Paris bitten by New York-style bed bug scare

   According to a Reuters article today, the Parisians are also contending with bed bugs just like New Yorkers were doing this past summer. Looks like the contagion is spreading outwards in a concentric circular-shaped wave.

From the article:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSLNE6AG00U20101117

Bed bugs, known in French as "punaises de lit", or "bed drawing pins", were a rarity in France just three years ago, far less prevalent in homes than mice or cockroaches and well under the radar of public health officials. No longer. An employee at the public health section of Paris' City Hall who asked not to be named said more than 600 places in the city have needed treating for bed bug infection so far this year -- a marked increase from 2009.

While the city is playing down the extent of the problem, rejecting the term "invasion", exterminators said bed bugs were spreading quickly throughout the French capital and had already appeared in other parts of the country. "Let's say it started in 2007," said Reynald Boudet, owner of the Aurouze extermination shop in Paris. "Back then we had ten requests per year. Now it's more like a hundred ... We are getting more and more orders for (extermination) products from all over the country."