Bedbugs in the Office

Bloodspots on your office chair? – Bedbugs are back and now they’ve moved from the bed to the office. Unless you want to catch them and eat them, what are you going to do?

Almost one in every 5 exterminators have found bedbugs in US office buildings. This is a big increase from 2007, when the bedbug rate was less than 1%. In USA Today, Laura Petrecca quotes Ron Harrison of Orkin exterminators as saying, “Not all of us have to go to work and worry about it, but we all have to be sensitive to it. It’s a national issue.” Bedbugs can thrive in movie theaters, libraries and office cubicles. And not just in low-rent offices either: The District Attorney’s office in Brooklyn recently discovered an infestation, and so did the IRS offices in Philadelphia and Covington, KY.

Bedbugs arrive at the office on the suitcases of frequent travelers or on the purses, laptop cases and gym bags of employees who have infestations at home. They can also be brought in by office visitors, vendors or maintenance staff. Petrecca quotes National Pest Management Association spokeswoman Missy Henriksen as saying, “Bedbugs are hitchhikers, they travel with people and with items that travel with people.” Smaller offices often pay $5,000 to $10,000 for bedbug exterminations, while the price for larger offices rise as high as six figures.

She quotes University of Kentucky (remember, KY is the state where the IRS is infested) entomologist Michael Potter as saying that bedbug issues are “a complicated mess. In my career–and I’ve dealt with just about every critter that bothers people–this is the most complex.”

Here at unknowncountry.com, we don’t have bedbugs but we DO have money problems, simply because not enough of our listeners and readers support us. We once heard a preacher at a church service say: “The good news is that we have enough money to keep us going for years. The bad news is that it’s still in your pockets.” We can’t be here for you tomorrow if we don’t get more help from readers like you today, so please subscribe–it costs less than a latte a WEEK (and click on the “donate” tab on our homepage too!)

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