DOE Spokesperson Marge Feinberg And Bed Bugs

There's a bed bug infestation at PS 69 in Jackson Heights.

Bed bugs have been found in 15 classrooms since September.

There were also bed bug outbreaks in PS 69 at the end of last school year.

The DOE Minister of Propaganda insists 15 classrooms with bed bugs in them is not an infestation or a problem:

Education Department spokeswoman Marge Feinberg said though the specimens have been found at the school, there has been no infestation.

"Every time we find a single bed bug, we are required to report it," Feinberg said in an email. "Schools are not hospitable environments for bed bugs and are brought in from the outside, usually in a bag or on clothing."

The rooms were cleaned and parents were notified, Feinberg said.

Feinberg is wrong that schools aren't hospitable environments for bed bugs.

You have wood all over the place, reading rugs, upholstered chairs in offices and kids' coats, bags and gym clothes.

Bed bugs love that kind of stuff to hide in.

But apparently Marge Feinberg thinks because schools don't have beds in them, bed bugs don't find schools hospitable.

She is either ignorant of the matter or full of crap - you pick.

This has been the line of jive the DOE has offered since bed bug sightings became a problem back in 2010 - schools are not hospitable places for bed bugs, the DOE deals with incidents immediately, etc.

But Feinberg is full of crap on that last one - the DOE does NOT deal with incidents immediately.

Here's the DOE protocol for schools when it comes to bed bugs:

You have to catch the bug, you have to send it off to a lab and you have to wait at least two weeks for the results to come back.

By the time you get a positive notice and start the remediation effort, the other bed bugs in the school could have started a whole new cohort that leads to a much bigger problem than you had two weeks before.

Clearly that is what has happened at PS 69.

For the DOE to claim that 15 classrooms with bed bugs in them since September and a swath of bed bug incidents at the end of last school year at PS 69 is nothing more than a couple of isolated incidents is laughable on the face of it.

Or at least it's laughable if you're not stuck attending that school or working in it and at risk for getting bit or bringing some bed bugs home with you.

Parents at PS 69 ought to bring a whole bunch of stuff from the school building and dump it on Marge Feinberg's desk and see if she's confident that there's no bed bug problem at PS 69.

Although come to think of it, with all the blood-sucking parasites employed at the DOE, Tweed Courthouse already has a bed bug problem in it.