As Paris prepares to host the 2024 Olympic Summer Games, locals are losing their cool over bedbugs amid fears a recent surge could hamper attracting spectators, with consequences for the economy and the country’s reputation.
Reuters reported that the French government was holding an emergency meeting last week “on how to tackle a crisis borne out of anecdotes and viral posts on social media and which is now filling talk show airtime — even if pest-control experts remain largely nonplussed.”
Pest-control experts are among those who say the problem is being exaggerated. The New York Times, for instance, used this headline: “The problem with pests may be in Parisian heads, not their beds.” The subhead is equally soothing: “Exterminators in France are playing the role of therapist to an anxious post-pandemic population that they say is panicking over recent bedbug outbreaks.”
The outbreaks are real. But it seems the fear they engender — and the degree of the problem — are probably out of sync.
The reported bedbug invasions haven’t just hit Paris, either, as a 2023 study in the Annual Review of Entomology found. Years ago, harsh chemicals — which might actually be more dangerous than bedbug bites, which just produce itchy welts — were used to control the wingless bugs. Those aren’t used anymore and populations have swelled.
The result is a “global resurgence,” per the study, which notes that it has been “widespread, affecting virtually every sector of society.”
Ask Orkin, a pest control company that said its leading U.S. bedbug cities are Chicago, New York and Philadelphia, based on treatment data from Dec. 1, 2021, to Nov. 30, 2022, in both residential and commercial property.
It’s not a French — or European — problem.
As Vox noted this week, “It’s a bedbug’s world now. We’re just sleeping in it.”
What is a bedbug?
Per Orkin, a pest control company, “Typically, bedbugs are 3/16 of an inch long, red to dark brown in color and are mostly nocturnal insects that come out of hiding to take blood meals from sleeping humans. These pests are hematophagous, which means blood is their only food source. They can travel from place to place with ease, clinging to items such as luggage, purses and other personal belongings.”
Bedbugs typically hide in mattresses and bedding, but can be found on clothing and in luggage, too. The female bedbug can lay one to five eggs a day and may lay up to 500 eggs in a lifetime.
They are described by experts as “nuisance pests” because they are more gross than they are dangerous. They bite and make people — their favorite food source — itch. But as Reuters reported, “no scientific study has found that they transmit disease.”
But again, gross.
Per Reuters, the French response has been “a mixture of media hysteria, political opportunism and national anxiety over whether the tiny critters might ruin the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.”
Calming the panic
Paris has reportedly employed “sniffer dogs,” as a separate Reuters story details. The canine handlers say the dogs haven’t confirmed any public transportation infestations.
The Associated Press reported on government efforts to calm down the locals in France. “There is no resurgence of cases,” the country’s transport minister, Clement Beaune, told reporters, noting that the 37 cases that had been reported from the bus, metro and train systems proved to be unfounded. Same with “viral videos on social media of tiny creatures supposedly burrowing in the seat of a fast train.”
The researchers said that in the 1800s, London hotels were so infested that, as Vox reported, “lodgers ‘were advised to become half-drunk to obtain some sleep.’” Vox noted one method of control back then was burning down buildings.
Besides the approach of a large international spectacle, the Olympics, why are bedbugs getting so much attention? Vox asks, then answers that the problem really has gotten worse, on a worldwide scale. “More people live in cities now and bedbugs love densely packed warm bodies. We’re also traveling more than ever before, giving bedbugs an opportunity to spread.”
But mostly, according to the scientists, the bugs have developed resistance to many pesticides. What they can’t escape seems to be temperatures that are high or low — above 113 degrees Fahrenheit or freezing.
Preventing tiny hitchhikers
Regardless, there are some steps people can take to avoid transporting the pests.
Orkin has come up with an acronym to help travelers remember how to travel without bugs: SLEEP.
Survey the hotel room, looking for tiny, ink-colored stains on mattresses, soft furniture and elsewhere.
Lift the mattress, box springs, etc., even pictures, and look for signs of the creepy little critters.
Elevate luggage away from the bed and walls. Orkin recommends putting suitcases in the bathroom or on counters.
Examine everything carefully while repacking. And do it again when you get home. Also, store your luggage far from beds.
Place dryer-safe clothes in the dryer for 30-45 minutes on a high setting when you get home.
Do all that and there’s a good chance your bon voyage won’t be the bedbugs.