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Bedbug crisis sparks political row in Paris as insect ‘scourge’ continues

theguardian.com

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Re: Bedbug crisis sparks political row in Paris as insect ‘scourge’ continues

#101

Post by usr1106 »

praptak wrote: post #76
criley2 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get where you're coming from, but the idea that we should all rush to giant globo-monopolies to save us from the complexities of small businesses is just wild and disgusting. This is very much the "Microsoft/Apple, save me from Linux" vibe. EDIT since every reply is the same: AirBnb operates 0 rooms. To be so willfully obtuse about AirBnb is wild. Clearly the operators of these rentals are small businesses, the vas…

But Airbnb is a giant globo-monopoly. So the actual choice isnt between globo-monopolies and small business. It's between monopolies that don't spread bed bugs and one that does.

And one of these nasty platform economy phenomenons: Take the profit, leave risks and bad labor conditions to others. Whether related to bed bugs or not, those blood suckers don't deserve our sympathy or business.

Re: Bedbug crisis sparks political row in Paris as insect ‘scourge’ continues

#102

Post by hombre_fatal »

praptak wrote: post #76
criley2 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get where you're coming from, but the idea that we should all rush to giant globo-monopolies to save us from the complexities of small businesses is just wild and disgusting. This is very much the "Microsoft/Apple, save me from Linux" vibe. EDIT since every reply is the same: AirBnb operates 0 rooms. To be so willfully obtuse about AirBnb is wild. Clearly the operators of these rentals are small businesses, the vas…

But Airbnb is a giant globo-monopoly. So the actual choice isnt between globo-monopolies and small business. It's between monopolies that don't spread bed bugs and one that does.

Well, hotels spread bed bugs.

You're granting the hypothetical world of the upstream commenter where an anti-bed-bug regulation is put in place that's so bent towards hotels that only hotels could survive, but we'd need to see more details on that before we grant it. What would that even look like and would it be worth it beyond the HN knee-jerk of "lol Airbnb bad"?

Re: Bedbug crisis sparks political row in Paris as insect ‘scourge’ continues

#103

Post by TacticalCoder »

bob1029 wrote: post #97

This is why I don't mind the spiders so much. They do a really good job of vacuuming up the smaller insects around my home. You can tell how well they're working by the density of crap in their webs. I go out of my way to not harm them if possible. I used to spray for everything but I think that just makes things worse in the long run.

I always let the spiders in the house alone. I know they kill mosquitoes and the like.

But nonetheless around last september we had bedbugs in our main bedroom (France, but not Paris : rural south east of France). I couldn't find any but they were obviously sucking our blood at night: these weren't mosquitoes bites.

Thankfully that bedroom is "zen": one huge bed and that's it. So we bought all the chemicals needed to kill the bedbugs (yup, sorry for the planet about these chemicals but you cannot live with bedbugs) and I quickly repainted the entire room, figuring out that bedbugs probably wouldn't like it much to get both the anti-bedbugs chemicals plus brand new painted walls.

Chemicals, painting the whole room, washing the sheets, vaccuum cleaning. Rinse and repeat for two to three days.

No problem since.

So you can get rid of these little mofos but spiders alone aren't sufficient.

Re: Bedbug crisis sparks political row in Paris as insect ‘scourge’ continues

#104

Post by Amezarak »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #79
Amezarak wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Airbnb has 8.4 billion in revenue and 16 billion in assets. They are not a "small business." Hilton's revenue is 8.7 billion and they have 15 billion in assets. Hilton also doesn't cause rental and home prices to rise. People with enough money to buy homes to rent out as Airbnbs can buy or build small hotels with a little extra effort.

> People with enough money to buy homes to rent out as Airbnbs can buy or build small hotels with a little extra effort. I don’t see how this can be true. A half decent hotel in even cheaper parts of the US is going to cost $100k per key, and in any popular city, multiples more. Plus, if you want to buy a franchise from Hilton/Marriott/Hyatt, they are going to ask one of the owners to already have another hotel as a…

> Cities long ago stopped approving small motels to be built,

I wish they had, but that's not true anywhere I've lived.

