The resurgence of bed bugs in Ottawa has touched city libraries, with periodic infestations at the main downtown branch and the small one on Rideau Street, according to library administrators.

The most recent report was of “bedbug activity” in a book at the main branch just last week, said Elaine Condos, the library system’s manager of system-wide services and innovation. (She’s also responsible for the main branch, and will be the acting chief librarian when Barbara Clubb retires at the end of the year.) “Bedbug activity” means dead bugs, larvae or droppings, though not actual live bugs.

“Ottawa Public Health has been taking the lead,” Condos said, including running a training session for library staff about a month ago. It’s not that different, she said, from training staff to deal with difficult patrons or other routine troubles in modern big-city life. The bed bug population is thought to have increased dramatically over the past decade or so with more frequent travel and, especially, reduced use of pesticides. Last May, the health department reported a doubling in the number of bed bug complaints between 2009 and 2010. They’re a serious problem in social housing and plenty of high-end landlords and hoteliers have spent small fortunes trying to eradicate them.

Bed bugs can be a real nuisance but the health agency doesn’t formally consider them a health threat, because they don’t carry disease and their nocturnal bites, while unpleasant, aren’t deadly. Condos said each library branch has been supplied with Ziploc bags and rubber gloves for library staff to use if they encounter a book with evidence of bed bugs in it. And they call in the exterminators contracted with the city’s public-works department.

It’s easy for bed bugs to make it into a library. Circulating books spend weeks at a time in people’s homes before coming back to the shelves. All sorts of people enter, linger with books and magazines and computers on the furniture, and leave to make way for more. Ottawa’s public library prides itself on being a haven for people from all walks of life, including those who visit mostly for some warmth and quiet human contact, let alone the free enlightenment.

“They are the living room of the downtown and you get a real colourful cast of characters coming in the front door,” said Councillor Jan Harder, who chairs the library board. In an environment like that, there’s no way to keep all bugs out forever. But on the other hand, libraries aren’t terribly nice places for bedbugs to stay and breed: the critters are most active when they feed at night, when typically there’s nobody around, and they like to sleep close to their food sources.

At the same time, it’s unusual for bed bugs to make their way onto clothes that are actually being worn — more typically, they’d find their way into travellers’ suitcases or clothing that’s been stored. It’s not impossible that they could ride home on a library patron but it’s not likely, either.

Last October, libraries in Burnaby and New Westminster, B.C., were closed several days for pest control when patrons found live bedbugs in their books, and a library user in Vancouver reported finding some, too. Earlier in the year, Edmonton dealt with bedbugs in three libraries, though each outbreak was considered isolated and minor. Similar incidents have been reported in Toronto libraries and the Grande Bibliothèque in downtown Montreal, which has also, from time to time, dealt with lice.

In the case of a real infestation, professional exterminators steam-clean the affected area and either dispose of or gently bake books that might have bugs in them — temperatures of more than about 45 C kill bedbugs. (In Ottawa, “we throw them away,” Condos said, and no full closure of a branch has ever been required.) Staff are told to give returned books a careful once-over before reshelving them, just to be sure. It’s a less awful process than evicting the bugs from a home where people routinely sleep, which often entails buying new mattresses, harshly laundering or discarding a lot of clothes and vacating while the exterminators work.

Club and Condos said besides routine cleaning and occasional exterminator visits, the library has addressed the bedbug situation by buying more “hard-surface” furniture instead of soft upholstered pieces. The newer stuff is harder for bed bugs to hide in and it’s more durable and easier to clean.

“It’s just like in nursing homes and hospitals,” Clubb said. “Any institution where you have a lot of people moving through and they’re spending a lot of time.”

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Bedbugs are most commonly found in bedrooms but infestations can also occur in other rooms such as  bathrooms, living rooms, and laundry rooms.  Top bedbug hiding spots are

-Box Springs

-Mattress

-Couch/sofa

-Bed frame/headboard

-Walls/baseboards

-Nightstand

Other common hiding bedbug spots:

-Bedside table clutter – books, picture frames, clocks, etc

-Pillows

-Quilts, blankets, sheets

-Around window and door frames

-Behind electrical outlet covers and phone jack plates

-Between flooring and baseboards

-Inside hollow items such as table lamps

-Between the folds of drapery, curtains or bed skirts

-In items stored under the bed

-Between couch cushions

What to look for:

Finding bedbugs can be difficult because they can be very small and flat and can hide in tiny spaces and climb through thin cracks the width of a credit card.

Look for blood spots and smears on bedding, pajamas, or mattresses and other areas close to the bed – these may indicate that bedbugs have been feeding.

