Title:
With Bedbugs, Some People See Pests, Others See
Profits
Description: This is
a VOA Special English Economics Report.
See text below
Text:
They are not even five millimeters long and cannot
fly or jump. Yet bedbugs strike fear in homeowners
and business owners. Well, not all business owners.
Some see money in these little bloodsuckers. Missy
Henriksen speaks for the National Pest Management
Association. She says they are now seeing bedbugs in
unusual places: schools and hospitals, store and
movie theaters. So, as the numbers have grown, those
bed bugs are spreading out and traveling along with
people.New York and other cities have outbreaks. But
the United States is not the only country affected.
Jeff White is an insect expert who hosts Bed Bug TV
on the website BedBug Central. He says the lack of
public awareness has caused this rapid expansion of
bedbug infestations. Mr. White says bedbugs nearly
disappeared from the United States for fifty or
sixty years. Now researchers are looking for faster,
safer ways to control them without the kinds of
poisons used in the past.The name is misleading.
Bedbugs do not just live in beds. Mr. White says
they can survive for a year without food -- that is,
blood. In September, an industry event called BedBug
University's North American Summit 2010 took place
near Chicago, Illinois. More than three hundred
sixty people attended the two-day meeting.The
industry says bedbugs are the most difficult pest to
control. Treatments can cost from several hundred
dollars to thousands of dollars in a hotel or
apartment building. Missy Henriksen says Americans
spent almost two hundred sixty million dollars on
bedbug treatments last year. That was only five
percent of total spending on pest control but that
number does not include other costs. She says the
total economic effect is much greater. Businesses
that have bedbugs often must close to solve the
problem. Bedbugs have not been shown to spread
disease. But they can leave itchy bite marks and
cause allergic reactions in some people. Lately,
however, another bug has caught America's attention.
The National Pest Management Association is now
getting the most questions about stink bugs.
Outbreaks have invaded homes and offices in many
states. Stink bugs are harmless except to farms and
gardens. And they smell bad only if you smash them.
For VOA Special English I'm Alex Villarreal. You can
get transcripts, MP3s and podcasts of our shows at
voaspecialenglish.com. And follow us on Facebook,
Twitter and iTunes at VOA Learning English.
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Hi. I
personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
