Free Republic

Bedbug infestations at two locations in Las Vegas have sparked legal action after four travelers reported severe "injuries." Three lawsuits were filed in April against two resorts on the Las Vegas strip for incidents that occurred in the summer of 2024. Treasure Island guest Teresa Bruce noticed bites on her body during her June 21 stay, according to the official complaint. She decided to switch rooms but wound up with more bites. The guest was "harmed and offended" by the bites, according to the complaint, and "suffered injuries." Bruce alleged that the hotel confirmed both rooms had bedbugs after sending...

New York Attorney General Letitia James, champion of the poor and wretched, is now facing criticism for her conduct as a landlord. Records from the New York City Department of Buildings and the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) indicate a troubling pattern of neglect at her five-unit apartment building at 296 Lafayette Avenue in Brooklyn. In the past 20 months alone, there have been 17 complaints against James with the New York City Department of Buildings. ... These include unauthorized construction work without proper permits, the alteration of a load-bearing wall without permits, illegal use of apartments as...

Scientists mapped genomes of bed bug strains, identifying 729 mutations linked to insecticide resistance, offering insights for improved pest control. Scientists have successfully mapped near-complete and highly accurate genomes for two strains of bed bugs: one highly susceptible to insecticides and another “superstrain” that is roughly 20,000 times more resistant. This achievement provides the most comprehensive view yet of the genetic mutations behind insecticide resistance. The findings were published in the journal Insects. While bed bugs are not known to transmit diseases to humans, their bites can cause itchy rashes and secondary infections. Insecticide use, including the now-banned DDT, nearly...

Bed bugs found at MSNBC’s Manhattan headquarters caused staffers to scatter ahead of the left-leaning network’s Super Tuesday coverage, The Post has learned. According to a memo obtained by The Post, an “unidentified insect” was spotted Sunday in the recently revamped studio 3A — home to special election coverage and “The Rachel Maddow Show” — at 30 Rock in Midtown. Additional studios on the third floor “They are scrambling,” an NBC source told The Post on Monday. “They’ve already been borrowing an unused local studio for some shows in recent weeks. So studio space is tight.”were also shuttered “out of...

A recently released video, which appears to show a bedbug crawling up the leg of a passenger travelling on the London Underground, has fired speculation that the infestation in France has already crossed the channel.News from France has reported bedbugs infesting various public spaces, including trains and cinemas in Paris. The consistent media coverage of these incidents has heightened concerns among Britons about the potential spread of bedbugs to the UK, writes Metro. At the weekend, a TikTok user claimed to have encountered one of these pests on the London Underground. She narrated her experience, saying, ‘Minding my own business...

The bedbug plague in France has seen families in Marseille dump their infested mattresses out into the streets in a bid to rid themselves of the pests. The French government is battling to contain a bout of nationwide panic, after several schools were closed across the country due to the infestation. Footage shows residents walking past discarded mattresses in one of the streets in France's second largest city, with some of the items lying in the road and others propped up against buildings Government officials were holding an emergency meeting on Friday on how to tackle a crisis borne out...

Government is urged to implement action plan to address this issue before the 2024 Olympics ... With the Paris Olympics less than a year away, French authorities want to make sure the bedbugs don't bite during the games and have started a drive to exterminate the pests. Social media users have been publishing footage of the insects crawling around in high-speed trains and the Paris metro, alongside a rash of online articles about bedbugs in cinemas and even Charles de Gaulle airport. The reports have reached the highest levels of government. "The state urgently needs to put an action plan...

New Haven’s Union Station has no seating for travelers due to reports of bed bugs. It was partially shut down on Monday, but was expected to reopen on Tuesday. The New Haven Parking Authority said it cleaned surfaces on Monday. “Overnight, licensed exterminator and cleaning vendors [were] on site to address the hard scape surfaces and reopen the area to the public in the morning,” the parking authority said. Travelers said they were surprised to find that the seating at Union Station blocked off when they arrived. “Never heard of bed bugs on tile and wood floors ever before,” said...

Two common drugs that veterinarians use to kill parasites on pets could be the solution to getting rid of bedbugs. Both fluralaner and ivermectin, which are used to kill fleas and ticks on household pets, could also kill bedbugs. The newer, longer-lasting fluralaner showed especially strong potential. This new research comes from a North Carolina State University (NCSU) study that examined the drugs and their effectiveness in controlling bedbug populations on poultry farms. Entomologists and veterinary scientists from NC State's College of Veterinary Medicine tested bedbug death rates in different experiments. ... Fluralaner was also highly effective at killing bedbugs...

The Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim, California is paying one woman $100,000 to settle her lawsuit claiming that she was bitten by bed bugs during her stay and suffered a serious rash as a result. Dr. Ivy Eldridge claimed in her 2018 lawsuit that she suffered physical and emotional damage after waking up with bedbug bites during her stay at the Disneyland Hotel in April of that year. She accused the hotel staff of knowing that it had a bedbug issue and failing to notify her about the infestation prior to her stay, according to the suit filed in Los Angeles...

