Going to the Mattress

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Washington Sketch: America's War on Bed Bugs

Don't let the bed bugs bite: The Washington Sketch goes undercover and between the sheets at the EPA's National Bed Bug Summit in Virginia. Video by Gaby Bruna/washingtonpost.com

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Audience members were squirming and scratching by the time Cooper told them of where he's found bedbug infestations: "behind picture frames or other wall hangings, or inside the bindings of books or on stuffed animals. Or how about an entire reproducing population with over 30 eggs inside the head of an adjustable wrench?" On the projection screen, the bugs in his presentation looked to be about three feet long.

After a representative of the National Pest Management Association divulged the "startling" fact that, in the pest-control business, the bedbug has surpassed the fire ant and is closing in on the flea, Harold Harlan, from the Armed Forces Pest Management Board, described the savage beast's method of attack. "They have piercing, sucking mouth parts -- that's important," said Harland, who boasted of the "trained" bedbugs he keeps in his lab. "They feed only on blood" -- known as a "blood meal" in the bedbug community.

Dini Miller of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute reported her findings that a particularly nasty strain of insecticide-resistant super-bedbug has taken up residence in Arlington. "It's pretty amazing how tough these bugs are," she said, showing a spray can of "Bedlam" aerosol. "Very determined, these bedbugs."

But what about that article two weeks ago in the Journal of the American Medical Association finding "little evidence" that the bugs transmit disease?

Well, consider the "mental health aspects" of the bedbug. "When you've got bedbugs, your bed is not your comfort," explained Tom Neltner of the National Center for Healthy Housing. "It can have a tremendous impact on the mental health of people."

Potter, who boasted that he's spent "the last three years of my life digging deep into the history of bedbug management," offered a challenge: "I'd like to take anybody who thinks bedbugs is not a big deal, and we'll sprinkle a few in their house and see what they think."

The rest of us can sleep tight, knowing our government is doing all it can not to let the bedbugs bite.