Bedbug Complaints among Public Housing Residents—New York City, 2010–2011

Abstract

Few studies have evaluated population-level risk factors for having a bedbug infestation. We describe characteristics associated with bedbug complaints among New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) residents. Unique households receiving bedbug extermination services in response to a complaint during January 1, 2010 to December 31, 2011 were identified from NYCHA's central facilities work order database. We examined associations between household characteristics and having a bedbug complaint using a generalized estimating equation Poisson regression model, accounting for clustering by housing development. Of the 176,327 NYCHA households, 11,660 (6.6 %) registered a bedbug complaint during 2010-2011. Bedbug complaints were independently associated with households having five or more children versus no children (prevalence ratio [PR]=2.0), five or more adults versus one adult (PR=1.6), a head of household (HOH) with impaired mobility (PR=1.3), a household member receiving public assistance (PR=1.2), a household income below poverty level (PR=1.1), and a female HOH (PR=1.1). Infestations were less likely to be reported by households with employed members (PR=0.9), and an HOH aged 30-44 years (PR=0.9) or 45-61 years (PR=0.9), compared with an HOH aged 18-29 years. These results indicate that bedbug control efforts in public housing should be targeted toward households with low income and high occupancy.

Dynamics of bed bug infestations in three low‐income housing communities with various bed bug management programs

“…The common bed bug, Cimex lectularius L. (Hemiptera: Cimicidae), has become a common pest in low-income housing in North America in recent years. [1][2][3][4][5] Unlike other common household pests, bed bug bites can cause itchiness, pain, anxiety, sleep loss, social ostracism, delusional parasitosis, and stress. [6][7][8][9] Professional bed bug control service typically costs at least US $500 per infestation and often fails to completely eradicate the bed bugs.…”

“…A few field studies focusing on bed bug IPM in low-income apartments were carried out in response to the growing prevalence of bed bug infestations. These studies showed that: (1) using bed bug interceptors is more cost-effective, and more accurate, than using trained dogs or visual inspection 10,13 for detecting new infestations and evaluating control effectiveness; (2) heavy infestations take significantly more time and require more treatments to eliminate compared with light infestations; 11 (3) non-chemical methods alone can eliminate light infestations; 14,15 (4) continuous monitoring for 4-6 weeks beyond perceived absence of bed bugs is necessary to confirm elimination; 11 and (5) periodic building-wide inspections are necessary for identifying new infestations. 1,16,17 Currently, most housing authorities in the USA use low-bid, low-quality, contracted pest control services that often suppress the bed bug population but fail to eliminate the infestation.…”

“…The common bed bug, Cimex lectularius L. (Hemiptera: Cimicidae), has become a common pest in low‐income housing in North America in recent years . Unlike other common household pests, bed bug bites can cause itchiness, pain, anxiety, sleep loss, social ostracism, delusional parasitosis, and stress .…”

Socioeconomic drivers of urban pest prevalence

“…In particular, recent attempts to do so have been limited in spatial extent (Hwang et al, 2005), have focused on narrow strata of socioeconomic condition (Cooper, Wang, & Singh, 2016;Gounder, Ralph, Maroko, & Thorpe, 2014;Wang, Saltzmann, & Chin, 2010), and are based on self-reported data (Ralph, Jones, & Thorpe, 2013) that are subject to known associated biases (Brown, Kelly, & Whitall, 2014).…”

Prevalence of Bedbugs infestation, Crowding and Awareness level among Government boarding Secondary school students in Moshi urban, Tanzania

“…According to WHO the increased infestation was the result of the increased international travel, the ban of some insecticides like DDT, and increased resistance of bedbugs to insecticides [2] . Studies across United State (US) have pointed highly populated areas and low income communities are vulnerable to infestation [5][6][7] . In rural settlements of Benue state Nigeria among 199 residential apartments, which were surveyed 1056 bedbugs were collected from 26 apartments while other apartments showed probable infestation and some did not show any signs of infestation [8] .…”