PONTIAC, Mich. – A Pontiac woman accidentally set herself on fire while using rubbing alcohol to torch her car because there were bed bugs inside, police said. Deputies with the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office were called at 1:39 p.m. Tuesday to the 1200 block of Perry Street because of a car fire. Officials said a 31-year-old Pontiac woman who owned the car had a panic attack because there were bed bugs inside. She decided to kill the bed bugs by pouring rubbing alcohol inside the car and lighting it on fire, according to authorities. In the process of torching the...

Instead, Mayor London Breed and the Human Services Agency came up with the plan to route over 3,000 people currently living in shelters and navigation centers into hotels. The city is planning to put thousands of physically and psychologically sick people into private hotel rooms, in some of the most luxurious hotels in San Francisco—the InterContinental, Mark Hopkins, and The Palace. Occupants would receive three meals per day, hygiene products, and access to nurses. At first glance, the plan appears sensible. The shutdown has devastated the hospitality industry, and hotels stand empty. Filling rooms with guests of any kind is...

A Dallas-based pest exterminator tells WFAA that he treats up to 10 rideshare vehicles per week for bed bugs, a mode of transportation that thousands turn to weekly to get around the metro. For Don Brooks, owner of Doffdon Pest Control, bed bugs are his life. He travels daily around the metro to rid the nuisance insects (that multiply fast) from both homes and vehicles. Brooks told WFAA that he's seeing more and more rideshare drivers. "I probably do five to 10 rideshare cars per week," Brooks said. "Drivers either see bed bugs, someone complained, or they were suspicious of...

A manager at the store in Edinboro found a closed pill bottle with live bugs crawling inside and reported it to authorities Thursday, police said in a release. The bottle was found inside a boy's jacket which was for sale. On Friday, health safety company Ecolab confirmed that the insects were bedbugs. An Ecolab employee also reported seeing bedbugs crawling around the men's changing rooms the same day, according to police. A Walmart employee later found a second closed pill bottle containing dead bedbugs in the men's department, police said. Edinboro is in the northwest corner of the state, near...

Joe Scarborough has a verbal tic—or is it a tick?—about bedbugs. When President Trump's Doral resort was under consideration as the G-7 site, Scarborough, on multiple Morning Joe episodes, went on riffs about bedbugs at the hotel, playing off a lawsuit someone had brought about being bitten. On today's Morning Joe, Al Sharpton managed to work Doral bedbugs into the conversation. That triggered Joe's bedbug obsession yet again. In the course of 90 seconds, the b-word was mentioned no fewer than 18 times. (Note: That's Joe in the screengrab scratching away an imaginary bug.) Get the rest of the story...

The hashtag #BedBugSummit trended on Twitter Friday due to allegations of past infestation at President Trump’s resort in Doral, Fla. The news resurfaced following the announcement that the U.S. will host next year’s Group of Seven (G-7) summit at the Trump property. In the day after White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney told reporters that the 2020 G-7 summit would take place at Trump National Doral, nearly 30,000 tweets had been sent using the hashtag. Holly Figueroa O’Reilly, a songwriter and founder of the Blue Wave Crowdsource — an organization that aims to support Democratic candidates — tweeted...

President Trump slammed New York Times columnist Bret Stephens, suggesting he's "loaded up" with bed bugs. After the president floated the idea of hosting next year's G-7 summit at his Doral resort, a report resurfaced that his resort settled a lawsuit in 2017 after a New Jersey man named Eric Linder alleged he woke up one morning at Trump's property with bites all over his body. Trump denied of having any bed bugs at his resort Tuesday morning, blaming "Radical Left Democrats" for spreading "nasty rumors."

The New York Times sent out an alert Monday warning that bedbugs were spotted in its newsroom — triggering hilarity on social media. According to an internal memo obtained by The Post, the NY Times said it “discovered evidence of bedbugs in a wellness room on the second floor, a couch on the third floor and a booth on the fourth floor.” “In an abundance of caution, the second floor room has been temporarily closed, the booth has been blocked off and the couch has been removed to be treated and professionally cleaned,” the memo said. Exterminators also swept the...

A recent thread on bedbugs abruptly disappeared because it wasn't news. Still, the care and feeding of tenants is a topic of some interest, and at least one person in that thread complained about tenants who muck up your property with bedbug infestations and then demand that you fix the problem at your expense.I've had to deal with this problem myself, and it might be worth sharing the results of my extensive research into ways to avoid the costly expedient of either whole-residence heat treatment or sulfuryl fluoride fumigation. This is only a list of a few products that appear...

YORK, S.C. - A South Carolina courthouse has been evacuated after bedbugs were found there for the second time in just over two weeks. York County Clerk of Court David Hamilton said specially trained dogs found evidence of bedbugs in both courtrooms of the criminal court building Thursday as well as in offices on both floors. Hamilton told The Herald of Rock Hill officials decided to close the entire building for safety as a stronger chemical treatment is applied.