Re: Bedbug crisis sparks political row in Paris as insect ‘scourge’ continues

#105

Post by dwroberts »

kergonath wrote: post #48
guntherhermann wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in the UK (north), and I've never in my life heard of anyone dealing with bedbugs here, and can corroborate with the sibling that the only time I've ever heard about them is through US popular culture shows (I thought they were just a warm-climate bug)

We don’t really know why they are coming back. But the fact that they used to be everywhere less than a century ago should make everyone think about protective strategies, instead of thinking that they are someone else’s problem. This is not “lol Paris” (or “lol AirBnB” like some say in other posts), this is a Europe-wide public health problem in the making. AFAICT the number of infestations grew 65% in a year in the…

> grew 65% in a year in the UK

This sounds like a Daily Mail or Mirror quote, where generally their source is a pest control person or other business attempting to scare people into buying products.

Obviously everywhere is at risk for bed bugs but I don't think the UK has some major shock infestation in the way you're trying to imply.

Re: Bedbug crisis sparks political row in Paris as insect ‘scourge’ continues

#106

Post by rayiner »

Paris could try being less filthy. New York has the same problem. After getting bed bugs from the Sofitel, the remediating of which involved plastic bagging literally everything and nuking the place with insect killer, I refuse to stay in Manhattan anymore. I stay in Westchester or sometimes Jersey.

Re: Bedbug crisis sparks political row in Paris as insect ‘scourge’ continues

#108

Post by lotsofpulp »

Amezarak wrote: post #104
lotsofpulp wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People with enough money to buy homes to rent out as Airbnbs can buy or build small hotels with a little extra effort. I don’t see how this can be true. A half decent hotel in even cheaper parts of the US is going to cost $100k per key, and in any popular city, multiples more. Plus, if you want to buy a franchise from Hilton/Marriott/Hyatt, they are going to ask one of the owners to already have another hotel as a…

> Cities long ago stopped approving small motels to be built, I wish they had, but that's not true anywhere I've lived.

I’m in the US, I have not seen a single new hotel in the last few decades that was not minimum 3 stories and indoor. The numbers do not pencil out for anything less than 60 to 80 rooms, and cities do not want the cheap local motels that end up catering to drug users/prostitutes/etc. A motel 6 would be the lowest quality tier I think.

Re: Bedbug crisis sparks political row in Paris as insect ‘scourge’ continues

#109

Post by xtiansimon »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #103
bob1029 wrote: post #97

This is why I don't mind the spiders so much. They do a really good job of vacuuming up the smaller insects around my home. You can tell how well they're working by the density of crap in their webs. I go out of my way to not harm them if possible. I used to spray for everything but I think that just makes things worse in the long run.

I always let the spiders in the house alone. I know they kill mosquitoes and the like. But nonetheless around last september we had bedbugs in our main bedroom (France, but not Paris : rural south east of France). I couldn't find any but they were obviously sucking our blood at night: these weren't mosquitoes bites. Thankfully that bedroom is "zen": one huge bed and that's it. So we bought all the chemicals needed to…

> “So we bought all the chemicals needed to kill the bedbugs (yup, sorry for the planet about these chemicals but you cannot live with bedbugs).”

No need to use chemicals. Get a mattress bag (made special for bed bugs) and buy a hand steamer. Learn where they like to hide, and blast em with steam.

Re: Bedbug crisis sparks political row in Paris as insect ‘scourge’ continues

#110

Post by tamimio »

bob1029 wrote: post #97

This is why I don't mind the spiders so much. They do a really good job of vacuuming up the smaller insects around my home. You can tell how well they're working by the density of crap in their webs. I go out of my way to not harm them if possible. I used to spray for everything but I think that just makes things worse in the long run.

Exactly this why I keep them around as long as they don’t invade my personal space, also house centipede, scary looking, but harmless to humans, deadly for small insects.
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