Cases of bedbugs increase

Isaiah Kramer

Trapped in a jar on the top shelf of a bookcase in a Nob Hill studio-apartment is a deep-red insect the size of a pinhead known as a bedbug, which is being kept alive as evidence of possible infestation.

After contacting her landlord to verify that it was a bedbug, Madeleine Reynolds prepared for the eradication process.

Bedbugs are nocturnal, six-legged, blood-sucking parasites that invade homes and are difficult to eradicate. They are not confined to beds. They’re opportunistic, they can hide in screws, carpeting, books, clothing and furniture—basically anywhere imaginable.

And they hitchhike from room to room, home to home and person to person, said Dannette Lambert, resident bedbug expert at Central City SRO Collaborative, an organization that fights for SRO tenants’ rights.

A bedbug bite can be a red welt or a perpetually-itchy rash depending on the bug and the host. The consensus among experts is that, though they feed on human and animal blood, they do not transmit disease and are of no serious physical health concern. But psychological trauma is often experienced among those afflicted by bedbugs.

Reynolds sacked her possessions into plastic garbage bags and stacked them like a pyramid on her furniture in the center of the room. She cleared the walls of obstructions. Later, the pest control company sprayed 130-degree steam to kill the bugs. Though, often, that isn’t all it takes.

“Usually, everything has to be treated: clothing, bedding, furniture,” Central City SRO Collaborative volunteer Hannah Mariah said. ”It’s three treatments, 10 days apart—for one month of your life being discombobulated. Unless you kill all the eggs, you have to do it all over again.”

The treatment process starts at $250 but can exceed $5,000 depending on the scope of the infestation, according to Clark Pest Control. Many people with bedbugs in their home opt to throw out their furniture and mattresses in a frantic effort to get rid of them.

Reynolds caught the infestation early and kept a watchful eye for any signs of continued inhabitance.

“One sign is little black spots that are their feces and little streaks of blood on the mattress,” Mariah said.

The parasites are gaining in number since their virtual elimination in the 1940s. The exact cause of the bedbug resurgence is unknown, but some attribute it to increased world travel and lack of pesticides—now banned by the EPA—that once exterminated them.

“To say bedbugs have become an epidemic is not an overstatement,” Lambert said.

San Francisco has had 450 reports of bedbugs, mainly concentrated in the Tenderloin, where SROs are prolific, according to The Bedbug Registry, a website that tracks the parasites nationwide. The number of homes with bedbugs is far greater and more widespread than what is listed in the registry because many individuals do not report infestation.

“Many middle-class homes and residences handle the problem internally,” Lambert said. “Our folks, SRO residents, are the ones who can’t combat it.” Often, instead of dealing with an uncooperative manager, the residents employ agencies like the Department of Public Health to solve the problem and that is when it’s reported.

Tenderloin SRO residents have been significantly impacted for a number of reasons: living in a densely populated neighborhood, managerial misconduct in eradication, residents obtaining discarded items from the street that harbor the bugs and hoarding habits that make extermination problematic. But this doesn’t mean the problem is confined to SROs.

“It is an illusion that the Tenderloin is more prone to bedbugs than other neighborhoods,” Mariah said. “Bedbugs are becoming a national health problem; like a disease, indiscriminate and tenacious.”