Let’s get the most important thing out of the way first: 80 percent of Lewiston is NOT infested with bedbugs.
That statistic gained way more prominence than it deserved last week when an offhand estimate by a Lewiston landlord became the headline of a story, causing a bit of bedbug bedlam in official city circles.
In actuality, nobody knows — or can know — how many buildings in any town are infected with the notoriously hard-to-kill little bloodsuckers.
But it’s not nearly eight out of 10 buildings in the city.
Given a chance to qualify that statistic Thursday, landlord Ron LeBlanc said he believes 80 percent of some streets in the tightly packed downtown area may be infected.
But, again, neither LeBlanc nor anyone else really knows for sure.
The city of Lewiston gets two or three complaints a week from renters who feel their landlords are not responding to their bedbug complaints.
But that does not take into account tenants who go straight to their landlords, as directed by a new state law, and who then hire an exterminator to take care of the problem.
There are bedbugs in Portland and there are bedbugs in Augusta and Bangor. There can be bedbugs in nearly any setting, from a boarding house to the Ritz Carlton.
Experts do agree on one thing: The problem is growing.
“The results of the 2010 Comprehensive Global Bedbug Study suggests we are on the threshold of a bedbug pandemic,” according to pestworld.org.
The research for the study was compiled by the National Pest Management Association and the University of Kentucky.
The bugs are infesting homes, apartments, hotels, retail stores, offices, places of worship, college dorms, hospitals, day cares, libraries, modes of transportation, movie theaters and laundry facilities, according to the NPMA; basically, any place people go.
They tend to be worse where people “live close together and interact in enclosed spaces,” according to the study. But rural and suburban areas are not immune.
In 2009, 95 percent of NPMA members reported that their companies had dealt with at least one bedbug infestation in the past year. In 2000, only 25 percent said so.
What’s more, the organization said bedbugs were the most difficult household pest to treat, tougher than cockroaches, ants, fleas or even termites.
That’s why we did a story on LeBlanc. He has purchased a piece of equipment that kills bedbugs in all phases of their life cycle by pumping hot air into apartment buildings and homes.
The machine lifts the temperature inside to a bedbug-lethal 160 degrees, holding it there until the pests and their eggs are dead.
Contacted again Thursday, LeBlanc said he’s cleared about 20 places now with what is so far a 100 percent success rate.
But he feels sorry for the hubbub his offhand comment caused and for any embarrassment it may have brought the city.
“I love Lewiston, and I wasn’t trying to make Lewiston look bad,” he said Thursday.
And neither were we.
His best advice for avoiding bedbugs? Don’t pick up used furniture on the street. It’s out there for a reason.
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