Just when you're kicking as much ass in Rockin'Yoga as an aerobics class named "RockinYoga" will allow you to kick, now you have to worry about parasites (not the ones wearing Bluetooths) when you hit the showers. Fancy Upper West Side gym Reebok Sports Club has bedbugs. Again. This time they found them in a locker in "the men's executive locker room," where it was probably feasting on the blood of some hedge fund manager because it tastes like butterscotch. more ›

Just in time for bed bug season: According to the AP, "Canadian scientists detected drug-resistant staph bacteria in bedbugs from three hospital patients from a downtrodden Vancouver neighborhood." Uh-oh! more ›

Going to the movies this weekend? Don't forget your bed bug seat cover! Entrepreneur Joseph Harary tells us that after reading reports of bed bugs at the Pavilion movie theater in Park Slope, his wife refused to join him for a night at the movies. On his website, he elaborates, "In the coming months I went to see a Broadway show and this time came in with a plastic sheet to sit on. We got several smiles, a few laughs and many compliments. I realized right away that everyone knew why we sat on them and all seemed to approve. At intermission I held a mini focus group study gathering advice and ideas." And so the BugOff seat cover was born! Here's an instructional video showing how it works: more ›

Last week bedbugs were found at the upscale Reebok Sports Club on the Upper West Side, where Taye Diggs, Chris Cuomo, and PR big shot Ronn Torossian all work out (it's also where Jerry Seinfeld met his future wife, who was married to someone else at the time!). The club admitted it had a problem, but not to its members, most of whom found out about it by reading a gossip item in the NY Post. Now members are lashing out at the management for allegedly trying to hush up the whole thing, with "Marketing and Brand Strategy Consultant" Ashley Hart leading the charge on Facebook. Hart writes on Reebok's wall: more ›

So far, Mayor Bloomberg and the City Council have appointed a bed bug task force, created a "bed bug czar," and started a “Bed Bug Academy” for building & property managers cursed with an infestation. But despite all these measures, the bed bugs continue to blithely feed on the nectar of our world class blood. Residential bed bug complaints have increased dramatically citywide, even infiltrating the offices of the Manhattan and Brooklyn district attorneys! But today city officials are turning things up a notch, with a hot new website and tough new rules for landlords with bed bug tenants. more ›

The two day bedbug summit in our once proud nation's capital ended earlier this month on a note of bleak, existential dread. It seems the best and brightest minds on the front lines of the bedbug war have all but abandoned hope for a future when every child can go to sleep at night and awaken with the exact same amount of blood in their veins. more ›

After a city bed bug expert announced he had seen bed bugs on benches at subway stations as well as one bed bug "catching a ride on an unsuspecting straphanger's caboose at Brooklyn's Hoyt-Schermerhorn station," we suggested wearing disposable jumpers during your commutes. Well, keep that in mind while you watch this video, which is described on YouTube this way: "On my way to work (11/16/2010) a lady across the aisle had a look of horror upon her face. I looked at her and she said 'the bed bug'. Sure enough there it was. It was brown from being filled up with some poor commuters blood. We had just passed the 36th st in Brooklyn when the lady discovered it." more ›

There's something comforting about knowing that most of the time, if you ask your server if they have a job outside of serving, they will tell you they are an actor. You can spend your meal knowing that whatever you do, you are secondhandedly supporting the arts by either giving them a good tip, or giving them quality material. But has New York's Bedbug Scare 2010 begun to put an end to all of that? The Wall Street Journal reports that the city's struggling actors are now turning to the lucrative business of bedbug hunting. Now we're just one step away from the bugs invading Broadway. Seriously, folks. more ›

Uh-oh: Apparently man's best friend might not be the best arbiter of whether your apartment has bedbugs, even though he (or she) is so cute with those puppy eyes and wagging tail. According to the NY Times, "As the number of reported infestations rises and the demand for the dogs soars, complaints from people who say dogs have falsely alerted to bedbugs are also climbing." more ›

On the heels of Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer's call to arms against bedbugs, the parasites have sent a clear message that no one in Stringer's district is safe—not even the D.A. After invading the offices of Cyrus Vance Jr. on September 11th, the bedbugs have come back for more. Or did they ever leave? They survive up to a year between feedings, as you surely know by now. more ›

Bed bugs are unnerving and disgusting to even contemplate. Which is probably why public housing building cleaner Miriam Ortiz decided to set fire to a mattress she suspected might be infested with bedbugs. But it's also a public safety hazard. The Daily News reports the 36-year-old was hit with "felony arson and reckless endangerment charges... for the Sept. 8 blaze in the Manhattanville houses." A source said she had a "fear of bedbugs" and was lazy—instead of disposing of the mattress properly (we imagine it'd involving wrapping it with plastic and bringing to the trash), she just used a lighter to destroy the mattress in a "partially-enclosed hallway" on the 10th floor of one of the buildings. more ›

Perhaps the only good thing to come out the bedbug epidemic are the adorable bedbug beagles. The pups, who are trained to find the pests via similar techniques for finding drugs or dangerous bombs, can be seen as the warning sign that an office or abode is infested, but upscale department store Bergdorf Goodman has one in its Fifth Avenue location just "to be on the safe side". more ›

Much like justice, bedbugs' wrath is blind and will hit anyone, anywhere. That's why it's not surprising that they have been found at the Manhattan DA's office. Above the Law reports, "An employee in the office informs us that a bedbug-sniffing canine was brought into the 80 Centre Street building this afternoon — and that the dog alerted to the presence of bedbugs in multiple locations. Furthermore, rumor has it that (1) the powers-that-be in the office have known about bedbugs at 80 Centre Street for at least a week, and (2) the main building, at One Hogan Place, has had bedbugs for even longer." Chung chung! more ›