Adult bedbugs are oval in shape and smaller than an apple seed – usually 4 – 9mm.  Their color varies depending on where they are in their life cycle.  Newly hatched bedbugs are 1.5mm and nearly colorless – although they turn red after feeding.  Adult bedbugs are generally brown but turn reddish-brown after feeding.  As young bedbugs grow and mature, they shed their exoskeleton several times.  Look for shed exoskeletons while searching for signs of bedbugs.

In some cases, the accumulation of bedbug cast skins, and fecal spots, and bedbug eggs are visible under close inspection.

What to do if you find bedbugs:

Discard you mattress or seal your mattress and pillows with a plastic or hypoallergenic zipped covers. A young bedbug can live for several months without feeding and an adult bedbugs can survive for up to a year.  Sealing mattresses this traps the bedbugs inside and prevents them from feeding which will kill them the bedbugs over time.

Do not apply any pesticide to mattresses or other surfaces that will come in contact with the human skin unless the pesticide specifically states that the product can be used in this manner. Food grade diatomaceous earth is an all natural pesticide and one of the best kept secrets in the war against bed bugs.   Try sprinkling food grade diatomaceous earth inside your mattress cover before sealing it up.

Wash all your sheets, mattress pads, pillows, and other washable materials that could have come into contact with bedbugs in the hottest water possible to use without damaging your items.  Place them in a hot dryer – again on the hottest setting possible.

You can vacuum to capture bed bugs and their eggs, but be sure to immediately place the vacuum bag into a plastic bad, seal it tight and dispose of it immediately.

Additional resources:

How to Check Your Bed for Bedbugs

Killing Bedbugs – Tips and Tricks

Bedbug Signs – 4 Signs You Have Bedbugs

External Link – University of Kentucky Bedbug FAQ

Diatoms are small, single celled organisms and a form of algae, with hard outer shells that can be found in bodies of freshwater, saltwater and soils. As they die, the hard shells of the diatoms form layers on the beds of the waters they inhabit and over millions of years these become diatomaceous earth. Depending on its source Diatomaceous earth can have different grades, the most applicable being Fresh-Water Food Grade, which is edible.  Diatomaceous earth is porous and abrasive and these properties lend themselves to a number of uses, but for the purpose of this article we will concentrate on its use as an insecticide.

All insects, from bedbugs to scorpions, have a layer of compounds covering their bodies known as Circulatory Lipids. These compounds protect and contain liquid within the insect and prevent dehydration, but are susceptible to attack. For example, heating can melt the layer of lipids on a bug. Once this layer is gone it cannot be recovered. An insect without its protective lipid layer will rapidly lose both liquid and bodyweight, in a process called desiccation.

When insects come into contact with diatomaceous earth, their protective lipid layer is removed by the abrasive dust, leading to dehydration and eventually killing the insects. An adult bedbug will desiccate and die 24-48 hours after contact with Diatomaceous earth.

Food Grade DE can be applied to the coat of animals to treat fleas, ticks or other hair born pests and can be fed to your pets in order to treat worms and other parasites. DE can even be used as a soil additive to treat against garden pests.

There are many other benefits that DE has over other traditional pesticides. It is all natural, and its effectiveness relies on physical means – not poisons – making it impossible for insects like bedbugs to develop a resistance to it. It cannot expire and it can be laid in the crevices and hard to reach places of your home for long term pest prevention.

The Burnaby Public Library’s Metrotown main branch has had an attack of bedbugs in its thriller-mystery section, causing the library to clear out several shelves for treatment.

A reader told library staff last week there was a dead bug in a book, which was immediately put in a plastic bag. The insect was identified as a bedbug.

Deb Thomas, the manager of the Bob Prittie Metrotown branch library, said a pest control company was hired, which used a sniffer dog to identify the area where a few more dead bedbugs were found.

The area has been treated by the pest control company, which steam-cleaned the shelves. The books that were removed are being heat-treated as a precautionary measure, said Thomas.

The library decided not to issue a general public alert because of the panic that could result over the bedbugs, which are annoying but not dangerous, said Thomas.

Instead, the library contacted a handful of readers of books in the hardcover thriller-mystery section, where the bedbugs appeared to have a taste for W.E.D. Griffin novels on the Second World War.

“Unfortunately, it’s something that libraries are beginning to have to deal with,” said Thomas, noting this is the first known incident of bedbugs at Burnaby Public Library.

Libraries in Canada and the U.S. have been exposed to bedbugs, including in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver.

Jean Kavanagh, communications manager for the Vancouver Public Library, said the city’s public libraries have had some isolated cases of bedbugs, but only a few bugs at a time,

The library has a procedure for dealing with the bugs, which includes putting the book in a sealed bag and disposing of it. The occupational and health staff are notified, and if necessary, the area is cleaned, said Kavanagh.

Luckily, libraries are not great environments for bedbugs, as there are no warm bodies for them to feed on overnight, said Kavanagh.

