Sleep Tight New York

So this is simply disgusting to me. My mom always told us not to let the bed bugs bite, and now I know why. NYC is facing a large and nasty problem. . .sorry for the crude post.

Does New York City need a bed bug task force?
(New York, New York)
There is a growing problem in New York City with bed bugs, those creepy, crawly little insects that crawl right out of your mattress and leave bites and welts on your skin. The problem's so bad that one councilwoman says we need a task force to fight it.

What you need to know about bed bugs
It wasn't that long ago that Pest Away Exterminators had never gotten a call about bed bugs. Nowadays they get 60 calls a day. Housing projects have them and Park Avenue coops you and you couldn't get in without a warrant, have them. Some say its time the city started addressing the issue.

So you think it's a poor person's problem, right?
Jeffrey Eisenberg is an exterminator.
Jeffrey Eisenberg, Pest Away Exterminators: "Most of our clientele live in Park Avenue, Fifth Avenue. In fact they have more of a likelihood of getting them because the travel a lot, go to more places with their luggage, their nannies, their housekeepers, and have more a tendency to bring them in. They stay in hotels."

Getting rid of your mattress doesn't help, in fact it spreads the problem, and spraying with off the shelf products is useless, too. Only a professional can get rid of them, and even they have a tough time.

Ben Weissel, Exterminator: "Bedbugs are a parasite and the only food they can survive on is the blood of a victim or host and what will happen is somebody will go to sleep at night and wake up in the morning with bites and they don't know what they are."

To combat the growing problem, City Councilwoman Gail Brewer wants to ban the sale of reconditioned mattresses and create a task force of city agencies to focus on bedbug eradication. But it's a big, and expensive, problem.

So, why is it so hard to get rid of bedbugs? Well, they're hard to kill, it takes a cocktail made of several highly toxic chemicals to do the trick. Females lay 2,000 eggs a year, and they can live up to six months without eating. When they do eat, well remember the two Swiss tourists. It is a big and a quickly growing problem.