There are two kinds of people in New York: People with bedbugs, and people who lie awake at night wondering WHEN the bedbugs will come for THEM. This week an unsubstantiated rumor has swirled about bedbugs returning to a certain Soho retailer, and now the Post reports other unsubstantiated rumors that the offices of Food Network Magazine have fallen prey to the parasites. more ›

Just two weeks ago, the Brooklyn DA's office admitted it had a bedbug issue. Today, we received this tip: "The Bronx DA's office had the DCAS and an outside consulting firm going through the offices (the older buildings, not the Hall of Justice... yet) late night this week with a bedbug sniffing dog. Official explanations range from "carpet mites" to "isolated insects."..." more ›

Uh-oh: At the same time that it was reported there were bed bugs at the Brooklyn DA's office, a memo from TBS's human resources department was sent out to staffers working out of the Time Warner Center in Manhattan about a situation there. TVNewser reprinted the memo, "The Time Warner Center Facilities Department advises that bed bugs have been detected in Time Warner Center. This determination was made after testing was conducted on several floors of the building." more ›

Reader ccwhite sent us this photograph, and we chuckled. We're also hoping that someone just decided to add some artistic flair to a discarded box spring, because bed bugged items should be discarded in plastic (see this PDF from the city). And in case you were wondering, pouring gasoline on your mattress is not the way to get rid of bed bugs. more ›

A proposed state law that would require landlords to disclose bedbug history dating back five years has been amended to just one year. Landlords had objected that a five-year disclosure period would unfairly penalize property owners, by scaring off prospective tenants even if the landlords had successfully eradicated the bugs. The modified bill also no longer requires landlords to disclose specific infested apartments beyond the one under consideration by a potential renter. (Landlords would still have to disclose infestations in the building, just not their specific location.) Also missing from the bill [pdf] is any language requiring new tenants moving in from disclosing their bed bug history. One bedbug expert tells Brick Underground that in New Jersey "there are one or two buildings that have their own heat treatment chambers which incoming residents must use." more ›

Brooklyn’s newest invasive species carries with it a unique threat: unlike bedbugs Pentatomoidae don’t bite and don’t carry a health risk, but they do stink! Commonly referred to as stink bugs, they smell a bit like rotting or sweaty feet, if you will. In your tub-in-the-kitchen studio, maybe that’s worse. more ›

For almost four decades, Carolyn Klass toiled in a lab at Cornell University identifying insects. For a $25 dollar fee, people from all over the world would send her pests they wanted identified, and in recent years business was booming because of the bedbug renaissance. Klass would examine each specimen and reply back with a thoughtful note, such as: more ›

If bedbugs in the office are the next city scare, sign us up for bubble living. NY1 got an anonymous tip that "workers on eight floors of the Department of Homeless Services building on Beaver Street have been getting bitten by insects since Monday." But the DHS said, "We immediately began taking corrective action, and are extending it to all premises occupied by DHS. We are aggressively addressing the situation with an expert contractor and building management. No DHS employee has reported bites received from our building." Related: David Letterman doesn't understand what why Mary Louise Parker is so freaked out about bedbugs. more ›

Last night, actress Mary Louise Parker was on Late Show with David Letterman, revealing that she's been worrying about that feared scourge, bedbugs. But Letterman didn't seem very convinced they were a real threat, asking, "Is it that treacherous? Is it that dire?... What's the worst that can happen if you have bedbugs?" Oh, Dave, if you only knew! more ›

No one likes bedbugs—except maybe bedbug exterminators who make bank for (hopefully) getting rid of the bedbugs—and it turns out, shocker of all shockers, that potential buyers don't like them either! The NY Times' real estate section has a big article on the effects of bedbugs on deals and opens with an example of an "elegant two-bedroom co-op in an Upper East Side prewar building had drifted on the market for nine months by the time the first-time buyers laid eyes on it this spring." The buyers loved it, especially when they could get it for $50,000 less at $625,000. But then, in their "due diligence" phase, their lawyer said, "The [co-op board] minutes referenced multiple attempts to exterminate bedbugs in the building." Oh, crap. more ›

With news that bed bug complaints soared in 2008 and the City Council poised to vote on bed bug legislation this Tuesday, the NY Times spoke to entomologist Louis Sorkin, who works at the American Museum of Natural History. His descriptions are fascinating, if creepy: "Around 1989, someone brought in our first bed bug. Most entomologists had never seen a live infestation before. Now, infestations may be approaching the levels of 50 years ago, before DDT was used." Referring to how the bloodsuckers are becoming more immune to toxins: "That’s why pest control companies do all sorts of things besides using chemicals: heating, freezing, steaming, vacuuming. The hardest part of controlling bed bugs is finding them. Most of the literature out there talks about a quarter-inch-long reddish-brown insect, but a bed bug is a millimeter long when it’s born, about the thickness of a credit card." Sorkin added, "A pest-control company once brought in slippers from an infested apartment. You could see all the eggs that had been plastered onto the soles and all the bugs that were hiding." Blergh. more ›

Reader JesqNY took this photograph of a discarded chair in Washington Heights. The chair's former owner helpfully notes that this chair apparently has bed bugs--"chinche" in Spanish--but we think it would have been better to wrap the chair in a sealed plastic bag, which is what one should do if they are getting rid of bed bug infested furniture (actually, people should consult with a licensed professional exterminator, but here's a PDF from the Health Department). more ›