Virtually unheard of for decades, bedbugs are now making a fierce comeback  around the country, including New England. “The problem is astronomical. Every phone call is about bedbugs,” says Galvin Murphy, president of Yankee Pest Control in Malden, Massachusetts. “We’ve been in every community in Eastern Massachusetts, without exaggeration, doing  a bedbug investigation or eradication. We’re seeing them everywhere –multiple-unit buildings in condos, apartments and hotels. We’ve worked in a hospital maternity ward, nursing homes, dialysis centers, movie  theaters, and some of the most plush single-family homes that we have in the  Boston area, as well as low-income housing authorities.”  

 Just the possibility of a bedbug infestation has spooked condos, which are worried about plummeting property values if word gets out, says Galvin, who has painted his bedbug service  vehicles a generic white because of customer concerns. “None of our bedbug trucks have lettering on them. Our regular fleet all has our logo – Yankee Pest Control – on it. But anything to do with bedbugs, we haven’t been marking any of those trucks up.”

 Why Now?

 While bedbugs were a common problem in the United States around the World War II era, they were virtually  eradicated from existence with the wide-scale use of pesticides, such as Malathion and DDT, says Bill Cowley, owner-operator and vice president of Cowley’s Termite & Pest Services in Neptune City, New Jersey. They re-emerged in the U.S. in the late 1990s, and have been multiplying ever since.

 According to Cowley, “Their secretive behavior, coupled with a lack of public awareness, has enabled this insect to move very efficiently from one dwelling to another, and has facilitated their rapiddispersal throughout the country.”

 There are a few other reasons why bedbugs have gotten so out of control in  recent years. In the late 1990s, international travel became a lot less expensive, so Americans began to travel much more frequently. In previous years, hotel guest rooms were typically treated on a regular basis with residual pesticides. But those pesticides aren’t used anymore because they were determinedto be a risk to human health.

 “Routinely scheduled treatments of baseboards in hotels, motels and apartments were replaced with targeted  applications of baits for pests like ants and cockroaches,” Cowley says. “With the absence of the residual pesticide applications, bedbugs are able to travel  freely and safely from the luggage to the bed, successfully beginning an infestation.”

 The Nature of the Beast

 Bedbugs are tiny nocturnal insects roughly the size of an apple seed, and feed  exclusively on human blood. An adult female bedbug can lay between one and five  eggs daily, and they hatch about a week later.  

 Fortunately, bedbugs aren’t as hungry as vampires. They don’t seek a blood meal every day, and can go several days – and even up to a month or more, if necessary –between each meal. Some experts say they can live for up to a year without  feeding.  

 While experts don’t believe that bedbugs carry diseases, they can cause an allergic reaction in some which causes a red blotch or welt and makes the skin itch, much like a mosquito bite. But not everyone responds to being bitten.

 Itchy blotches aside, perhaps the most damaging effect of a bedbug infestation  is psychological.  

 “These things [bedbugs] invade our privacy, they invade our bedroom, they invade our bed – the one place that we want to go,” says Galvin. “When we’re done after a hard day of work we want to go home. And when we’re home, the place we relax most is in bed. People are losing sleep... We have people sleeping on the living room floor because they're afraid to go into the bedroom. Personally, I've never seen anything as devastating to people that maintain their homes. They’re trying to do the right thing in life and because of some travel or some visitor, they  pick up a bedbug infestation. Really and truly – people lose their minds over this, as it affects them so greatly.”

 “Bedbugs do not discriminate based on one’s social status or the cleanlinessof their home,” Cowley says. “Bedbug infestations can occur in five-star hotels, million-dollar estates, as  well as homeless shelters and everything in between, regardless of the existing  sanitary conditions.”  

 According to the pros, bedbugs can move from one person to another by moving from one person’s bed to their clothing, onto another person’s clothing, to their bed, and so on. You can even get it by accepting a delivery of something that has bedbugs or bedbug eggs in it. The bedbugs can then take over your condo unit and continue movingto other units in your association.

 Treatment Options

 Fortunately, there are a few approaches that seem to take the starch out of the  bugs. For example, bedbugs can’t survive temperatures hotter than 122 degrees. Once the temperature rises, the  bedbugs – along with their eggs – die. So an exterminator and his team bring heaters and generators to  bedbug-infested locations, and they heat the entire condo to 140 degrees for four to six hours. Once it reaches the optimum temperature, they take a fan and movethe air flow around the house into every crack and crevice.  

 The treatment is environmentally-friendly and no chemicals are used. However, it’s not cheap: heat treatmentusually costs about $1,400 per unit, according to Galvin.  

 Another method is a chemical application to all known hiding places of the bugs – which includes just about any crack or crevice in a given room. This method  costs about $350 to $400 for the first treatment, but many follow-up treatments may be needed, says Galvin.

 When faced with a choice between heat or chemicals, Galvin says he favors heat. “I think the heat is better becausein most cases when you have a vendor that’s offering heat, they’ll generally stand by the product. In most cases if the second application is  needed, it’s done at very little or no cost to the consumer. But with the chemicals, it’s [charged] per application, and every time they come out, it’s another 250 bucks or so.”  

 Legal Issues

 When bedbugs are discovered in a unit of a condo complex, they raise a host of  legal questions: the chief one being responsibility for cost of eradication – the unit where the bedbugs are initially discovered, or the entire condo?

 “One of the problems with bedbugs is that without a concerted effort to deal with the problem you’re never goingto get rid of them,” says attorney Jeffrey Turk, a partner at Marcus, Errico, Emmer & Brooks, PC, in Braintree, Massachusetts. “If I treat my common areas and every unit owner treats their unit, and one unit  owner doesn’t cooperate, you’ll never get rid of them. The bedbugs will go to the untreated unit, and when  the treatment is done, the bedbugs will go back into the other units.”  

 For that reason, Turk recommends that “associations deal with bedbug extermination as a common expense” and oversee treatment of every unit along with the common areas.  

 And if a unit owner refuses to cooperate, Turk says the condo can fall backon the legal authority granted to it by its documents.

 “Most condominium documents allow the association to access the unit to perform maintenance and repair. That’s something that you should do and often have to do. You not only have to treat the apartment but you have totreat all the things in the apartment. We’ve had cases where we’ve gone to court and gotten a court order requiring the unit owner to adhere to  the requirements of the exterminator.”  

 Recommendations

 Turk has a number of recommendations to bring bedbug infestations under control and limit condo liability.

 •    Respond quickly to tenant/ owner complaints and keep a detailed written record  of the complaints and condo’s response.

 •    Bring in a professional, licensed exterminator who has a proven track record eradicating bedbugs, and follow his or her recommendations. Turk notes that followingan expert’s advice can provide something of a safe harbor from liability claims.  

 •    Obtain a court order, if necessary, to secure the cooperation of individual tenants and owners in treating their  units.  

 •    Consider adding a lease addendum or amending the condominium documents to proactively confirmthe obligations of tenants and owners to report bedbugs and remediate  infestations.  

 And finally, Turk recommends that owners be educated about precautions to avoid  bedbugs in the first place. After trips, especially overseas, Turk saysowners should inspect their luggage and clothes for bedbugs.

 Owners should also be extra careful about buying second-hand furniture and  clothing. “The best strategy by far for dealing with bedbugs is to avoid infestations in  the first place,” Turk says.  

 Jim Douglass is the managing editor of New England Condominium magazine.  Freelance writer Danielle Braff contributed to this report.