Typically, these words follow right after “sleep tight,” and they’re meant as a harmless rhyme. When the bedbugs actually do bite, it quickly becomes a more serious situation. That’s where the staff and residents of St. Matthew’s House in Naples found themselves.
Given the transient nature of homeless shelters, with new residents showing up all the time, representing a continual source of infestation, fighting bedbugs is an ongoing struggle.
“It’s been a constant battle,” said Lisa Ellison, director of development at St. Matthew’s House, located on Davis Boulevard in Naples. “We’ve tented the facility, heated the facility, and used cedar oil, which has a strong smell when you heat it.”
Last Thursday and Friday, the cavalry rode to the rescue at St. Matthew’s House, in the form of a convoy of bright yellow vehicles festooned with antennae and mouse ears. Truly Nolen, the national pest control company whose founder lives in Naples, donated their services to tackle St. Matthew’s bedbug problem. A crew of 11 Truly Nolen employees showed up to spray crevices, beds and the entire living quarters at the facility.
Wearing white coveralls and booties, the technicians applied Temprid, a chemical made by the Bayer company of aspirin fame, to deal with the major headache the bedbugs cause in all who become their host. The dorm was a battlefield, with exterminators wielding sprayers and peering into ceiling light fixtures with powerful flashlights. Bundles of bedding and clothing were tied up in plastic bags.
“It’s a nightmare if you get them,” said Lance Washington, manager of Truly Nolen’s Bonita Springs office. “They’re very tough to get rid of.”
For the treatment at St. Matthew’s House, the company brought people and equipment from Naples, Bonita and Fort Myers.
“My wife said, ‘You’re not going in, are you?’ when I told her I was coming here,” said Chris Maher, vice president of commercial operations for Truly Nolen in Southwest Florida. “You do have to be careful. They can hide anywhere.”
He held up his fingertips about one-quarter of an inch apart to indicate the length of the typical bedbug, which he said are nocturnal and extremely shy.
“We pulled back the baseboards, and you could see live bedbugs moving around,” said Washington. “They were engorged, from feeding on us. Most people don’t even know they’ve been bitten — they can feed on you for five minutes or more.”
Like mosquitoes, bedbugs inject an anesthetic that keeps their victims from realizing their blood is being sucked.
The residents at St. Matthew’s worked hard to prepare for the exterminators, said Ellison.
“All week, we stripped the floors, and sealed crevices. We repainted the whole dorm,” she said.
New metal bedframes from the Collier County jail were donated by the Collier County Sheriff’s Office, she said, and the old wooden bedframes thrown out.
Heat kills bedbugs, and St. Matthew’s is receiving a donation of a heat treatment box from Fort Myers Pest Control, which will heat treat the belongings of new residents, said Ellison.
Homeless shelters are not the only facilities with bedbug problems. Hotels, with their transient populations, are both hosts and spreaders of the insects, said Phil Hadley, owner of Collier Pest Control, and the problem has been spreading.
“They’re here, and they’re more prevalent than people want to admit. Hotels are not going to talk about it,” he said. “We’ve been in business 21 years. For the first 19 years, if we got one or two calls a year on bedbugs, that was a lot. Last year, we were doing one or two a month. Now, it’s two or three a week — we did two today.”
The infestations show up in affluent neighborhoods, including Grey Oaks and Tiburon, he said, as well as more modest dwellings.
“Since 1995, there’s been a resurgence in bedbug activity,” said Deb Millsap, spokesperson for the Collier County Health Department. “In the ‘40s, they were almost eradicated,” but they have made a comeback, nationally as well as in Southwest Florida. Since her department does not have regulatory authority or officially track bedbugs, they do not have hard numbers on the scope of the problem, she said.
“Look for the little fecal spots, or blood smears on the sheets. We recommend people contact an exterminator.” Along with hotels and shelters, apartment buildings are another likely location for infestation, said Millsap.
The problem is not specific to low income housing or accommodations, she said. “It doesn’t matter to bedbugs whether it’s Super 8 or the Hilton,” she said. “They can be in some very nice homes.”
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