I HAVE TAKEN SOME LIBERTIES TO GIVE MY OVERVIEW OF WHATS HAPPENED AND IS HAPPENING WITH BED BUGS TODAY. INSPIRED BY THE ORIGINAL ORSON WELLS CLASSIC, I FEEL THIS IS STILL A FACTUAL ACCOUNT OF WHERE WE ARE TODAY.

Bed Bugs’ War of the Worlds

Barely noticed at first, they crept into our bedrooms and secretly joined us as we slept. “We know now that as human beings busied themselves about their various concerns”*, in the dead of night they were probed and poked and syphoned of their blood whilst the minute invaders thrived and grew. Young adventurous backpackers and commercial travellers were the first affected, but soon the invaders were spreading to households and apartments across the social divide, creeping through power sockets and conduits to unsuspecting neighbours. Tired irritable folk were scratching at weeping lumps that stretched from their ankles to their faces.

Our ancestors had been tormented for thousands of years but, for reasons unexplained, the hordes of Cimex Lectularius withdrew in the 1950’s. Populations continued to develop in Third World countries, but the West, vacated, became complacent. People soon forgot their suffering, researchers turned to other threats, and a new generation grew up in ignorance of a tiny pest mentioned only in old nursery rhymes. But, the hordes were waiting for an opportunity to return, and that opportunity came. Like an army of Trojan horses, our skies soon filled with squadrons of airliners able to dispatch people and their luggage to all corners of the earth, and, so advanced the parties of bed bugs.

They gathered most where travellers shared accommodation such as backpacker hostels and hotels. The early opportunity to stem the flow was lost to embarrassment, ignorance and an unwillingness to allocate the necessary resources to fight this creeping parasite. Standard control practices not only failed, but spread the night time usurpers further through buildings and into inaccessible areas where they hid and fed and bred.

The governments said there was no threat and we should put up with the small discomfort. As the populations grew they were carried by second hand goods and bags and clothing into schools, aged care facilities and hospitals and the cry got louder. Airlines grew fearful for pilots wearied by night time scratching. Poor people lamented their inability to find assistance, as their family became the midnight food source for thousands of parasites. The infirm could do little but be constantly sucked of their blood, completely at the mercy of this ancient predator.

It was not long before the stories started appearing in news reports around the world:

AFC reports that bed bugs have been found on French SNCF overnight trains from Nice to Metz. New bookings have been suspended for a week while the three affected coaches have been taken out of service and “disinfected”.

US bed bugs immigrate to Germany
Hamburg – Bed bugs from the USA come to Germany. The little nuisances travel in the vacation luggage into our country, as the „Geo“-Magazine reports. Reason: In the USA the bed bugs are resistant against pesticides. Bed bug bites itch vigorously.

A study led by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine last year found the number of complaints about bedbugs in the capital grew annually by an average of 28.5% between 2000-2006. And there's no sign of the problem abating with Rentokil reporting the number of bedbug call outs has gone up by 24% in the first half of the year.

Tiny blood-sucking bedbugs have become an epidemic in New York City. The little pests have invaded even the cleanest and most expensive apartments in neighbourhoods around New York. In fact, a councilwoman from the Upper West Side has called for a citywide bedbug task force to address the problem

The USA Government was the first to realize the urgency and importance of the new “Bed Bug Pandemic” and called in experts from universities, pest control, local agencies and public health representatives. Summits were organized, education programmes were initiated, research  funded for $50,000,000 and laws were passed restricting the sale of used furniture, enforcing disclosure of previous bed bug infestations and formalization of treatment regimes. But were these initiatives all too late? In New York, the creeping vampires have started infiltrating offices like Nike and Google, and have invaded department stores like Bloomingdale and even the Empire State Building.

Other governments are keeping their heads firmly planted between their cheeks, as always, placing their attention on events that threaten the holy grail of financial superiority. Other parasites, this time those in suits, market and sell pesticides known to be ineffective since the 1950’s, muddying attempts to stop the spread of bugs.

There are people like me out there. Specialist bed bug controllers who have studied the menace and are prepared to use the right weapons and methods, but we are too few. Without the support of the governments in their towers, for every person we free from the hordes, thousand more are unwillingly laying down to a bloody partnership to feed and harbor another spiraling population of bed bugs.

No, there will be no simple virus that stems this invasion. In fact, a simple virus could be the greatest danger for us. If a virus, dangerous to humans, takes that age old route and mutates to a form that can be carried and passed by bed bugs, then swine flu may seem like a common cold in comparison. People harbor bed bugs for months before they become aware of their presence. Bugs will feed anytime and anywhere if they are hungry and modern travel is constantly re-supplying new bugs to our cities. So how can we fight something we are unaware of and stop a constant, tiny carrier invading our shores, homes and families?

Go about your business people, but remember, just as we scavenge the planet and plunder species for food, we to are being scavenged for our blood.

Perhaps “The War of this World” has begun?

 *FROM ORSON WELLS "WAR OF THE WORLDS"