The Vancouver Coastal Health Authority notes bedbugs are not associated with the transmission of human disease, but some people can have an allergic reaction to their bites.

Adult bedbugs – about the size and shape of an apple seed – are very resilient and can survive more than a year without feeding. The bedbugs prefer to hide close to where they feed and go back to the same hiding spot, according to information on Vancouver Coastal Health’s website.

The bugs will crawl more than 30 metres to obtain a blood meal.

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(NaturalNews) Recently someone in my community asked how to get rid of pesky critters. A neighbor who own a garden center said that they use Diatomaceous Earth. Well – that seemed to me to be a golden opportunity to reveal my little secret to the world – that I have been eating Diatomaceous Earth for about a year now.

D.E. has many beneficial effects, but it is the anti-aging effect that I have seen most pronounced as a change in myself. Rather remarkably, since I have been eating D.E., I have stopped needing to bleach my hair. It has gone from a mousy mostly grey to a luscious blond/brown (my pre-65 year old hair color). I am really happy about this change – as it is saving me tons of money ($300 a pop for tin-foil bleaching). Even my hairdresser is surprised at the change, and keeps telling me how nice the color of my hair is. However, the good news for my hair dresser is that my hair is now growing wildly faster, and so I am able to keep her happy by needing more frequent haircuts.

Diatomaceous Earth is a fossilized deposit of microscopic shells created by one-celled plants called Diatoms. These plants inhabit all the waters of the earth, and serve as the basic food for aquatic life, just as grass is the basic food for land animals. This mineral-based compound contains silicon, magnesium, calcium, sodium, iron and other trace minerals that the body needs to stay healthy. All Diatomaceous Earth is 84% Silicon Dioxide (Silica).

Here is the science behind my peculiar habit of eating diatomaceous earth:

Diatomaceous Earth is the hands-down best source of the mineral silica. In 1939, Nobel Prize Doctor Butenant showed the importance of silica for life itself. It may be true that silica is the most important trace element in human health. Silica plays an important role in many body functions. The human body holds approximately seven grams of silica, a quantity far exceeding the figures for other important minerals. Years ago, the silica found in our foodstuffs was adequate for our needs. But with today’s hybrids and depleted soils, only about 1/3 of the silica needed is supplied in our food.

Diatomaceous Earth looks like a cylinder full of holes–kind of like Rice Chex Cereal. This cylinder has a very strong negative charge while pathogens have a positive charge. As these millions of cylinders move through the stomach and digestive tract, they attract and absorb fungi, protozoa, viruses, endotoxins, pesticides and drug residues, E-Coli, and heavy metals. These are trapped inside the cylinder and passed out of the body. In addition, any larger parasites that happen to be in the stomach or digestive tract are “cut up” and killed by the sharp edges of the diatomaceous earth. All of these activities result in a much healthier body with less sickness.

Detoxification Benefits:

The spa that I own, La Casa Day Spa ( http://www.Lacasaspa.com ) in Manhattan, emphasizes therapies that detox the body. Last month, we wrote our 50,000th receipt. That’s 50,000 detox treatments we have done in 18 years, a lion’s share of those being colonics. We want all people to continue to have colonics because colonics give a thorough cleansing of the colon. But we also want people to know how to continue colon cleansing at home. D.E. is the perfect home remedy.

Diatomaceous Earth is very hard. On the hardness scale where diamonds are a 9, Diatomaceous Earth is a 7. This hardness is important because as those millions of tiny hard and sharp diatomaceous earth cylinders pass through the small and large intestines, they “scrub” the walls. After only a few months of taking Diatomaceous Earth, the intestine wall is no longer coated with mucus and molds but has become clean. The advantages of this are several:

-regularizes bowel movements (this is the most frequently mentioned benefit about D.E.)
-creates a healthier colon environment (a cleaner colon helps to keep away polyps, cancers, and ulcers)
-gives increased energy and less need for sleep (with a cleaner colon, food and nutrients are better absorbed into the blood stream)
-reduces inflammation of the intestinal tract (can prevent or clear up diarrhea and, rather intelligently, also cures the opposite condition of constipation)
-helps to normalize hemorrhoidal tissues
-alleviates lower back pain that is caused by a too-full colon

But the health benefits of D.E. only begin with colon detoxification. Other benefits of Diatomaceous Earth can be organized around three principles: over-all health; anti-aging; weight loss.

