96 replies to this topic

[anne12573]

I'm definitely staying out of the movie theaters b/c of bedbug concerns.

I only hope the Koch theater is given a clean bill of health before the January 2011 season starts. I'm staying away from the Nutcracker anyway, bedbugs or not.

[4mrdncr]

anne12573, on 15 October 2010 - 11:33 AM, said:

I'm definitely staying out of the movie theaters b/c of bedbug concerns.

I only hope the Koch theater is given a clean bill of health before the January 2011 season starts. I'm staying away from the Nutcracker anyway, bedbugs or not.

I, too, will probably avoid the City until Spring season--and hope the entymologists have devised an effective cure?
However, I recently stayed overnight at a hotel when I came for FFD.  I was afraid to place my suitcase on the floor, or luggage rack/stand (in case any critters crawled up the legs?) so I put it on top of the desk (a hard surface easy to wipe down with disinfectant if necessary?)and only unzipped about an inch to extract my belongings before quickly closing it again.  Then at bedtime, I wasn't sure what to do, but took a chance and...no problem; I neither saw nor felt anything bad. (And this was not some 4-5 star hotel)  My only concern was later, when I had to put my suitcse into storage for a few hours while I attended a performance, the room it was in was not very clean.  So should I fumigate it now?

RE: Original thread--Like other non-New Yorkers, I at first thought the NYST had been named after Ed Koch. So like others, I will continue to think/call it the NYST or Koch as in Ed Koch.
BTW: I once saw David Koch's brother with one of the (former) captains of an America's Cup yacht on the Green Line in Boston (maybe transferring from Red Line and visit to MIT?) I don't think anyone else recognized them--but it was an America's Cup race year, so I noticed and paid attention.  
Last Sunday, our local paper reprinted in toto the New Yorker article by Mayer about the Koch brothers--probably because of the association with Deerfield Academy. The Academy has a building named after him too.  But does anyone think the arts or cancer research or whatever might eventually absorb enough of his discretionary income to counteract his other more political donation/intentions?   I may not agree at all with his politics but will defend his right to put his money where he wants to, and continue to hope ballet's need for defenders and contributors supercedes any tea parties.

[papeetepatrick]

4mrdncr, on 17 October 2010 - 09:43 PM, said:

But does anyone think the arts or cancer research or whatever might eventually absorb enough of his discretionary income to counteract his other more political donation/intentions?   I may not agree at all with his politics but will defend his right to put his money where he wants to, and continue to hope ballet's need for defenders and contributors supercedes any tea parties.

Of course it won't 'counteract' it, and it's small potatoes compared to the political ambition and the vastness of funding there--of course, if one is a Tea Party-er, one doesn't even want it 'counteracted' *(I doubt many at BT are, but there are probably some).  Which doesn't mean I'm not fine with his giving more and more to the Arts and ballet and me in particular.  I know people who hate him who've worked for him, that's just the way it is--this one girl said 'but his money sure is green'.  Another knew them socially and said, 'oh god--the Kochs, yes, real Nazis' (that's just a quote, but delete it if politically incorrect.)

Now, I have way more experience with bedbugs than I wish, but when I had them, you maintained with sprays both for bugs and eggs--and this is never sufficient by itself: You have to have professionals come (with sniffing dogs specially trained, and this is expensive) and buy and use special bedbug mattress and pillow covers.  This would apply to residential and commercial, and a multi-dwelling apt. house like mine would never have conquered the problem without a cooperative landlord--so it should never be attempted alone.  You have to get the right outfit to do it too, some of them are just in it for the money and huge preparations are always necessary before treatment; and some of these are good, some are just stupid (the first people made me wrap every one of my books in plastic, even that's not where bedbugs go, except on the rarest occasion.)

NOW--in theaters, the reason they're there is just because they really are everywhere now that DDT is illegal, and this is one of the casualties of 'greening of America'.  They were gone for decades.  BUT--they are carried from hotels very frequently.  So

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and hope the entymologists have devised an effective cure?

is really just that you can hope they've controlled the beasts locally in specific places (and they can do this if they then do followup maintenance), until it's declared a public health emergency which then has programs carried out city-wide, there's going to be no real 'cure', I can guarantee you that.  You can spray your luggage, and in most cases you're okay,

but look on the internet before staying at ANY hotel anywhere, and see if there are reviews that mention bedbugs (and I know some do.)  The intensity of travel from all countries is part of it, as well as the forbidden insecticides.  If one does contract these horrors, it does tend to induce panic, but they can be gotten rid of, except in the cases where landlords won't treat in poorer neighborhoods--this has sometimes resulted in whole blocks being razed in Brooklyn, for example.  I recommend Action Pest Control as a good company, they have the sniffing dogs, and that's what's necessary.  

