Bedbugs present an issue on the rise in not only health and medical issues but in the court and legislative system in the U.S.

Professor May Berenbaum, head of the department of entomology and a noted author, said bedbugs are definitely in Urbana-Champaign.

“We are more at risk than other cities because we have a tremendous influx of international students and scholars,” she said.

Berenbaum noted that bedbugs have nothing to do with cleanliness.

“They are really hard to control. They are very hard to find, and they are brought in from other countries where there has been intense selection from insecticide resistance,” she said. “Even people who conscientiously try to control for them might end up with a problem.”

Berenbaum recently authored an opinion-editorial piece published in The New York Times concerning the issue.

The Illinois General Assembly found themselves faced with the issue last year in a house bill, which appointed a task force to combat the issue within the state.

Sara Kantarovich, technical director and corporate trainer for the pest management company Smithereen, said Illinois is behind other states in bedbug legislation.

“There are some states that already have some legislation in place or (are) very, very soon to be in place, where they assign responsibility,” she said.

“The task force is a combination of many different industries, but their only function right now is they have a year to put something together and make a recommendation to the state on what to do.”

Berenbaum said there is a long history of legislators belittling any legislation to do with insects, “which reflects more their ignorance than the inconsequential nature of the issues under discussion.”

Besides the health and legislative issues, bedbugs’ impact on tourism may become a major one within Illinois.

“If tourists turn away from Chicago in droves, then our fiscal hole will be even bigger (in the state). This is a major tourist concern; New York is certainly aware of it,” Berenbaum said.

In 2007, an opera singer sued Hilton Hotels Corp. for $6 million, saying she suffered more than 150 bites from bedbugs while in an Arizona hotel.

Kantarovich said hotels that don’t handle the issue properly are the ones who find themselves in trouble for negligence.

“There has been a whole host of lawsuits against hotels. They are everywhere,” she said. “It is not going away, and it’s going to get bigger.”

Kristin Baker, general manager of the Sleep Inn in Urbana said the hotel has not had the situation occur and is taking preventative measures to make sure it does not.

“It’s very expensive when that occurs,” she said. “If we have one sign of anything, it is brought to my attention, and we shut the room down,” Baker said.

Kantarovich cited education as the best item to combat the problem.

“A lack of public knowledge adds to the problem,” she said. “This is a pest that we are going to have to deal with for quite a while.”