I used to live on Bedford and Downing in New York City. You would think, for all that we paid to live at such an exclusive address, that we would have experienced all the luxuries that Manhattan has to offer in terms of housing.
In actuality, we had rats. And bedbugs. Of the two, the bedbugs were the most disruptive, and the most difficult to get rid of. We tried every store bought insecticide, and every professional exterminator. In the end, for the sake of health and sanity, we had to leave our beloved neighborhood behind in search of cleaner housing. I had to move all of my clothes and items in garbage bags in storage for months (bed bugs can go many months without feeding) to avoid bringing them with me to a new apartment.
Bed bugs have been in the United States for centuries. They were thought to have been eradicated just after World War II, with the introduction of such powerful pesticides as DDT. When Rachel Carson published Silent Spring in 1962, people began lobbying for the ban of DDT and pesticides like it in the United States.
As international travel increased during the latter part of the twentieth century, bed bugs began reappearing across the country. Today they have infested everything from the lowest tenement building to the highest in luxury living.
They are a particular problem for hotels and corporate housing providers, and killing off an infestation of bedbugs is not an easy thing. CHPA just gave a successful webinar about how to eradicate bedbugs, and although the recording is not available to purchase yet, they usually publish them within a few months of their originally scheduled date.