Cleanlink News February 26 2009
Bedbugs Back For Another Round
Good night, sleep tight, and prepare to have the bedbugs bite.
Bedbugs, which were once nearly extinct, are creeping back into the United States with a vengeance, especially in metropolitan areas such as Chicago, according to several sources.
Complaints for these pests were nearly nonexistent, but the Illinois Public Health Department reports it now receives several calls weekly about bedbugs.
The quarter-inch pests live in beds, luggage, and furniture and can survive for months void of their only food source—blood. Although generally benign, bites can be extremely itchy and scratching may provoke infection.
Pesticides helped decimate the bedbug population in the 1940s and 1950s, but the pests and their blood lust have returned due to globalization, most often entering the country on travelers' luggage. Facilities such as hotels, motels, hospitals, dorms and any area where visitors travel to spend the night should be prepared to fight the spread of bedbugs.
