Smith in I Am Legend were classics of the form, as were the aliens who lopped off the head of Lady Liberty in Cloverfield.
Having been raised on all these celluloid enactments of non-human invasion, you would have thought that New Yorkers would be pretty unfazed when the real thing happens. But, judging by the increasingly hysterical headlines that have been blasted across the pages of the New York Post in the last few weeks, that's not the case.
For the truth is that the city really is under attack this time, and its residents are starting to panic.
Today you can go to the cinema in Manhattan to be scared out of your wits by images of New Yorkers being eaten alive by monsters and, at the very same time, you can yourself be eaten alive. That's what happened to several cinemagoers last month at the AMC Empire 25 in Times Square, and, again, at the AMC theatre in Harlem.
The monsters in question may lack the muscle structure of King Kong or the fire-breathing capacity of The Beast, but boy do they bite. Cimex lectularius, the common bedbug, is on the march, steadily extending its reign of terror across the five boroughs and onwards to cities across America.
The invasion has already claimed some of the biggest names in the city. Last month, the mammoth Niketown store on 57th Street was shuttered after bedbugs were discovered, and the New York headquarters of Google was also forced to admit it had an infestation after one of its employees Tweeted on the subject. "Jeepers," she posted, "I am not immune to the bedbug panic. Bedbugs have been found at work." (The Twitter feed rapidly disappeared.)
Bloomingdale's also had a visitation, though, being Bloomingdale's and a cut above the rest, the store made clear it had found just one insect in its 59th Street store, which it dispatched post-haste. The fourth floor of the Wall Street Journal's Sixth Avenue headquarters was also struck. The Guardian offices in 27th street have so far remained delightfully free of the blighters, though as I'm typing this I appear to be breaking out in psychosomatic itches.
Earlier victims of the epidemic include Abercrombie & Fitch, teen's clothing store Hollister, Victoria's Secret, posh Manhattan condos, Broadway theatres, the headquarters of the chief Manhattan prosecutor – no chance for a plea bargain there – and, in a neat link back to King Kong, the Empire State Building. The problem has got so bad over the last 12 months, with some 24,000 recorded complaints of infestation, that mayor Michael Bloomberg has set up a bedbug advisory board and is soon to appoint a bedbug tsar. 8)
It's all very New York. One of the great modernist cities, where people from around the world congregate to share in its energy and lust for new thinking, is in the grip of an epidemic of wingless, flightless, grubby insects. And the results are not pretty.
Here's what happened to Annie Weinstock, who works for the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy in New York. In May, she returned from a year's trip to Africa and, after a few weeks sleeping on her sister's couch, found an apartment to rent in Brooklyn.
At 2am on her first night in the new flat she woke up. (Health warning: If you are phobic to insects, you may find the next bit distressing. Please ensure you are seated before reading on.)
What woke Weinstock up was that she could hear something moving around in her ear. Yes, a bedbug in her ear! "I couldn't actually feel anything because they are so light, but I could hear it jumping around." :shock:
It doesn't get any better.
"I put on the light and I immediately saw something in the bed, I smashed it and there was blood everywhere!"
Weinstock retracted that statement as soon as she had made it on the grounds that it was exaggeration. There wasn't, she corrected herself, "blood everywhere", but there was a red stain about the size of a dime where the bedbug had been, though I'm not sure that's much of an improvement.
Without even searching she could see two or three other bedbugs on the bed. "They were very big because they were bloated with my blood."
So what did she do?
"I freaked out."
She left the bedroom and spent the rest of a fitful night in the living room. Next morning she had another look at the bed and there were at least seven bedbugs on it. She called an extermination company and they found the insects all over the apartment: in and under the bed, in the closet, in the curtains.
etc...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oc ... d-new-york
