Beasts Feast On Blood While Authorities Dither

“Feasting on human blood,” “confounding officials” — it’s almost out of Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita. A city under siege by a host of unwanted mischief makers:

New York City is experiencing a dramatic resurgence in bedbugs — those pesky oval insects that hide in the crevices of furniture and feast on human blood at night — and officials are confounded about how best to respond.

. . .

At a City Council hearing yesterday on the issue, entomologists and exterminators said that bedbugs have been proliferating at levels not seen in decades. The cause of the resurgence is not certain, but experts have speculated that increased international travel, a recent ban on powerful pesticides and the market in used furniture have been factors.

A bill by Councilwoman Gale A. Brewer of Manhattan would ban the sale of reconditioned mattresses — old mattresses with a new fabric cover sewn onto them, often with the original upholstery and padding underneath — and create a task force to study the issue and make recommendations within a year.

Within a year . . . by then it will be too late — bwahahaha!

See also: NYPD Bedbug; Don’t Let The . . .; It’s Endemic, Pandemic, This Epidemic; Bedbugs Don’t Wait For Midterms Now, Do They?; Don’t Let The Gasoline-Soaked Bedbugs Burst Into Flames In The Middle Of The Night, Setting Your Living Quarters On Fire.