Bedbugs

Shortly after Sheila Goldacker moved into an apartment in Nottingham, she woke up feeling itchy. Her arms, back and stomach were dotted with red spots. Her sheets, she noticed as she leaned in to fix the bed, were speckled. Goldacker ripped off the sheets and discovered a scene straight from a horror film: her mattress was crawling with tiny brown bugs. "At that point I freaked out," said the 45-year-old legal secretary. "I get itchy every time I talk about it."

WASHINGTON - A day after Burl and Desiree Mathias arrived in Chicago for a packaging trade show, they found themselves itching to get away - from their downtown hotel overrun with bedbugs. After a night in the Motel 6 on East Ontario Street, the brother and sister awoke to find itchy bumps all over their bodies, and the next evening they found the culprit: legions of insects scurrying about in their beds. Hotel management wasn't surprised by their horrified complaints because it had been renting out rooms infested with bedbugs for months.

In July 2010, Adarien Jackson's 6-year-old son, Kaden, began complaining of itchy bumps on his ankles. They soon turned into a rash and spread to his back, behind his ear, and on his eyelid. The child's pediatrician and dermatologists tried allergy drugs, diet changes, oils and oatmeal baths. But it wasn't until months later that Jackson discovered the cause of the problem. Kaden's twin brother, Kyler, began waking in the middle of the night, crying out, "Bugs are crawling on me!"

Are landlords required to hire exterminators for bedbugs? Do bedbugs attack pets? How can you avoid them in movie theaters? With bedbug infestations on the rise, Baltimore health officials launched a series of meetings Wednesday to answer such questions from residents, property managers and others — and to tell everyone not to panic. "I'm here to assure you we will all be fine," Dr. Madeleine Shea, a deputy health commissioner, said at a meeting at the War Memorial Building.

A Severn couple filed a lawsuit Thursday against a Cockeysville apartment complex for $2 million, contending that the owners and management did not eradicate a previously known bedbug infestation. The former tenants, Michael Silverman and Amanda Weaver, moved into their two-bedroom Steeplechase Apartment on Stag Horn Court in March. They noticed "several small bugs" the day they moved in but did not think anything of it, the complaint says. But after three days in the apartment, the couple began to experience small, itchy bumps and later realized that the apartment was infested with bedbugs.

A former tenant is suing a Cockeysville apartment complex for $100,000 over a bedbug infestation, claiming that the property owners did not properly warn her about and exterminate the blood-sucking insects and that she suffered "scarring and disfigurement" from the bites. The tenant, Amber Croshaw, contends that she suffered "embarrassment, mental and emotional distress, and fear about the presence of bedbugs that affects [her] to this day" as a result of the infestation in the apartment in the Briarcliff Apartments East complex in Cockeysville, according to the lawsuit filed this month in Baltimore County Circuit Court.

Bedbugs have turned up in hotels, offices and movie theaters recently. And while they aren't a severe health threat, they are creepy and crawly, and everyone wants to know why they have become so common — and how to avoid or get rid of them. Writing a book on household pests is environmental historian Dawn Biehler, assistant professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Systems at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She's concluded that communities need to work together to eliminate bedbugs in an environmentally friendly and sustainable way. Question: How long have bedbugs been around and where do they come from?

A Howard County couple are suing the owners of their apartment complex for half a million dollars, claiming bedbugs infiltrated their apartment, covering them and their toddler daughter with dozens of itchy welts and causing "significant emotional distress. " Orville Brown Jr. and Rebecca Brown were forced to move out of their Ellicott City apartment and discard most of their furniture and all their daughter's toys because of the severity of the infestation, according to a suit filed Friday in Howard County Circuit Court.

You are not alone. Right there, in the sanctuary of your home, any number of tiny uninvited guests have set up residence, with no plans of leaving any time soon. In "A Field Guide to Household Bugs," a paperback due in stores this month from Plume Books, authors Joshua Abarbanel and Jeff Swimmer bring this disgusting reality home with 115 pages of humorous factoids and skin-crawling photographs of earwigs, silverfish and other freeloading domestic varmints. In the meantime, Abarbanel offers insights into the bug versus homeowner mismatch: What's the most common household pest included in the book?

I found little bugs under my mattress, but I've seen them before along where the ceiling meets the wall. Please tell me they are not bedbugs! Your photos show the larvae of a carpet beetle. These tiny oval beetles are in the Dermestid insect family. Their diet of organic materials ranges from wool, silk, fur, feathers and food items such as grains, spices, dog food and birdseed, to the occasional mouse or animal remains in your attic or basement. Control of carpet beetles is primarily prevention - clean, clean, clean.