Dark Banquet - Bill Schutt [73]
This illustrates another distressing point. Even if you don’t bring bed bugs into your home, it’s quite possible that someone else might. Plumbers, electricians, visiting nurses, and house cleaners can become involved in passive introduction. And when guests arrive at our homes, how many of us throw their coats and handbags onto our beds?
Bed bugs are turning up in hospitals, doctor’s offices, health clubs, and movie theaters. They can be transmitted to your clothing if you sit on infested furniture or happen to brush up against someone wearing bed bug–laden clothes.
Along similar lines, Gil Bloom suggested in his talk that people should be a bit cautious when a friend asks to stay at your apartment for a few days “for unspecified reasons.” I guess the implication here is that your jokey reply, “You’re not having your place treated for bed bugs, are you?” should not elicit a coughing fit, nervous laughter, or sudden and profuse sweating.
“Bed bugs can break up relationships and friendships,” Andy Linares told me. “And even people who don’t have them can get screwed up.”
“How’s that?” I wondered.
Andy explained that many people mistake specks of dirt or lint for bed bugs.
“I tell them to stay calm and not to freak out. Use a magnifying glass. Lint doesn’t have six legs, and it doesn’t crawl around by itself.”
I nodded. I’d have to remember that one.
“Sometimes they think they’ve been bitten by bed bugs, but it’s not a bite at all. In those cases, I’ll ask them if there’s a construction site nearby,” Andy said.
“Why’s that?”
“A lot of people have allergic reactions to concrete dust. If that shit gets on your skin it will definitely make you itch.”
Some individuals, however, experience a much more serious problem than concrete dust. The unfortunate people suffering from delusional parasitosis (sometimes referred to as Ekbom’s syndrome) believe that they’re being plagued by parasites crawling over their bodies and sometimes under their skin. These imaginary pests appear to vary with the individual—snakes, insects, and other vermin are often reported. Sufferers will also claim that these creatures are infesting their homes, clothes, and belongings. In some cases, delusional parasitosis results from drug use (“cocaine bugs” or “meth bugs”) or extreme alcohol withdrawal, but recent paranoia over bed bug infestations in places like New York City has apparently amped up some city dwellers to a new level of neurosis.
During lunch one afternoon, Dr. Jody Gangloff-Kaufmann recounted an incident that occurred while she was working for the Nassau County Cooperative Extension. “A guy came in convinced that there were bugs crawling all over his body. To prove it to us, he brought in his bedsheets and his underwear.”
I made a face that brought our waiter running over (probably thinking I’d found a bone in my sushi).
“Yeah, that’s how we reacted,” Jody said, as I waved off the waiter.
“What did you find?” I asked.
“We didn’t find anything,” she said. “But apparently that didn’t satisfy the guy. He wound up spraying down his entire body with a garden pesticide—his ten-year-old kid too.”
“The symptoms are always the same,” Andy Linares told me. “People report an itching sensation but no bites. They see stuff crawling around. The next day it’s flying. They come in with blobs of fabric and pieces of belly-button lint.”
“Andy, these people who imagine that they’ve got bed bugs—do you ever treat their apartments, just to get them off your back?”
“Absolutely not!” the bug man exploded. “If you do that you’ll never get rid of them.”
He explained how a background in diplomacy and international affairs (he holds a master’s degree from Fordham University) has actually helped him cope with frantic victims of bed bug infestation—both real and imagined.
“People can deal with roaches and rats, but bed bugs are another story. They’re ninja insects—cryptic