We all remember the bedtime saying “Good night; sleep tight; don’t let the bed bugs bite.” Growing up I had no idea that there really was a ‘bedbug’. I thought it was just some night time boogeyman.
After World War II, the United States had exterminated this blood sucking pest. A couple of generations of Americans went through life without knowing what it is like to be pestered by this parasite.
The first time I actually found out that bedbugs existed was when I read Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago. The Russian Communist used this insect as a means of torture:
In the dark closet made of wooden planks, there were hundreds, maybe even thousands, of bedbugs, which had been allowed to multiply. The guards removed the prisoner’s jacket or field shirt, and immediately the hungry bedbugs assailed him, crawling onto him from the walls or falling off the ceiling. At first he waged war with them strenuously, crushing them on his body and on the walls, suffocated by their stink. But after several hours he weakened and let them drink his blood without a murmur.
A victim of this method of torture describes his feelings afterwards:
“Chill from great loss of blood. Irises of the eyes dried up out as if someone were holding a red-hot iron in front of them. Tongue swollen from thirst and prickling as from a hedgehog at the slightest movement. Throat racked by spasms of swallowing.”
With increasing international travel and immigration from the third world; bedbugs have made a comeback. Terminix has issued a press release on the top 15 cities that are most infested:
1. New York
2. Philadelphia
3. Detroit
4. Cincinnati
5. Chicago
6. Denver
7. Columbus, Ohio
8. Dayton, Ohio
9. Washington, D.C.
10. Los Angeles
11. Boston
12. Indianapolis
13. Louisville, Ky.
14. Cleveland
15. Minneapolis, Minn
As AOL Health reported last month, the creepy blood-sucking insects aren't an actual health risk per se, however their bites and presence alone can be unnerving.
"It's no surprise that highly trafficked cities such as New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles are on the list," Paul Curtis, entomologist for Terminix, said in a news release from the company. "It's the bedbug problems in cities like Dayton and Louisville that prove bedbugs are back and can pop up anywhere. The bedbug problems in these cities outpace markets of far greater size despite their having a fraction of the population and typically fewer travelers and hotels."
So, when it’s time to go to bed remember to sleep tight and don’t let the bedbugs bite.
Source: http://www.aolhealth.com/2010/08/24/extermination-company-ranks-top-15-bedbug-infested-cities/
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