The bedbugs of NY turn up in BBC studios

Infestations of bedbugs have spread throughout New York and no-one is aware exactly where they may flip up following.

In current days there has been a buzz of activity inside UN's corridors of power: extreme discussions inside hallways, reporters conferring in hushed tones, a flurry of e-mails.

Would be the Palestinians about to declare statehood? May be the Safety Council about to authorise a military strike on Iran? Is civil war breaking out once more in Sudan?

Nope. One thing of very much higher import in case you are a UN correspondent: a creeping infestation of bedbugs.

This is a scourge at present afflicting New York, with all the bugs running rampant as a result of motels and, if a single believes the somewhat hysterical media coverage, spreading in an uncontrolled contagion to buildings these as theatres, retailers, restaurants and properties.

Bloodsucking pests

Now, bedbugs aren't hazardous or life-threatening, although their bites itch and sting.

The true discomfort is, as soon as a spot is infested, a major and pricey fumigation method is demanded to obtain rid of them.

A month back, the UN as a final point admitted it had been battling the blood-sucking pests in numerous parts of its sprawling office complex for more than a year.

So their eventual discovery inside UN media centre had an air of grim inevitability about it.

There may be just one technique to sniff out bedbugs - with canines. If a canine smells a bedbug, he or she will bark.

So in the demand of the UN press corps, Rover (or some model of him) was enlisted, and we waited with bated breath for that results.

The e-mail came at midnight and yes - unlike the well known Sherlock Holmes story in which the canine won't bark inside night time - this time, it did (in two studios, no much less).

And a single of them was ours. Oh the shame. Oh the horror.

Stigma

But what to perform?

At first we had very quiet conversations about fumigation, wanting to delay the inevitable publicity. It was hopeless.

We agreed that worse than the BBC possessing bedbugs could be for that BBC to cover up possessing mattress bugs.

In any circumstance, all of us already knew. Which is a single of the banes of functioning in the media centre exactly where journalists possess a Rover-like nose for tales.

Some turned it into a joke.

1 threw caution to the wind and knocked on our door to specific solidarity: "I know what it seems like to be stigmatised," he explained, "I've had bedbugs."

But most gave the BBC office a wide berth.

In panic, I turned to my husband.

He was dismissive. This terror of bedbugs is ludicrous, he explained. It is all element of the culture of worry in America, the latest model of "reds underneath the bed". 1st it was communists, then Obama the Islamist terrorist, and now bedbugs.