Bedbug numbers swell

BALTIMORE — A Southeast Baltimore boy developed a severe leg infection from an untreated allergic reaction to a bite. A man from Baltimore's Hampden neighborhood threw out his possessions and fled his apartment with only a bag of clothes and a handful of papers. A Mount Vernon woman who struggled for months to rid her home of the pests finally sought therapy to deal with the trauma.

Bedbugs were once a distantly remembered nuisance, the stuff of children's rhymes and Depression-era tales of woe. But increasingly, the tiny pests have become nightmarish bedfellows for homeowners, apartment dwellers and travelers in the Baltimore area — and across the country.

"The problem is not just the bugs themselves but the reaction people have to them," says Chris Merriam, a mayoral fellow who has been assigned to research the vermin for the city's Health Department. "The things you have do to get rid of bedbugs are so intrusive. You can't even come home and relax at night."

Merriam, a graduate student in urban planning at Morgan State University, has spent several weeks now collecting stories of sleepless nights, panicked cleaning and intense itching. He is compiling data and anecdotes to help health officials develop a strategy to rid communities of the bugs.

"We know the only way to comprehensively deal with bedbugs is on a block-by-block level," said Merriam, because the pests easily traverse walls separating Baltimore's rowhouses. "How do we get neighbors talking to each other about this?"

Nearly eradicated in the United States after World War II, bedbugs have taken advantage of bans on effective pesticides to make a massive comeback in the past decade — and their numbers continue to swell. The bloodsucking insects have settled into apartment complexes, northern Baltimore County mansions and college dorms. They are equally happy to nest in a homeless shelter or a luxury hotel. Or anywhere else people gather and sleep.

In New York City, the number of bedbug citations recorded by the housing department has increased by nearly 6,000 percent since 2004. The pests made headlines there in recent weeks when infestations forced several stores, including branches of Victoria's Secret and Hollister, to close briefly.

The New York Legislature has passed a bill requiring landlords to notify prospective tenants if a property has been infested.