"Bed bug alert!"
"On social networks or in his entourage, testimonials are multiplying.
These little blood-sucking beasts are making a comeback when they had completely disappeared in the 1950s in France.
The interventions of professionals are intensifying.
The CS3D, which brings together some of the companies in the sector, recorded 540,000 interventions in 2019 against 200,000 in 2017. Figures which, if they attest to an upsurge, remain below reality since many infested people do not speak about it. not.
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The deputy of Bouches-du-Rhône Cathy Racon-Bouzon returned, in mid-October, a report on the subject to the Minister for Housing, Emmanuelle Wargon.
"A roadmap should be completed by the end of November," explains the Ministry of Ecological Transition, on which housing depends.
"It is the result of an awareness while the phenomenon was until today in the shadow of the public authorities", explains MP LREM.
Better communicate on "barrier gestures"
The increase in travel, the development of short-term rentals and sales of second-hand products, especially clothing and furniture, are directly responsible for the rapid spread of these bugs throughout the country.
"We can perhaps expect, in 2020, a decrease thanks to confinement since people have gone out less," notes Nicolas Roux de Bézieux, the co-founder of Badbugs, a platform for making appointments. you for the treatment of bedbugs.
If these insects develop, it is also because the reaction time of those who are infested with them is very slow, out of “shame” or ignorance.
"Even some professionals, such as doctors or pharmacists, are not trained to diagnose a bedbug button," warns Cathy Racon-Bouzon who advocates a major information campaign among health professionals, but also among the general public to communicate "barrier gestures" against the bedbug.
Towards financial aid?
No one is immune.
“It strikes the poorest as well as people who have money,” recalls Thomas Fiecha, manager of Bedbug Scent Dogs, specializing in the canine detection of bedbugs.
But if everyone can have it, it is the poorest people who suffer the most over time.
"The more money you put in, the faster you get rid of it, because the more effective the treatment is a priori", notes Nicolas Roux de Bézieux.
A treatment by heat gun, very effective and which presents only few constraints, costs several thousand euros.
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Cathy-Racon Bouzon then proposed to set up financial aid in support of the most modest, via the Family Allowance Fund.
But it also proposes to clarify the law: should a tenant pay for the disinfestation himself or does the burden fall on his landlord?
The current texts remain vague and suggest that it is up to the owner to take care of it, unless he proves that it is the tenant who made him "enter" ...
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If Julien Denormandie, then Minister of Housing, had said in February that he wanted “insurance contracts to cover this risk”, the reality is more complicated: without reliable statistics, it is difficult for them to estimate a cost.
Only one insurance offers it today - the MACSF - with a maximum coverage of 300 euros.
The lack of statistics also explains why no public policy has yet been put in place to counter the phenomenon.
Tackle the scams that proliferate
Another project - and not the least: the regulation of professionals.
Today is a bedbug exterminator who wants.
"When we are in this situation, we want to listen to the salesman of dreams: the one who will tell us that he will just need to stop by once, without moving his business ... but for efficiency, that's not it, ”explains Nicolas Roux de Bézieux, whose platform allows them to leave opinions on professionals.
Cathy-Racon Bouzon relies on a “structuring of the sector”, “with a single protocol, a single doctrine and a single certification”.
The site is titanic, but necessary.
“There is a real impact on the mental health of infested people,” explains Cathy-Racon Bouzon.
Some people burn-out, others develop post-traumatic stress that lasts for years afterward.
The bedbug has been around since prehistoric times: we will not eradicate it, but we must do everything to live with it.
"