newjerseynewsroom.com

BY ALICIA CRUZ

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

An unidentified courtroom spectator brought some unwanted pests to Trenton’s combination police and courts building Monday, forcing a sequestration of court Room B and a visit from an exterminator.

Court officials were alerted about the spectators infestation by two other court visitors who saw bedbugs literally falling from the man's clothing as he sat in court for more than three hours before someone finally got him - and the blood-sucking parasites - to leave.

According toThe Trentonian, Dr. Joseph Rubino, who heads the city’s health and human services department, said a courtroom inspection found no "visible signs of bedbugs," but without people or items to latch onto, a bedbug would have no reason to stick around. Rubino said court officials were advised to the courtroom checked by an exterminator prior to holding court again.

A police officer told the Trentonian that someone used a vacuum cleaner to suck up the bugs, which is exactly what Jeffrey White, a research entomologist at Cooper Pest Solutions and Bedbug Central in Lawrenceville said his company would have done. White added that using pesticides would be "tricky" since people would be in that area the next day and that with a major outbreak of bedbugs occurring, stories like these would likely continue.

In January, the TVF Pest Control was fined $860,000 by the state Department of Environmental Protection levied an $860,000 fine against the TVF Pest Control company after they intentionally used hazardous pesticides to treat bedbug infestation in several homes, the Jersey Journal reported on NJ.com.

A patient complaining of a bug bite at the Meadowview Psychiatric Hospital in Secaucus led to a seven-week quarantine of two patient rooms in January after testing revealed an infestation, Hudson County spokesman Jim Kennelly told the Jersey Journal.

Cimicidae or bedbugs are blood-sucking nocturnal pests about a quarter-inch in size and remain flat until they gorge on human blood. The most common type of bedbug is the Cimex lectularius. When bitten by one of these parasitic insects, four types of skin rashes can develop. The most common rash to occur consists of red and itchy flat lesions in the area of the bite.

Bed Bug infestations within developed countries decreased between the 1930s to the 1980s, but an increase in international travel, new ineffective pest control methods and a resistance to insecticides is being blamed for spike seen last year in New York and other states, The Center for Disease Control (CDC) and the Environmental Protection Agency, said according to the NY Times.

Tuesday's bedbug drama came three days before a Trenton city council meeting where members hoped to endorse new guidelines regarding tenants, landlords, and pest extermination.