“Easton welfare office closed today for bedbug extermination”

Easton welfare office closed today for bedbug extermination

Posted: 16 Sep 2010 12:20 PM PDT

Published: Thursday, September 16, 2010, 2:45 PM Updated: Thursday, September 16, 2010, 4:04 PM

The pesky bedbugs that have been leaving people itching across the country have cropped up in the Easton welfare office.

Staff at the Larry Holmes Drive office suspected a bedbugs infestation and it was confirmed late Wednesday, leading officials to decide to close the office today for extermination, state Department of Public Welfare Spokesman Michael Race said.

Officials ask anyone with business at the Easton office to either wait until Friday, when the Easton location reopens, or head to the Lehigh County office located at 101 S. Seventh St. in Allentown.

"We have no idea how they got there," Race said. "There really is no way of knowing, it could have been anyone. It is a public building."

The only issue going forward, Race said, is whether or not this extermination takes care of the problem. If follow-up exterminations are needed they will be done in the evenings or on weekends to avoid disrupting office hours, he said.

"Hopefully this will be the end of the problem," Race said.

Largely dormant for the past 40 years, bedbugs have made a mysterious but dramatic return across the country since the late 1990s. Now entomologists are teaming with pest-control experts to evaluate new ways of exterminating this 3,500-year-old nuisance.

Tiny insects that feed on the blood of mammals, bedbugs are not considered a public health threat because they do not carry disease. Their bite, however, often leaves victims with itchy welts.

Reports of bedbug infestations increased more than 70 percent between 2000 and 2005, according to the National Pest Management Association. Once the insects are located, the severity of the infestation must be analyzed.

A variety of treatment methods -- from simple pesticide combinations to heat machines costing several thousand dollars -- can be used to get rid of them.

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