Marshall Brain's Blog

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Irena (age 5) asked me about bed bugs this week. One of her friends had said, "don't let the bed bugs bite!" Since Irena is paranoid about bugs, the idea of a "bed bug" was a big concern to her. I told her that I had never been bitten by, or even seen, a bed bug in my entire life. I didn't believe that she had anything to worry about.

But it made me think. I'm under the impression that bed bugs were once a common problem, but that they were eradicated along with smallpox and the dodo sometime in the last century. I thought I would look them up just to be sure, and came across this surprising news story:

Bed bugs threaten to put bite on U.S. hotel industry

From the article:

In 2003, a Mexican businessmen sued the Helmsley Park Lane Hotel in New York after he and a companion allegedly suffered numerous bedbug bites to their torsos, arms and necks while staying at the property, which overlooks Central Park.

Apparently bed bugs are experiencing a surprising resurgence.

The story has a nice photo of a bed bug -- my first sighting. And the whole thing is kind of creepy, given that I stay in hotels all the time. Just when you though it was safe to fall asleep...