(Sorry this is so off-topic, but people need to know, as this is so horrible an experience that it is almost nervous-breakdown-inducing.  The only thing good about it is that I lost 20 lbs., because I couldn't eat nor sleep the entire 8 months of suffering.  

But that we'd hear of them at the Met and Koch backstage is proof (and they've been reporting this all along) that bedbugs are in all 'income-level places', the only difference being that the higher-income can get them eradicated.  And some of these bedbug treatment outfits are really in it for the money, so you have to be firm, and use your head on some of it (it's not easy, because you've usually lost your head by this time.)

[Mel Johnson]

About the only upside to the bedbug situation is that they aren't known to be a vector for any known viral or bacterial disease.  A friend of mine is an exterminator, and he tells me that the trade has simple, effective means to kill the little boogers which leaves no toxic residue.  They just blow carbon dioxide or nitrogen over the infested areas, and they're dead.

[Jack Reed]

Just smother the little <bleeps>!  Well, that's reassuring to this sometime traveler, who's just planning a few nights in his usual Manhattan hotel (enroute to see TSFB at Purchase).  Trouble is, some hotels just don't handle the technical stuff at all well, and their bad ventilation and poor TV reception would not long be tolerated in the apartment buildings I've lived in.  The standouts for competence are usually the maids, but I'm not sure gassing pests is part of their remit.

Good to know about the absence of disease vector, too, Mel.  (BT sure is a full-service web site.)

[abatt]

Jack Reed, on 18 October 2010 - 11:58 AM, said:

Trouble is, some hotels just don't handle the technical stuff at all well, and their bad ventilation and poor TV reception would not long be tolerated in the apartment buildings I've lived in.  The standouts for competence are usually the maids, but I'm not sure gassing pests is part of their remit.

Good to know about the absence of disease vector, too, Mel.  (BT sure is a full-service web site.)

Jack, there is a website, bedbugregistry.com, in which people report the existence of bed bugs in various places, including hotels.  You might want to check it out.  Just to give you an idea of how big a problem this is, the New York legislature recently enacted a law which requires landlords of apartment buildings to reveal to prospective tenants whether a bed bug infestation occurred in apartments available for rental.

[Jack Reed]

Thanks, abatt!  The site said there are no reports of bugs on record where I'm going, although the accompanying map makes it look like they're closing in...  But I'm further reassured, as many of the addresses are large hotels in the neighborhood - tsk, lo how the Waldorff-Astoria has fallen!

[papeetepatrick]

Mel Johnson, on 18 October 2010 - 09:26 AM, said:

About the only upside to the bedbug situation is that they aren't known to be a vector for any known viral or bacterial disease.  A friend of mine is an exterminator, and he tells me that the trade has simple, effective means to kill the little boogers which leaves no toxic residue.  They just blow carbon dioxide or nitrogen over the infested areas, and they're dead.

It's much less simple than that.  All the exterminators disagree with what methods to use--and one or two treatments is never sufficient:  It almost always requires as many as five or six, because of the eggs.  They are in floorboards, in crevices of furniture as well as the upholstery, etc. and can live for 18 months without feeding, just for starters. You don't throw out infested bedding as well, new bedding will be re-infested immediately, obviously-you cover it, as I mentioned, with protective zip-up mattress covers and you leave them there.  It may be relatively simple in a free-standing house, but even then I've heard reports of people having to have 6-8 treatments over long periods like I did.  In a multi-dwelling building, literally every unit has to be checked--in mine, the sniffing dogs found about 15 that had signs of them, although only about 4 had serious problems. And they can literally be brought in from anywhere.  But all the different exterminators will tell you that 'there is only one way to kill them'.  Action Pest was good because they even 'shot up' the mattresses with hypodermic guns, used foggers, and chemicals and steaming of curtains, etc.  

That they don't cause disease is true, of course, but it is much worse than any trouble with cockroaches or the occasional mouse--because there is no in-between state:  You're either infested or you're not.  I had to even have one final treatment in April of this year, because the woman who lives above me claimed to find two or three in her bathroom (where they're not supposed to be); and it is a LOT of trouble every time, because they give you extremely complicated prep instructions and make you dry-clean everything (even the ones that don't make you do idiotic things like cover your books in plastic.)  And the better exterminators will not just come in and spray an 'unprepped' area.

