By Philip Read and Ralph Ortega, Star-Ledger Staff

 

The bedbug -- a minuscule, multiple-legged, blood-sucking pest -- is clawing its way back into the American consciousness.

 

A resurgence of the pesticide-resistant bugs -- believed to have been largely eradicated after World War II -- prompted the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to convene the first-ever National Bed Bug Summit this week in Arlington, Va., as a way for experts and politicians to discuss the implications and find a solution for this "modern scourge."

 

Unlike mosquitoes, bedbugs -- technically called Cimex lectularius -- don't carry disease but were classified in 2002 by the EPA as a public health pest. Their bites leave small, itchy red bumps on the skin.

 

The bugs have a financial impact as well, as their population has multiplied in recent years from apartments in New Jersey to posh hotels in London, mainly the result of a globe-trotting public.

"One man sat behind me and whispered to me he had a 300-unit building," said Assemblywoman Joan Quigley (D-Hudson), a summit attendee. "He has already spent more than $100,000 to try to eradicate the bedbugs. Landlords can't afford to spend this kind of money.

 

"I came home more frightened than I was when I went" to the summit, said Quigley, who has introduced legislation in Trenton that would require landlords to pay for quick eradication of bedbug infestation.

 

Bedbugs don't fly. They rely on people and items, from books to cell phones to purses, to hitch a ride. Most of the invaders are so tiny -- barely big enough to cover Lincoln's beard on the head of a penny -- they're difficult to detect.

 

Bedbugs have been showing up in nearly every setting, from limousines and hotels, large corporations and small businesses, to private homes and the largest apartment complexes, experts said.

 

Richard Pollack, an entomologist at the Harvard School of Public Health, said there's no way to put a number on the bedbug population explosion but that it is likely to get worse before it gets better. Many are stowaways on international travelers, he said.

 

"Apartment house to apartment house, house to house, community to community, we bring home more than fond memories of our vacations and business trips. ... They spread far and wide," Pollack said.

 

"Just because you find an insect on a bed and mattress doesn't mean it's a bedbug" Pollack said.