Over-All Health Benefits:
-helps repair and maintain vital lung tissues and protects them from pollution
-lowers high blood pressure
-lowers high cholesterol
-addresses osteoporosis & joint problems
-acts as a cough decreasing agent; tones the upper respiratory tract (nose, pharynx, larynx) and reduces swelling because of its positive action on the lymphatic system
-helps to prevent many unwanted side-effects of menopause
-helps to prevent kidney stones
-heals infections of the urinary tract; is a natural diuretic which can increase excretion of urine by 30 percent, thus flushing the water-excreting system and restoring normal function to these vital organs
-effective with female discharge, abscesses and ulcers in the genital area and cervix, as well as mastitis (especially for breast feeding mothers).
-acts as a supportive treatment for inflammation of the middle ear (effective in reducing swelling of the lymph nodes in the throat)
-has anti-inflammatory disinfecting, absorbing and odor binding effects
-normalizes circulation and regulates high blood pressure (hypertension)
-decreases vertigo, headache, tinnitus (buzzing of the ears) and insomnia
-promotes synthesis of elastase inhibitor by the pancreas, thus helping to normalize diabetes
-strengthens blood vessels
-helps to prevent Tuberculosis.
-improves the elasticity of the joints; helps rheumatism
-stimulates metabolism for higher energy levels

Weight Loss:

One of the benefits of silica is that it helps to destroy bad fats. Taken in the morning, it helps to curb appetite throughout the day.

Anti-Aging:

Hair (90 micrograms per gram) needs almost as much silica as bone (100 micrograms per gram). Eating D.E., with its rich supply of silica, should be part of any ongoing hair revitalization program. Silica helps to prevent baldness, stimulates healthier hair growth and assures beautiful shine, luster and strength.

D.E. serves as nature’s internal cosmetic for skin, nails and teeth as well as hair. Collagen underneath the skin enhances elasticity and beauty. Collagen is largely made up of silica. As we age, tissue degeneration accelerates because our connective tissue begins to lose the ability to retain moisture. Silica helps to slow down the degenerative/moisture-losing process of aging connective tissue.
Silica also protects our teeth and gums. By hardening the enamel, silica prevents cavities and preserves teeth. Silica also helps to prevent bleeding gums, gum atrophy, and recession.

Finally, silica can help avoid or alleviate Alzheimer’s by preventing the body from absorbing aluminum.

About the author:
Jane G. Goldberg, Ph.D. is a psychoanalyst and author of 7 books. As well, she is the owner of La Casa Day Spa in NYC , now celebrating its 18th year anniversary. In her specialization of working with cancer patients, Dr. Goldberg has integrated her psychoanalytic work with the field of holistic health.

Organic, completely safe for both humans and animals (even the most sensitive ones such as cats, kittens, small dogs and puppies), and easy to use, food grade diatomaceous earth is made from the fossilized skeletons of undersea creatures, ground to a fine powder and sprinkled on problem areas infested with fleas such as your carpets, your lawns, and yes, your pet’s fur. You will want to keep a bottle in your garage or storeroom all the time– you’ll find it’s miraculously effective not just on fleas but on other bothersome insects such as ticks, bedbugs and garden pests as well.

How To Use It

Put simply, all you really have to do is sprinkle it wherever fleas abound and the fleas die like magic! This is because diatomaceous earth works to dehydrate these insects, killing them by water loss. Regular use of diatomaceous earth in order to get rid of the next generations will ensure you get rid of the infestation in just a few days!  Here’s how to use diatomaceous earth to get ride of fleas:

1. Safety first. Wear a mask before working with diatomaceous earth in order to avoid inhaling microscopic particles. While it’s not poisonous, it can cause sneezing and stuffy nose for those sensitive to dust.

2. Begin with your pets. Sprinkle diatomaceous earth on your pet’s fur, starting along the spine and massaging as you go. Work your way outwards through all four legs all the way to the paw. Make sure you don’t get any in your pet’s eyes. Leave it for a few hours and brush your pet’s fur daily to ensure removal of dead fleas.

3. Sprinkle diatomaceous earth liberally on the carpet, rugs, floor and anywhere your pets (and their fleas!) have been. Leave them in for around four days in order to make sure that it has done its work and vacuum or sweep the area, along with the dead fleas, afterwards.

4. Often, animals pick up the fleas and leave them on blades of grass or edges of leaves in the garden. You will want to sprinkle more diatomaceous earth on your lawn and your plants. Don’t worry about having to vacuum this part– diatomaceous earth is biodegradable– nature will take care of that for you.

5. Repeat every other day or so as long as you see live fleas. With regular use, you should see a marked decrease, if not total elimination of fleas in your home and garden.

Why It’s Safe

Seen under a microscope, you will see that the edges of diatomaceous earth are made of razor-sharp edges similar to silicon sand. This works as a sharp abrasive that lacerates the hard exoskeletons of fleas and other insects, grinding it away leaving them to die of dehydration.

With no harmful chemicals or poisons that may be dangerous to humans, pets or plants, diatomaceous earth is the safe, easy and inexpensive way to get rid of your pest’s problems– whether they’re fleas, ticks or bedbugs.