[Mel Johnson]

That's the nice part of the gases produced from solid (CO2) or liquid (N2), especially the latter.  The old way to deal with bedbugs, even in the early seventies, when I experienced the joy in the Air Force, used DDT, even knowing that it left residues that got into the environment and stayed forever. (Hey, what did they care?  It was Vietnam and Korea, not Omaha.) Carbon dioxide is probably less chemically active than plain nitrogen, but the cold it produces isn't low enough reliably to kill the eggs in one application.

[papeetepatrick]

After the first treatments, the bugs are neutered and therefore won't be reproducing, but they're still in a form recognizable as repulsive and crawling, however more slowly, feebly, and now bloodless.  I called about this, and the 'trained technician's assistant' said 'Oh!  Those are the NYMPHS!'  This was maybe the nadir of the mental depression that accompanies: I thought "Honey, I am in no mood to discuss 'Les Sylphides' and/or 'Ondine' with you."

[California]

Bedbug sprays for travelling to hotel rooms are available at Amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.co...ref=pd_sbs_ol_3
Has anybody tried these? I don't see any customer reviews on the Amazon site yet.

Also, my thanks to the moderators for letting this bedbug discussion continue. For those of us who love visiting New York to see the ballet, as many Ballet Talkers obviously do, this is a big issue. Still, I think I feel about bedbugs the same way I feel about terrorist threats and earthquakes in California. You can cower at home in nonstop fear of these things or you can take reasonable precautions and live your life. I've been searching travel supply sites for ideas on precautions, but I'm not finding anything other than these sprays. E.g., what about a plastic sheet one could use to cover a theater seat -- and then discard on the way out? Sort of like a travel-size poncho you might carry in your purse!

[papeetepatrick]

California, don't fool with the 'eco-friendly' bedbug sprays, they are totally worthless and don't work.  I'm not sure what that little one on amazon is, although it says 'non-toxic'.  Well, you want toxic, you just use less of it and aerate rooms.

The strong ones you can get at hardware stores have pyrethrins in them, and they are somewhat nauseating, but they do work as preventive unless the bugs have really gotten control of the territory.  When I then got professionals working, there is Permacide for the bugs and Bedlam for the eggs, which they tell you to use alternately, but you can use them however you want; the companies do a lot to try to scare you, and they can be very irresponsible.

I agree you can't be obsessive about this, even having been through it and the whole horror it is (you don't quit thinking you're seeing them for months after they're gone.)  But I never think about worrying about theaters or even movies, and wouldn't even now.  As for

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what about a plastic sheet one could use to cover a theater seat -- and then discard on the way out?

  I'd say no, that's being obsessive--they can just as easily be on the carpet on the floor.  Cconcentrate on hotel rooms, them forget about it.  I'm sure Koch and Met Theaters are going to ensure that everything is 100% cleared there, and I even doubt that there's much serious infestation in movie theaters.

[California]

The LA Times has a story today that essentially says that all those consumer products that allegedly kill bedbugs are not effective:
http://www.latimes.c...0,2017880.story

[papeetepatrick]

California, on 25 October 2010 - 11:34 AM, said:

The LA Times has a story today that essentially says that all those consumer products that allegedly kill bedbugs are not effective:
http://www.latimes.c...0,2017880.story

It says that the 'all-natural' ones are not, and they're not.  But the serious Permacide would probably be useful for hotel rooms, which you aren't going to call in professionals for anyway.  Nothing gets rid of a serious infestation other than professionals with several weapons at their disposal.  Otherwise, for hotels, use the hard poisons, some of which are available at hardware stores, or just don't go anywhere at all that you're suspicious of, I guess.  I see that having been through the horror of the reality makes you more relaxed about the rest of it.  But the 'all-natural' ones are indeed no good.  otoh, some of the pyrethrin sprays, if you use them judiciously, will kill them locally, which is what the hotel issue is about; the bigger issue is up to the management if enough people complain.

[papeetepatrick]

Here's Frank Rich today. Very amusing on the 'landed aristocracy' of the GOP versus the hicks:

"Mike Huckabee, still steamed about Rove’s previous put-down of Christine O’Donnell, publicly lamented the Republican establishment’s “elitism” and “country club attitude.” This country club elite, he said, is happy for Tea Partiers to put up signs, work the phones and make “those pesky little trips” door-to-door that it finds a frightful inconvenience. But the members won’t let the hoi polloi dine with them in the club’s “main dining room” — any more than David H. Koch, the billionaire sugar daddy of the Republican right, will invite O’Donnell into his box at the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center to take in “The Nutcracker.” "

B-b-b-b-but will even the Esteemed Eponymous know from Arabian, Candy Cane and Dew Drop as well as George W. Bush must have when it was performed at the White House?  (although I don't know what 'Nutcracker' was done for the 'First Fan' as drb referred to him.  I assume Dubya knew, though...)