Another day, another bedbug found in the subway.
Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials have been very reluctant to talk about bedbugs in the transit system. It’s a story they wish would just go away.
So we’ll rely on undercover transit sources to bring you the first-ever BugStat.
There were at least 21 reported bedbug sightings or encounters in the subway in August — including a few incidents in which a bloodsucker bit a conductor or a rider, sources said.
According to these transit insiders, there were nine sightings on N trains, three on Q trains and two on No. 6 trains.
The itch-inducing insects also were spotted once each on Nos. 3, 4, 5 and L trains, the sources said.
HOWARD SIMMONS/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS"The MTA has found no bedbug infestations on any trains, and has found and treated bedbugs on only 16 trains," says MTA Spokesman Adam Lisberg.In addition to riding the rails, bedbugs were found in transit worker crew rooms and subway offices in Astoria, Queens, and Coney Island, Brooklyn (N and Q lines), and Euclid Ave., East New York, also in Brooklyn (A line).
“We’ve never had sightings to this magnitude,” said Joe Costales, a chairman with Transport Workers Union Local 100. “We’ve had isolated incidents in crew quarters, but it’s no longer an isolated scenario. It’s throughout the system.”
A couple of transit workers believe they have unwittingly brought bedbugs home from the job.
The MTA has steadily downplayed the significance of its insect ridership. It’s just a small part of life in the big city, officials contend.
“The subway system has 5.5 million riders every single day and we can’t check all of them for bedbugs before letting them on the train,” MTA spokesman Adam Lisberg said in early August. “That said, when we get reports of bedbug sightings, we investigate — and exterminate. This is an interesting story but not a big problem.
MARINO, JOEBedbugs were found on the N line.
On Friday, the chief spokesman pretty much said the same thing, although the math was slightly different.
“More than 5.8 million people ride 8,000 subway trains on an average weekday, but the MTA has found no bedbug infestations on any trains, and has found and treated bedbugs on only 16 trains,” Lisberg said.
Still, there is some evidence to suggest the MTA is getting a bit uncomfortable.
The agency is hiring “a recognized expert” to review its anti-bedbug efforts, Lisberg said Friday.
And it is responding to rider complaints with surprising speed.
HAND OUTThe bed bugs found riding the N train got a free ride to an MTA cleaner's home - and now the employee's infested with the little critters. The 54-year-old MTA cleaner, who wished not to be named, said she first noticed the bedbugs in her home on Aug. 3.
Laura Cohen, a lawyer who regularly rides the Lexington Ave. line, complained by email of being bitten by a bedbug on Aug. 25.
“This is disgusting and frightening,” she wrote.
Cohen received an automatic reply stating a response would come — but could take up to 15 days.
“I was furious,” she said. “Fifteen days. That’s worse than a slumlord.”
But she need not have gotten angry; a customer service manager wrote back less than three hours later.
“Please be assured that pest control will continue to be dispatched to trains and employee crew rooms where bedbugs have been reported. They will inspect . . . and fumigate as necessary.”
It’s good to know the MTA is listening. But if this story doesn’t go away soon, officials are going to keep getting bitten.
