M&M Environmental Quoted in the NY Daily News

Today's Queens section of the New York Daily News questions the latest update for the on-going battle between workers and bed bugs in their office environment in the Long Island City Access-A-Ride location. The writer, Joseph Kemp, has been following this story for quite some time and reported last year that this office's bed bug problem has been persisting since all the way back to the summer of 2008.

Kemp consulted with our M&M Environmental technical director, Tim Wong, for today's article to help determine whether or not the action of the exterminators that NYC Transit hired could be considered adequate. Apparently, after identifying that bed bugs were still present in the office, the company waited a a longer than recommended amount of time before beginning their extermination. The article reads,

Waiting a week to begin killing the bedbugs after canines tracked their location was a major flaw, said Timothy Wong, a pest control technical director at M&M Environmental.

"It must be treated 24 to 48 hours after the dogs come in," he said, "especially with a commercial premises like this where there's heavy traffic, a lot of electrical equipment and no control of the environment."

It's very important to act quickly and efficiently once presence of bed bugs have been identified, regardless of whether it is in a home or an office. This way the solution of the problem being eradicated will happen sooner and not later.

Bed Bugs in Contemporary Pop Culture + Insect ID Services

Residing on two opposing sides of the pop culture spectrum, bed bugs made appearances in both The New Yorker and The Onion this week alone. The piece in The Onion was (gasp!) a farce about Joe Biden bringing in a, "...discarded recliner chair," into the white house which resulted in an unaccounted for, "...series of red welts on his arms." This common New York-centric practice is something many of us have obviously retired recently in the wake of this current bed bug scare.

Far on the other side and found in The Talk of The Town section of The New Yorker, Meribah Knight's recent article discussed Carolyn Klass's soon to be retired insect ID lab at Cornell. According to the article, Carolyn Klass,

"...for the past thirty-eight years has been Cornell University’s diagnostician for insect pests."

For a fee of $25 you can send her your samples and she'll tell you what you've stumbled upon. Coincidentally, this is also a service that we offer at M&M Environmental - but you can send in or bring your samples by in person, free of charge.

Our entomologists and bug experts that we have on staff will be able to identify the species and genus of your sample, and help provide answers about your mysterious new roommate's origin. We'll also soon be launching a function of our web site that will allow you to upload photos of your samples to send them our way at the simple click of a button. All free of charge.

NYSPMA Winter Conference and Trade Show

January was certainly an exciting month in the world of bed bug-centric meetings and conferences (yes this world does exist).

Mid-month, friend to M&M Environmental Lou Sorkin hosted the monthly NY Entomological society meeting at the American Museum of Natural History and you can see our write-up here. Then this past Friday, the New York State Pest Management Association hosted their Winter Conference and Trade Show with a number of industry guest speakers and experts.

The first speaker, Dr. Stephen Kells, delved deep into the discussion of using heat as a bed bug treatment option. Next up was yet another friend to M&M, Attorney Timothy Wenk, who shared his presentation on bed bug litigation and contractual obligations. Much of what was covered in his presentation can also be seen here in our two interviews (for landlords & tenants). Tim's discussion included information on negligence lawsuits between landlords and tenants, where judgments have been based on an analysis of either parties behavior, depending on whether it could be deemed "reasonable" or not.

Later on, Jeff White of Bed Bug Central shared a presentation on the comeback of bed bugs, citing "resistance and a lack of public awareness" as possible explanations. Jeff also compared different bed bug monitoring devices like ClimpUp and NightWatch, concluding that though there are a variety of monitoring tools out there, you have to figure out which the right one is for your particular situation. The booths were populated mostly by industry vendors and suppliers, including fumigation professionals Bed Bugs and Beyond.