Even city lawyers can't win bedbug battle: Pesky pests found in Brooklyn offices

Even city lawyers can't win bedbug battle: Pesky pests found in Brooklyn offices


Sourced BY: William Sherman, Kerry Burke and Lukas I. Alpert
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Even the city's top lawyer can't defend against bedbugs.

Inspectors fumigated the Brooklyn offices of the city's corporation counsel Tuesday night after a bedbug-sniffing dog discovered the nasty pests among some files.
"None of our lawyers were scratching or complaining of bedbug bites," insisted managing attorney Foster Mills. "We are doing this as precautionary measure."

The skin-crawling find was sniffed out by a specially trained beagle brought into the eighth- and ninth-floor offices of the city's legal department at 350 Jay St. on Monday night.

After doing a six-hour, room-by-room search, the pooch discovered the creepy crawlies tucked into 12 file folders on a desk and the floor of an office, officials said.

"The beagle went into every nook and cranny of both floors and that was all the beagle found," Mills said.

The discovery was made in the same building that houses the Brooklyn district attorney's office, which was fumigated over the weekend for bedbugs.

The Secret Service has offices there, too, and the building also houses the Brooklyn Marriott hotel.

The horrific situation comes as the city deals with a plague of the parasites that seem to be turning up everywhere.

A Daily News-Marist poll found that more than one in 10 New Yorkers has battled bedbugs in their homes - from tatty tenements to the toniest townhouses. The poll of 809 city residents has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

The bloodsucking scourge has also turned up in posh clothing stores and even in movie theaters.

Officials shut down the AMC 25 in Times Square last week after a customer complained that she was bitten while watching a film there, WABC-TV reported.

Moviegoers Tuesday said they had seen signs last week saying the theater was closed due to "technical difficulties."

"I guess bedbugs might be technical difficulties," said David Cahill, a 29-year-old product manager from Astoria, Queens. He had second thoughts about dropping in to see a screening of "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" Tuesday when told the nasty news.

"I feel itchy already," he said before heading off to find another theater.

Hard to detect and even harder to kill, complaints about the vile vermin to the city's 311 phone line shot up 33% last year, officials say.

The pests had once nearly been eradicated but have come back with a vengeance after becoming pesticide-resistant.


By: Bradley Skierkowski