How Bedbugs Are Changing The Way Kids Scrounge
Yesterday was moving day in Boston, and the city's many college students were forced to confront the pest that is eating America: bedbugs. The New York Times shows that while some of our young scholars are blase about the bloodsuckers, there are signs that others, at least, have their priorities straight.
Officials for the Inspectional Services Department spent much of the day canvassing neighborhoods and slapping bright orange stickers on items left on sidewalks. "Caution this may contain bedbugs," the stickers warn, "do not remove!" An image of a bedbug appears on the sticker to drive the point home.
The warning was not always heeded in one neighborhood teeming with students and recent graduates on tight budgets, hard at work claiming discarded furniture from the sidewalks.
Clay Adaurczyk, 23, let his roommate claim an end table, a chord organ and a bong, but he said he drew the line at a used pillow.
"An image of a bedbug appears on the sticker to drive the point home."
Are bedbug images that recognizable? If I saw one I might think it was street art instead of an actual literal representation of a bug threat.
these bedbug stickers brought to you by Zynga.
i would buy a t shirt with that on it, just not from a & f.
Quick, someone make a stencil!
those are going to be some SRSLY blunted bedbug eggs. Upside = they'll probably stay dormant longer.
What if they get the munchies?
For several years after I graduated, I had an all-scrounged collection of furniture (coffee table, end table, and an easy chair and a recliner!). Now I realize that I was walking on the edge of knife!
If you're going to scrounge, though, the key is to do it in the right places. The curbs in Newton are awash with furniture bought new 12 months ago by mommy and daddy. The same is sometimes true in Brookline, although I would stick with wipeable, hard-surface items. Brighton and Allston are right out.
…and Cambridge?
This JUST happened. I left the apartment to go grab some lunch. The cleaning crew clearing out the vacated apartment above me has apparently laid claim to the trash pile they put on the curb. So I'm nosing around to see if there's any goodies, and one of the guys says "Hey, you like art?" I sure do! He shows me a pile of canvases that I know for a fact were painted and left behind by the girl that just moved out, but he's acting like he just happened to have them on him at that moment. I pull one out that I like, and he says "Eh, gimme a price." I was flabbergasted, but in awe of the balls it must take to try to sell me garbage from my own building. So I paid him two bucks. He deserved it.
Also, I'm confident that the art doesn't have bedbugs. They would have had to crawl through my bedroom to get up there anyway.
Could be an homage to one of Warhol's Piss Paintings, though. Hang with care.
I grabbed that thing and then ate my lunch!
I think the bedbugs were invented by the struggling furniture industry to drive the sale of new beds, couches, etc…
I'm pretty sure bout this.
The first time I saw one of those stickers was in 2004; this was before I knew bedbugs were a "thing" (and the extent of the horror), but the menacing stickers still made me jump back away from the bureau, scream, and sprint down the block.
Unrelated: are there really people that just take a couple of days off to avoid the students, at the NYT suggests? I go into lock-down mode for Marathon Monday (and refuse to take the B-line from September-May), but really?
I moved every September from when I was 17 to when I was 24. Now that I'm relatively settled, I wouldn't DREAM of leaving Boston during move-in day. There's no more profound and perverse joy than witnessing all of these poor schlubs moving couches up the stairs to their fifth floor Comm Ave. walkup, because I was that poor schlub! Move-in day makes me feel like I've actually made it.
Unrelated: by "lock-down" mode, you mean "find a Marathon-route party so I can drink outside with impunity" mode, right?
If you live near or adjacent to one of the student ghettos, absolutely. When I lived in the east Fenway (south of Boylston, west of Mass Ave), on September first I fucking disappeared … into a bar at the Lenox for the day. The Times was a bit hysterical.
Unrelated: will it ever stop being so fucking hot here, please?
Don't you people have jobs that make you come in on the weekdays?? (If you are un- or under- employed, I will buy you a drink at the next Bawl for my blunder).
Re: the heat: I have been forced to exhibit bare legs, and for a goth like me it is a big fucking problem. COME HOME, EARL.
I work for a non-profit about 85 hours a week. I'd guess about 20 of those hours are spent working from a bar in the Back Bay.
It's a tough life?
Not sure. Either way, it sounds about like my aspirations.
(PS: MAKE HASTE, EARL!!!!1)
You know the heat is bad when people are hoping for a hurricane to bring relief.
While I'm not a big fan of the heat, I'm going to the Cape tomorrow morning, so sort of hoping Earl will pass us by. Or just make it really windy at Craigville – I love watching those kite surfers!
@garge YOU STOP TRYING TO CONJURE THE HURRICANE RIGHT NOW. I mean it! I am supposed to fly to DC tomorrow and I do not intend to die in a hurricane-related plane crash! Or to sit on the tarmac for six hours before the flight is eventually canceled, which is probably the more likely option!
The Weather Channel says Earl has moved a bit west and will now be worse on the Cape and Islands/SE Mass than originally anticipated. Major disaster and I will get you for this somehow, garge…
Heh, I was just asking if I would be in big trouble if this thing goes seriously south, metaphorically. I definitely won't make the Carl Quintanilla mistake and say we 'dodged a bullet' at any point this weekend. Batten down the hatches you guys! Godspeed, MajorD!
I cannot WAIT for the rash (ho ho) of bedbug infestations that will result from Burning Man. Sharing a sleeping bag with that cute Java programmer with the chest tattoo will give you more than just shame and crabs now.