New York has faced a hurricane, but the plague of insects is far worse, says Melissa Whitworth.
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Pastor Dale Morgan
Sep 6, 2010, 9:33:26 PM9/6/10
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Plagues, Pestilences and Diseases
New York has faced a hurricane, but the plague of insects is far worse, says Melissa Whitworth.
By Melissa Whitworth
Published: 8:50AM BST 06 Sep 2010
The hurricane was a breeze compared to the bedbugs; Bed bugs have again arrived in New York in full force; Adam Nadel
Bed bugs have again arrived in New York in full force Photo: Adam Nadel
Something biblical has been happening in New York. First, the threat of a hurricane – now, a plague of insects. Of course, there have always been rats: folklore has it that in Manhattan, you are never less than a few feet away from a pair of copulating rodents. Cockroaches, too, are everywhere, and refuse to discriminate on the grounds of wealth. When Richard Meier, the celebrated architect, built his glass apartment towers on the Westside Highway, Nicole Kidman and Calvin Klein reportedly had to wait until the cockroaches were evicted before they could move in.
But nothing has grossed out New Yorkers more than this summer's epic infestation of bedbugs. Normally, New Yorkers have the stoicism of Brits during the Blitz, but now pavements have been lined with discarded furniture and mattresses. Luxury department stores and even the Empire State Building were supposed to be infested. Then someone inside Google's headquarters tweeted that employees there were scratching, too.
One Brooklyn resident described being ostracised by her friends once they found out she had them: "You're like a leper," she told a reporter.
Apparently, Britain is also set for an epidemic – Rentokil claims the number of bugs has shot up by nearly a quarter in the past year, and visitors to the 2012 Olympics will apparently be ferrying in millions more. In which case, I'm sure you'll all show a stiff upper lip that will put these panicky New Yorkers to shame.
...
Another thing that Britons and New Yorkers share is an obsession with the weather that borders on hysteria. So the prospect that the Labor Day holiday, the official end of the summer season, would be ruined by the arrival of Hurricane Earl, a Category Two tropical storm, was front-page news. The New York Post, under the headline "Earl's Gone Wild", detailed the city's efforts to ward off disaster. The Red Cross opened 50 shelters that could house 60,000 people if the need arose. Power companies were on stand-by to deal with downed cables and power outages. As Earl hit North Carolina with 105mph winds, New York's Office of Emergency Management prepared its "situation room".
Locals prepared for 55mph winds (routine on the west coast of Britain, but panic-inducing here) by stocking up on emergency supplies such as torches, batteries and bottled water. CNN breathlessly reported that Earl was particularly destructive because it was so large, spanning 166,000 square miles – larger than the state of California. The president declared a state of emergency in Massachusetts. The state's governor implored people not to panic.
As it turned out, they all looked rather silly. After 24/7 coverage on the news channels of Earl's progress – and the likely path of devastation – the storm arrived with a muffled meow, not a roar. By Saturday, it was Canada's problem.
...
On Friday, however, as the skies grew ever greyer and the air muggier, I wondered how my friends were preparing for a bout of Mother Nature's wrath in their holiday homes in the Hamptons. "We have cancelled our trip to Nantucket," emailed a friend, "but I have packed a Helmut Lang oilskin coat to brave the winds with fashionable gusto. Joey brought a sarong and wants me to photograph him in 100mph winds. He thinks it will be chic."
I wonder how the shoot went in the puff of hot air that the storm turned out to be. As another irate friend wrote on his Facebook status: "Open letter to the weatherman: I carried around my duck umbrella all night – FOR NOTHING."
New York has faced a hurricane, but the plague of insects is far worse, says Melissa Whitworth.
By Melissa Whitworth
Published: 8:50AM BST 06 Sep 2010
The hurricane was a breeze compared to the bedbugs; Bed bugs have again arrived in New York in full force; Adam Nadel
Bed bugs have again arrived in New York in full force Photo: Adam Nadel
Something biblical has been happening in New York. First, the threat of a hurricane – now, a plague of insects. Of course, there have always been rats: folklore has it that in Manhattan, you are never less than a few feet away from a pair of copulating rodents. Cockroaches, too, are everywhere, and refuse to discriminate on the grounds of wealth. When Richard Meier, the celebrated architect, built his glass apartment towers on the Westside Highway, Nicole Kidman and Calvin Klein reportedly had to wait until the cockroaches were evicted before they could move in.
But nothing has grossed out New Yorkers more than this summer's epic infestation of bedbugs. Normally, New Yorkers have the stoicism of Brits during the Blitz, but now pavements have been lined with discarded furniture and mattresses. Luxury department stores and even the Empire State Building were supposed to be infested. Then someone inside Google's headquarters tweeted that employees there were scratching, too.
One Brooklyn resident described being ostracised by her friends once they found out she had them: "You're like a leper," she told a reporter.
Apparently, Britain is also set for an epidemic – Rentokil claims the number of bugs has shot up by nearly a quarter in the past year, and visitors to the 2012 Olympics will apparently be ferrying in millions more. In which case, I'm sure you'll all show a stiff upper lip that will put these panicky New Yorkers to shame.
...
Another thing that Britons and New Yorkers share is an obsession with the weather that borders on hysteria. So the prospect that the Labor Day holiday, the official end of the summer season, would be ruined by the arrival of Hurricane Earl, a Category Two tropical storm, was front-page news. The New York Post, under the headline "Earl's Gone Wild", detailed the city's efforts to ward off disaster. The Red Cross opened 50 shelters that could house 60,000 people if the need arose. Power companies were on stand-by to deal with downed cables and power outages. As Earl hit North Carolina with 105mph winds, New York's Office of Emergency Management prepared its "situation room".
Locals prepared for 55mph winds (routine on the west coast of Britain, but panic-inducing here) by stocking up on emergency supplies such as torches, batteries and bottled water. CNN breathlessly reported that Earl was particularly destructive because it was so large, spanning 166,000 square miles – larger than the state of California. The president declared a state of emergency in Massachusetts. The state's governor implored people not to panic.
As it turned out, they all looked rather silly. After 24/7 coverage on the news channels of Earl's progress – and the likely path of devastation – the storm arrived with a muffled meow, not a roar. By Saturday, it was Canada's problem.
...
On Friday, however, as the skies grew ever greyer and the air muggier, I wondered how my friends were preparing for a bout of Mother Nature's wrath in their holiday homes in the Hamptons. "We have cancelled our trip to Nantucket," emailed a friend, "but I have packed a Helmut Lang oilskin coat to brave the winds with fashionable gusto. Joey brought a sarong and wants me to photograph him in 100mph winds. He thinks it will be chic."
I wonder how the shoot went in the puff of hot air that the storm turned out to be. As another irate friend wrote on his Facebook status: "Open letter to the weatherman: I carried around my duck umbrella all night – FOR NOTHING."
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