While bed bugs are nothing new to New York City, other major cities should heed the big apple's warning. Like, for example, San Francisco. According to a recent list, Baghdad by the Bay was ranked the 10th most bed bug-ridden city in the U.S. The list is as follows: more ›

Via B.K.: "bed bugs in the news suddenly? why? It's not like they materialized a month ago. So why the sudden press? Did the alpha bed bug bring it's vast fortune over to Ketchum for a little press, bummed by all the attention the swine flu, mad cow, & flesh eating viruses always get? (SFist would also like to add pit bulls to the list.) WTF. Let's shelve this topic where it belongs...in our mattresses." more ›

Cases of bedbugs in San Francisco rental housing are on the rise, and a recent surge may be blamed on the recent hot weather we experienced -- bedbugs thrive in temperatures of 70 and above, with the females laying more eggs and eggs hatching more quickly in the heat. As the Examiner reports, the greatest concentration of bedbugs seems to be in the Tenderloin, with its clusters of cracky SROs and such. But Uptown Almanac posted this alarming photo of a not-so-quarantined mattress lying out on the streets of the Mission last week, so other neighborhoods are clearly not immune. more ›

Via Mission Mission, a Yelper took it upon herself to warn fellow customers of a local bookstore that she had allegedly gotten bed bug bites while sitting and reading Twilight in one of their comfy armchairs. [Update: We have no evidence she was reading Twilight -- we were just subtly riffing off of Mission Mission's sarcasm -- SFist.] more ›

Just in time for your lunch hour, a woman who received more than 400 bedbug bites during her stay at San Francisco’s Ramada Plaza Hotel has received $71,000 to settle her claim against the downtown hotel. The out-of court settlement is the largest ever paid to victims in similar bedbug-attack cases. more ›

We are super creeped out right now. We've had a few mysterious, little bites appear on our wrists that itched like a bitch the first day and have stuck around for two or three weeks. They have consistently snuck up on us, occurring about a week apart and causing our night terrors to go medieval a few times, until we finally got ahold of ourselves somewhat, thankyouverymuch. more ›

First bedbugs, then crack addicts, then bone-rattling noise -- that's the sort of bad-neighboring up with which Tenderloin residents will not put. Residents of the Lawrence Hotel have been scowling for a long time now at the deafening noise generated by Club Six -- check out these complaints. Shaking windows and floors, people on medication for sleep deprivation due to noise, doors left illegally open, and crowds so big on the sidewalk that you have to walk into the street to pass by. Yikes. We all like fun, but it's nice to have a downstairs neighbor who doesn't routinely rattle your teeth. more ›

Ew ew ew bedbugs. For the last year or two, we've been seeing a resurgence in the pests, probably thanks to the rising popularity of bed ownership or something. Even a classy joint like the Hilton isn't immune, apparently: Consumerist reports that the one on Kearny presented one customer with a delightful bouquet of bites and itching. The customer says that they complained to the folks in charge, and two days later hadn't heard back. more ›

It's January 5 and San Francisco's already logged three murders. Early Monday evening, two people were killed in separate incidents in the Sunnydale housing project, and the next day, a critically-injured woman in poor health was being held for killing her ill husband in what authorities are calling a failed murder-suicide plot. On the other end of the criminal procedure line, defendant David Hill was found guilty of the second degree murder of SFPD officer Isaac Espinoza. more ›

The good news is that vacancy rates are low across the hotel business in San Francisco. The bad news is that at least some of those rooms may be off the rolls as they are being fumigated. When we wrote our original post on San Francisco's growing bedbug infestation, we were at a loss to come up with direct reports of encounters with the parasites in some of The City's hotels. Well, Hotel Chatter dropped us a note to point to this tale of abject terror:

But by the morning of the 27th, my arms, legs and other parts of my body were full of bug bites (I took some pictures of the bites). As I was sitting on the edge of the bed putting my shoes on, I saw something crawling on the pillowcase. I carefully took a zip-lock type plastic bag and caught the little bug. I knew right away what I was dealing with. more ›

Our friend used to work as a counselor treating outpatients at a residential facility for treating people diagnosed with mental health problems and drug addiction. Sometimes her work required her to stay overnight, where she often slept on a couch at the facility. After a while, she began feeling itchy and developed a rash of spots. The problem? Likely, bedbugs -- little blood-sucking parasites that just love warm, sleeping people. more ›