Welcome to Capitol Hill!

Dense urban neighborhoods across the U.S. are reeling under the growing scourge of Urban America’s “welcome committee.” As a suburban newcomer in the hipsterville or gayborhood, one of the first, near-inevitable annoyances you’ll come across is something your landlord downplayed when you moved in: little nocturnal blood-sucking creatures that often go unseen except for gross, itchy bumps on exposed skin in the morning.

We’re talking about bedbugs.

Whether you’ve seen them clinging to your mattress or walls, heard about them from distressed neighbors, or personally been nailed by the blood-suckers, bedbugs are part of life in the city. You hear about them most in reports from New York City, but this map of reported bedbug infestations in the Denver area show they’ve pretty much conquered Capitol Hill and surrounding neighborhoods, and are likely in even more apartment buildings than show up on the map.

An adult bedbug, which is about the size and shape of an apple seed.

The first thing people do when they find out they have bedbugs is hush up about it – treating the blood-suckers like an embarrassing STD, fearing nobody would want to come over if they knew about the infestation, speculated to be highly-contagious. Rumors abound that bedbugs encountered on one-night-stands or in hostels and hotels will cling invisibly to your body, clothes and luggage, and that without drastic precautions your own life will fall to the scourge’s disturbing grip.

Luckily, that’s not the case – bedbugs aren’t “contagious.” Adult bedbugs capable of bearing young are large – about the size of an apple seed – not easily hidden. At all ages, they usually return to their dark, hidden corners when they aren’t out and about to feed, and that’s also where they lay their eggs. They live in clean homes just as easily as messy ones, too. Studies reported in a recent article by Slate found that bedbug populations in different parts of one building are genetically related – one big extended family. That means bedbugs easily spread throughout a building, but are very difficult to bring home from elsewhere.

From the article:

In the infested apartment buildings he studied, he found that all resident bedbugs were close kin, even across widely divergent floors. That suggests they all arose from a single pregnant female or a handful of her eggs following a one-time hitchhike onto the premises. If successful bedbug invasions were common, Vargo says, he should see more genetic diversity. “It’s not like these things are being introduced constantly … it seems like these introduction events are probably kind of rare,” says Vargo.

Bedbugs do, however, tend to live in low-income units. The reasons cited include irresponsible landlords who don’t take care of infestations suffered by poor tenants, and secondarily, the one big way bed bugs dospread: on beds and furniture.

Map of reported bed bug infestations in Denver

While bedbugs probably won’t cling to your clothes or body, they do live in your dresser and mattress, and low-income people happen to move place-to-place a lot more often than wealthier people do. (Incidentally, young gay people also move around often or find apartments in or near low-income districts, and this map of infestations in San Francisco is strikingly similar to this map of San Francisco gay bars.) Bedbugs also easily sneak through electrical fixtures and interior walls to expand one established infestation to neighbors. So in a building where many people are coming and going, chances are high bedbugs lurk in your building and you’ll spot one sooner or later.

They can live for up to a year without feeding, so temporarily abandoning your bed or couch doesn’t control the population.

What do you do about bed bugs? Well another bit of good news is they are not known to carry diseases, disturbing as they may be. But after you notify your landlord, there are a number of steps you can take PDF to save your skin and dignity.

A bedbug infestation in a mattress seam, showing adult bed bugs as well as their fecal matter.

Inspect the corners of your mattress and box springs (especially crevices along the seams) for adult bed bugs, eggs, egg casings and bed bug poop, which looks like little gray or black blobs of tar. Move your bed away from the wall (which is something they can climb up to get you if they live on seams along the floor), and remove your bedskirt which is also easy to climb. A metal-famed bed with minimal contact with the floor is better than a frame that contacts the floor along the entire edge or a mattress directly on the floor, and sealing any holes in the mattress blocks them in so they can’t get to you (but won’t kill them unless they’re kept there over a year).

A quick google search will give you lots of other options, and if the exterminators come to spray, be prepared to bundle up all your clothing in trash bags during the extermination. You will be asked to wash the clothes in hot water to kill any bugs clinging to them to prevent the re-infestation of your cleared apartment.

Good luck!