Council Will Consider Methods To Battle City Bedbug Infestation

With thousands of New Yorkers suffering through a citywide bedbug scourge, a City Council committee today will revisit the idea of outlawing the sale of reconditioned mattresses — known to be one of the ways the pests migrate from home to home.One of the witnesses scheduled to testify this afternoon, Harvard entomologist Richard Pollack, said that while he will attend the proceedings with an open mind, he is skeptical about that provision of the bill.“I’m not sure whether or not the regulations outlawing the resale of mattresses are going to do much good,” he said yesterday.The most common kind of bedbug, the wingless insect Cimex lectularius, infests not only mattresses, but dressers, box springs, and bed frames. The pests can sometimes hide for more than a year after feeding on blood, an entomologist at the American Museum of Natural History, Louis Sorkin, said.“There are so many places to keep looking for bedbugs,” Mr. Sorkin, who has also been invited to testify before the committee, said.A spokeswoman for Council Speaker Christine Quinn, Maria Alvarado, said the speaker recognized the importance of the bedbug issue but declined to declare a public position.Similar bills from previous legislative sessions languished because the council had shifted its focus to the budget, the sponsor of the bill, Council Member Gale Brewer of Manhattan, said.Ms. Brewer said her office received hundreds of phone calls whenever news articles circulated about bedbugs.Her bill would do more than ban the sale of reconditioned mattresses — used mattresses that have been given new padding materials but may still have bedbugs. Mindful of Fire Department reports that several Corona residents earlier this summer soaked their mattresses and themselves in gasoline to kill bedbugs, Ms. Brewer said she hopes to start an education campaign about proper bedbug procedures.“It’s an embarrassment, and people are scared because they have no idea what to do if they get bedbugs, and I think the city of New York has to address that concern,” Ms. Brewer said.As the Committee on Consumer Affairs begins to examine how city government should work to eliminate bedbugs, insect experts say the council faces a challenge because recent efforts in other cities to eradicate them have not proved very successful.“Trying to outlaw bedbugs seems like a difficult task until you can convince bedbugs to read regulations and understand them and comply with them,” Dr. Pollack said.

Council Will Consider Methods To Battle City Bedbug Infestation

Council Will Consider Methods To Battle City Bedbug Infestation

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