NY Daily News reports on zee latest in cutting edge technology for tracking bedbugs in New York’s hotels - Dogs from the ‘Advanced K9 Detectives’ agency.

Radar the beagle and Taz the Australian kelpie are part of a crack team of sniffer dogs sweeping apartments and hotel rooms across the city to combat an infestation that has reached plaguelike proportions. The animals are specially trained to root out the pesky, blood-sucking insects, which nest in mattresses, upholstery and other furniture.

“A dog’s nose is cutting-edge technology,” Massicott [Carl Massicott, head of Advanced K9 Detectives] said. “Our animals are 100% honest, and trained to work for food and love instead of profits.”

Since we’re on the subject, let’s do a bit of research, shall we? Which hotels in New York have been infested by bedbugs? Simple - Follow the lawyers. Where there’s a bedbug in a hotel, there’s a pissed off hotel guest. A pissed off hotel guest means a lawsuit. A lawsuit means lawyers - Who are definitely bigger blood suckers than bedbugs. I’m sure the hotel management would prefer to be bitten by their own bedbugs rather than a lawyer.

So, from the only reliable source for scandalous insects in New York - The New York Post - A Manhattan man named Austin Power, and his wife, Hannah Clements, were attacked by the nocturnal nuisances while staying at a Midtown hotel in September, according to a Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit. Power and Clements say they’ve been plagued by nightmares and were humiliated by the experience, which included a trip to the hospital, according to the suited filed June 20. The pair accused the Roger Smith Hotel on Lexington Avenue of negligence for allowing the infestation and failing to get rid of the tiny insects, which feed on humans. 

Austin Power? You gotta be kidding me. 

The Washington Post recently featured on article on the scale of the problem, along with a choice collection of media stories about bedbugs. There has also been a boomlet in bedbug litigation, with guests suing hotels for millions of dollars, alleging they had become unwitting snacks in infested rooms. Most of these suits are settled, but in 2003 a brother and sister from Toronto won $382,000 from a jury in a case against a Motel 6. Of course, if such cases spur the hotel industry to attack bedbugs before they attack guests, the suits might be a public service.

Say, that’s a neat idea. Book a room at a swanky hotel in Manhattan, and then take along a coupla bed bugs. Let em take a sip of your blood and then squash the blood suckers (please don’t call PETA).  Call the manager of the hotel, raise a ruckus and then force them to waive your hotel bill. How’s that for a travel tip? Free hotel stay at downtown New York hotel! Uh..Maybe that was a bit too much advice…Be better if you just forgot you read this post. And may the bedbugs bite.