Bed bugs found in library books

HAMPTON — Library trustees are weighing whether people returning books with bed bugs inside their pages should be temporarily banned after the vermin turned up at the return desk last month.

The bed bugs were discovered while library staff were checking books returned Sept. 21, according to Lane Memorial Library director Amanda Reynolds Cooper, and have since been thrown out.

The desk where the books were placed and anywhere the books made contact were cleaned with alcohol, which kills the bug as well as any eggs, she said. The space was determined to be safe by someone who specializes in pest removal, she said.

Cooper said the library trustees will now be given a policy to approve at their Nov. 13 meeting that could require those who return books with bed bugs to obtain documentation showing the vermin have been removed from their home. She said the policy is still in draft form and could change. She said the policy is based on a state law allowing landlords to require tenants who get bed bugs to show through testing that they have eliminated the infestation.

Cooper said the library would never push to ban people permanently over bed bugs.

"It's something that can be remediated," she said. "As long as they're able to take care of that and provide us further documentation."

Hampton Selectman Mary-Louise Woolsey told Cooper during her board's Monday meeting she was "horrified" to learn about the beg bugs. Cooper called the discovery "alarming" but said the library is confident the building is now "bug-free.” She said Cooper told Woolsey all returned books are checked twice by staff before being returned to circulation.

Cooper said bed bugs are on the rise in public spaces like libraries. The New York Library Association published an article this year referring to the increase in bed bug cases as a "bed bug epidemic," which it said has been observed in libraries this year from New York to Ohio to Arizona.

"It's not a matter of if a facility will get bed bugs, it's a matter of when," said Glenn Waldorf of Bell Environmental Services in the association's article.

Balancing the right to visit a public library and the need to protect the public from bed bugs is one Cooper and trustees say is not taken lightly. The bugs are considered a public health pest, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, and while they have not been shown to transmit disease, the bugs bite, leave feces where they stay and can trigger allergic reactions.

Cooper said policies that limit access to public libraries have been challenged in court, which is why she said she has sought advice from multiple attorneys including Town Attorney Mark Gearreald. She said libraries often get taken to court when their policies on limiting access to the library are too general. Any new policy, she said, would require the library clearly show why a given citation was necessary.

"The library as a public forum is a protected place, viewed as a First Amendment issue if not allowed to visit," Cooper said. "We are not trying to trample anybody's civil liberties, we just want to make sure that we're keeping the building as safe as we can."

Library Trustee Deborah Knowlton, also a reverend at the First Congregational Church of Hampton, believes a compromise can exist for the library. She said the concern for bed bugs that prompts the discussion is legitimate.

"You think about the crevices and dark corners in a library," Knowlton said. "There are multiple, beyond our imagining."

Knowlton said she is sympathetic to people who find themselves living with bed bugs, but added she likens the situation to a child with chickenpox whose mother decides to keep them home from school.

"The school would be fully available when they're healthy and well again," she said. "If I look at it from that lens, that does seem reasonable."