This app lets you sleep tight - without the bed bugs biting!
New York is in the grip of a bed bug plague, with the blood-sucking bugs now spreading into higher end hotels like the Waldorf Astoria, the city's fleet of taxis and even exclusive retailers like Victoria's Secret and Abercrombie and Fitch.
Some people are cancelling their travel plans for New York altogether, fearful of being bitten or bringing unwanted travellers back home, according to various reports.
However, a new iPhone app aims to combat that, giving a live map of bedbug sitings in New York and nine other cities which are also teeming with infestations.
The app costs $2.49 from the Australian iTunes Store (or $US1.99 if you have an account on the US one). It uses the iPhone's GPS to show bedbug-infested premises near you, or you can search for names of establishments.
However, the app has been met with a healthy dose of scepticism from some people, who believe the uncontrolled nature of it will allow hotels to plant false reports about their competitors.
"Is there an app for reckless, fearmongering frippery wrapped in a pseudo-scientific format guaranteed to increase the modern dyad of passive hopelessness and false security? Yes. There's an app for that," wrote Bradley Thoennes of Boston, Massachusets on a New York Times report.
[iTunes via New York Times]
15 Nov 2010
Total posts 1
He He, two of my bosses recently were attacked by bedbugs in a very posh hotel in New York. One of them came home and horrified all her colleagues by offering to show the bites on her thighes! It's no joke though, apparently the bites stay for weeks and drive the victim bananas.
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