The total cost to the co-op so far has been about $250,000, which came from the reserve fund and the sale of three apartments that the co-op took over during the S&L crisis in the 1990s.

"If we let those bugs move into this building, it's going to cost us way more than the money we're currently spending," says Keough. "Until they come up with a cure for bedbugs, it's just pro-active vigilance. As of this moment, we have no bedbugs."

Board president Cowan quickly raps the wooden table with a knuckle. Then, addressing one of the most stubborn — and erroneous — myths about bedbugs, he adds, "If your building has bedbugs, it doesn't mean you're dirty. It means you're unlucky."

"What happened," says Ben Weisel, who opened Metro Pest Control in the 1970s, "was that people started traveling to Europe and a lot of Third World countries and bringing bedbugs and eggs back with them. The population started exploding about eight years ago." Today, Metro Pest Control gets a staggering 150 calls a month to treat bedbugs.

Shadow Board

The problem has become so severe citywide that the New York City Council voted in March to create a 10-member Bed Bug Advisory Board, giving it nine months to produce recommendations on dealing with infestations in residences and institutions; disposing of infested items such as clothing and furniture; and creating a list of rights and responsibilities for landlords, tenants and homeowners. As of mid-June 2009, however, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has not made a single appointment to the board.

Information about bedbugs is easy to find. The Bed Bug Registry, for instance, has a website that reports on bedbug infestations in hotels and apartment buildings across North America.

One such building, on Avenue D in Manhattan, offers these words of wisdom from an exasperated tenant named Anit: "The bedbugs came because a tenant on the fifth floor went camping, brought them home with her and decided not to mention anything to her roommates or the super for three weeks, even after having noticed them. Bed bugs are an unfortunate reality here in the city. It helps when people are proactive about taking care about them."

Right you are, Anit. In fact, pest control experts will tell you that the worst thing you can do after sighting bedbugs is to procrastinate or go into denial. Since a female bed bug can lay up to 500 eggs during her lifetime — and since the eggs hatch after incubating for one to three weeks — a co-op or condo board needs to take prompt and forceful action as soon as there's a bed bug sighting in the building.

It's a jungle out there. So, watch your back. Literally.

Adapted from Habitat July/August 2009. For the complete article and more, join our Archive >>

Illustrations by Marcellus Hall