Reagan Building bedbugs: Pest control team dispatched to USAID offices
- (Illustration: Robert Meganck)
UPDATE: includes information from a Washington Post report that notes crews will be in the Reagan Building on Tuesday.
The Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center is a post-9/11 fortress. If you don’t have proper clearance to get into the structure’s federal offices, you’ll get stopped and turned away.
Bedbugs apparently get a pass.
A band of juvenile bedbugs has taken roost in an office suite in the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) tower of the Reagan Building, according to an e-mail obtained by TBD. USAID employees were told in the e-mail that they hadn’t received reports of bedbugs in other locations in the building.
“Nevertheless, on Friday, October 1st, at 10:00, GSA will be utilizing a professional pest control service, including a specialized K-9 team, to inspect the USAID office space,” the e-mail states. “GSA will also be investigating adjacent areas, janitorial closets, and restroom facilities to identity any infestation areas.”
A USAID media representative has confirmed that the e-mail is authentic. A telephone message left for a manager of the Reagan Reagan Building was not immediately returned.
"Any identified areas will be treated over the weekend and follow-up treatment will be provided as needed," a USAID media representative said in an e-mail, which also noted that USAID and the General Services Administration "will continue to be proactive to prevent any future bed bug activity."
Pest control crews on Tuesday were expected to treat the area, according to the Washington Post.
The e-mail to USAID also included an attachment with information on bedbugs in the workplace. Among the helpful nuggets:
“The bugs have usually been accidentally brought in – and may continue to be brought in – by one or more persons whose residence is infested.”
“Because opportunities for feeding are very limited in most office environments, introduced bed bugs may wander extensively in search of a better habitat.”
Below is a copy of the memo on bedbugs in the workplace, and below that, the original e-mail:
2 Comments
Nate Kalkowski
Let's not repeat the old right-wing talking point about DDT and bedbugs. The fact is, by the time DDT was banned on Jan 1, 1973, most bedbugs were already DDT-resistant. Recent research shows that today's bedbugs are still resistant to DDT. The 27-year-old DDT ban did not cause the current bedbug resurgence. The pest-control industry's transition from sprays to baits in the mid-1990s is a more likely culprit, and that was the industry's voluntary economic decision (baits are far more effective), not a government mandate.
Aleck Janoulis
First, West Nile Virus, now Dengue Fever and bedbugs are back in the USA. Is it going to take the return of Yellow Fever or the introduction of Ebola before we start using DDT again? Is this flip side of what we must endure in the mindless quest for Globalization?
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