Atmosphere of horror and panic with bed bugs

The tiny parasite has created an atmosphere of horror and panic in Paris and the rest of France: “Many are afraid just because they saw its image on the Internet.”

“I’ve never seen such panic” says Thibault Buckley, sitting in his chair in the office of a bedbug service in eastern France. He says nearly two-thirds of the dozens of calls he receives weekly come from people who have noticedx “something that has nothing to do with a bug.”

Recently, the French capital has been experiencing a stir around these parasites. Videos posted on social networks show bedbugs roaming public transport, universities, schools and the beds of residents of the capital.

Washing and spraying
Last week alone, 12 schools reported bedbugs. The problem is real, but the reaction to it seems to be getting out of control. Many Parisians obsessively wash and scrub everything in their homes at the magical temperature of 60 degrees Celsius, spray all their furniture with pesticide chemicals and call in special services with dogs to make sure their efforts bear fruit.

“The bedbugs have not gotten into the sheets of those who call us, but into their minds,” says Emily Gauthier, owner of a dog grooming company. “A woman recently told me that if there were bed bugs in her house, she would jump out of the window.”

“It became a real obsession” says Dr. Beranger, an entomologist at the Hospital of Infectious Diseases at the University of the Mediterranean in Marseille. Bérenger specializes in bedbugs, which he has been studying for more than 10 years. “This is the first time that people come to me and ask me to come to their home to look for bedbugs, and they haven’t even been bitten or traveled anywhere. They are just afraid because they saw them on the Internet.”

Bedbugs were very common before World War II and were not always eradicated using the powerful and extremely dangerous pesticide DDT, which was widely used and banned in France and the United States in the 1970s. The flat-bodied brown insects, which feed on the blood of people and animals, especially at night, became widespread globally in the 1990s, thanks to their immunity to insecticides, the rise of international travel and the purchase of second-hand clothing and accessories. “Moving the population helps the pests. They don’t fly or jump, they just move with us.”explains Beranger.

“Bedbugs have the magical ability to cause anxiety.says Emily Gauthier, owner of a company that uses dogs to track down annoying insects. – They look like lice, but they come at night and bite you. I think it brings out childhood nightmares in people.”

Bedbug bites are, of course, unpleasant, but the reaction, often bordering on hysteria, is incommensurate with the pain they cause. “I see people getting paranoid”, says Ms. Gauthier. For people with a sensitive nervous system who suffer from anxiety attacks, this whole story becomes the cause of the trauma they experience. The media and the Internet do not contribute to this. “We will do our job – provide hygiene services to people– concludes Madame Gautier, – n“In many cases, bedbugs have settled not in the beds of those who contact us, but in their minds.”

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