The History of Bed Bugs Is Long and Disgusting

It seems like most city-dwellers have a bed bug horror story (I once found one cockily scuttling up from my bathtub drain). A few years ago, the little blood-sucking critters, about the size of apple seeds, took on mythical proportions. They were everywhere. Movie theaters had them. They were spotted on public transit. Even the opera wasn't safe. In New York, a map used red dots, like the welts that bites leave behind, to mark the spots that had alleged infestations.

The bugs certainly weren't just taking a bite out of the Big Apple. Pest management company Orkin made a list of cities where they'd performed the most services. In 2013, Chicago nabbed the un-coveted prize. Rounding out the top five: Los Angeles, Columbus, Detroit, and Cincinnati. Some reports suggest that the epidemic is now winding down, or even over. But Brooke Borel, writer of the "Our Modern Plagues" column for Popular Science, thinks we're getting a little too comfortable in our plush beds. About bed bugs, she writes: