By PATRICK GALLAHUE, JOHN MAZOR and SYLVIA HARVEY
May 8, 2008
Don't let the bedbugs swipe!
The blood-sucking insects aren't just living with New Yorkers at home - they're on the subways, too, according to one of the city's leading bedbug authorities.
At a recent Department of Housing, Preservation and Development forum on the subject, a city bedbug educator admitted to seeing the pests on benches in subway stations - in one case, catching a ride on an unsuspecting straphanger's caboose at Brooklyn's Hoyt-Schermerhorn station, according to people at the meeting.
The official, identified as Edward Brownbear, also reported seeing the bugs on wooden benches at the Union Square and Fordham Road stations in Manhattan and The Bronx, respectively.
Sharis Lugo, 20, of Brooklyn leaped off a bench at the Union Square station when she heard the news, saying, "Ewww! That's nasty . . . They've got to take these benches out of here!"
