In this period of diminished expectations, it’s somehow fitting that we’ve gone from worrying about shark attacks to fretting about bedbug bites. Of course, the latter are more common (if less fatal) than the former. So, now we even have polls about bedbugs — or, a least one poll. Fielded by SurveyUSA in the New York area — a favorite venue for the bugs, evidently — it found 8 percent of respondents saying they’ve had bedbugs in their own home. Nineteen percent answered “yes” when asked if they “know anyone who has bedbugs.” And 52 percent said they’d “recognize a bedbug if you saw one,” an awareness level that some consumer brands can only envy.
