Purdue University
Entomology Department
Search the Department of Entomology
Links

Purdue entomologist Tim Gibb among researchers working with housing authority to rid high-rise of bed bugs

Laura Misjak
IndyStar
August 5, 2008

Tim Gibb
Purdue entomologist Tim Gibb

Johnnie Freeman never realized bed bugs were real. He just thought that was a funny-sounding name used to get giggles out of children.

Now, he knows better. And he's not laughing.

Neither are his fellow tenants at Lugar Towers, a public housing development, where for more than two years they have been dealing with a bed-bug infestation so bad that the city housing authority has spent $60,000 -- and counting -- and enlisted a team of researchers from Purdue University to try to get rid of the pesky critters.

"It's really disgusting," said Sandra Cook, 59, a tenant of the Downtown high-rise. "You lay on your bed, and all of a sudden you wake up with bed bugs on your shirt or bed bugs on your blanket or bed bugs across your pillow. It's really bad. You hate to come home."

It's so bad that Freeman has a nightly ritual: He sprays bleach around the mattress in his sixth-floor apartment, what he calls a "defensive line" against the bugs.

"I've killed several," Freeman said. "They leave red bumps, like mosquito bites."

Unlike mosquitoes, bed bugs don't carry disease and are not harmful, said Richard Cooper, one of the foremost authorities on Cimex lectularius.

The apple-seed-sized bugs were practically eradicated, Cooper said, until a 1972 ban on DDT gave them new life. Current generations' lack of experience with bed bugs has exacerbated the problem.

Picking up used furniture can bring the bugs inside, where they can burrow into clothing, blankets and even baseboards.

Purdue entomologist Tim Gibb, who is among the researchers working with the housing authority, said strides have been made at Lugar by dousing areas with chemical and organic pesticides -- infested rooms are sprayed monthly -- and also educating residents.

Each new tenant, said Indianapolis Housing Agency chief Bud Myers, needs to learn bed-bug precautions: no bringing in outside furniture or bedding, and telling management as soon as there is a sign of the creatures.

As for spraying bleach on the mattress? "I would advise against that," Cooper said.

Still, it's hard to fault Freeman for trying desperate measures.

Some Lugar residents have thrown out entire wardrobes, couches and mattresses.

Short of that, Cooper said, is putting everything in the laundry, because the heat will kill the bugs. Wrapping mattresses in plastic helps, as well: The bed bugs starve to death.

Myers estimates about 10 to 15 of the 225 Lugar units now have bed-bug problems.

But it isn't just Lugar Towers that's been infested. Gibb said other apartment complexes, hotels, hospitals and movie theaters have encountered bed bugs, but he wouldn't name names.

Cooper, who has written books on the subject, adds schools, shelters, subways and even police cruisers to the list.

He said bed-bug bites are more itchy than harmful, but they take an emotional toll.

"You go to bed to escape the pressures of world and life," he said, "and here you are lying in your bed and you don't want to fall asleep."

Linda Banks, 57, knows that feeling. She also thinks she knows who's responsible: a previous next-door neighbor.

"He had thousands of them coming out of his apartment all up and down the hallways," Banks said. Within a few months, she said, the man was evicted.

But his bugs stuck around.