This column isn't for the faint-hearted. It could drive you buggy - literally.
Over the past month most every day across my computer comes yet another story about bedbugs. Blame them in part on Al Gore I suppose, as most theories I've read about the increase in bedbug infestation across the United States this summer seems to center around warmer weather the country has experienced, plus the lack of effective pesticides to deal with the bugs.
The good news, I suppose, is that bedbugs do not transmit diseases. Better still, there haven't been reports locally yet of major bedbug concerns.
The bad news is that the problem nationally keeps growing and it could present some economic challenges to one of the few segments of the economy that hasn't done too poorly this summer.
In a story that moved across my computer Friday, the Rasmussen Reports stated that in a poll conducted this week of 1,000 people, one out of five Americans said that concern about bedbug infestation has caused them to change their plans to go into certain public places. Think about that for a second. Twenty percent of those polled have altered plans because of bedbugs!
Those statistics don't bode well for the tourism industry, which at least in Michigan this summer, generally has fared rather well. Thankfully the big part of the season now is behind us after this weekend, but Up North we still will realize tourism dollars in autumn and winter as well.
We would hate to think someone would cancel a trip over concerns about bedbugs.
Then again, maybe it isn't so far-fetched.
"We believe that there probably isn't a hotel in the United States that has not had bedbugs at least once over the last five years," said Ron Harrison, director of technical services for Orkin Pest Control in a story in the Boston Globe Thursday.
And, in that Rasmussen Report poll Friday, 46 percent said they were at least somewhat concerned about bedbugs affecting them personally.
While Up North Michigan seems to be weathering the bed bug problem for the moment, the same can't be said for southern Michigan. In a list last week made public by Terminix, Detroit was rated as the third most bug-infested city in the United States, following Philadelphia at number two and New York City as number one. The list was compiled by the number of calls to Terminix service centers this summer across the country.
And, with colleges resuming classes across the country for the fall semester, many, such as Michigan State University, implemented extra cleaning procedures this summer in preparing dorm rooms for an influx of new students.
Many baby boomers like me grew up listening to our parents, as they tucked us into bed, say as they closed the door to our bedroom "good night, sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite."
Such was a popular phrase of our country's depression era, when our parents were growing up, that then was repeated to us as children.
Who would have thought that all these years later our generation would face the same type of infestation problem as that back then.
As a child I didn't give that phrase much thought.
Today, however, it has a whole new meaning.