제 20 호 A War against Bedbugs
Kicker: LIFE
A War against Bedbugs
By Ye-Dam Hwang, Cub-reporter
Do you know about bedbugs? Bedbugs have appeared in foreign countries such as France, the United Kingdom, and China. However, recently bedbugs are emerging even in Korea quite speedily. Bedbugs trouble people by biting them and clinging to their clothes like a coat. Because of this appearance and the speed of the spread of bedbugs, people started to worry about bedbugs and even therefore, some people don’t want to take their seats of public transportation and some even hesitate to go to the movie theater because of anxiety about the bugs. Since bedbugs are in full swing these days, the need to know and analyze about these bugs and take an action to deal with this situation is growing in importance.
What is a Bedbug?
Bedbug is a bug which lives in people’s houses, nests, bat caves, and body of the livestock which is raised in the house. It is brown and its length is 6.5~9mm. It is nocturnal and it feeds on the blood of people. By feeding on blood, it makes unpleasant pruritus to people and to some people, it makes people have disturbed sleep and allergy. These are not all of the effects of bedbugs. Its excreta, which looks like mold, makes the house be dirty with its look and bad smell.
Situation of Foreign Countries
In foreign countries, especially in Western countries, bedbugs have appeared since about ten years ago. Particularly, France, which will host the Olympic Games in 2024, is suffering from this bug. The schools in France are even closed since the fast spread of bedbugs. Therefore, many tourists traveling to European countries warn and alert people to know about bedbugs in Europe with their experiences of it.
Then, why has the number of bedbugs increased in such foreign countries? The reason why bedbugs are appearing in Western countries is that there are many wooden buildings and old buildings in Europe, compared with Korea. With this condition, the bedbugs hide in bed mattresses and furniture and live by feeding off human blood. Thus, in European countries, the authorities and travelers have been at war with bedbugs from then to now.
Situation of Korea
Bedbugs no longer only appear overseas. These days, bedbugs have also appeared in Korea, and it raises people’s concerns. They are seen in the subway, KTX, and even in living spaces like college domitories and family houses. Since bedbugs can be moved on clothes or some objects, the spread of it becomes fast and people are worrying about the transfer of this bug unwittingly. As an example of this situation, a 29-year-old office worker created online bedbug status board which shows all the daily, weekly, monthly, and the total number of bedbug’s appearance, as well as the appearance area and related articles. He said, “I’ll help drive out the bedbugs with this board”. Also, the special beddings which keeps out bedbugs are selling fast. One officer in the bedding industry said that the problem of bedbug will not be ended easily and each company is busy developing or promoting additional bedding that strengthens bedbugs prevention and eradication functions.
How to Prevent Bedbugs
As the problem of bedbugs is becoming bigger, the need to know about how to prevent bedbugs is clear and important these days. To prevent it, if you are in an accommodation, it is important to check the room to see if there are any bedbugs and not to keep your luggage on the floor or on the bed. If the bedbug is in there, you can control the pest both physically and chemically. The physical control methods are spraying high-temperature steam to the crack between the furniture and walls, removal with vacuum cleaner, and using dryer in 50 to 60℃ for at least 30 minutes to treat the contaminated fabric. The chemical control methods are using pesticide and not using the smoke bomb because bedbugs will move to another place to avoid the smoke when we use it, and not spraying pesticides on fabrics such as bedding and clothes that touch the skin directly.
The Seoul city government has started to inform people of the accommodations which have the ‘bedbugs prevention facility’ sticker. Also, the city government operates an online bedbug outbreak reporting center and provides information to solve the people’s curiosity about bedbugs. In addition, the seats of KTX and subway are being sterilized to prevent bedbugs.
The bedbug problem is no longer just a foreign problem. As the speed of the spread of bedbugs is getting faster, people’s anxiety and concern are growing bigger. Thus, we need to know exactly about what is the bedbug and how to prevent it in detail. I hope this article will help students cope with the bedbugs problem.
Sources: https://news.mt.co.kr/mtview.php?no=2023111508503173795
https://www.mk.co.kr/news/business/10877169
https://news.seoul.go.kr/welfare/archives/557157?listPage=1&s=%EB%B9%88%EB%8C%80
