When Malvika Sheth woke up in her Paris hotel room last week with itchy feet and swollen calves, she believed it was just her skeeter syndrome acting up again: her body normally overreacts and bulges after she’s bitten by mosquitos. But then she checked TikTok.
There, the Los Angeles-based influencer learned that the City of Lights has been hit by a bedbug outbreak that just happened to correspond with Paris fashion week. Thousands of fashion workers and influencers had potentially been exposed to the blood-feasting insect.
Parisians’ social media feeds flooded with clips showing bedbugs crawling over seats on the metro. Others posted clips zooming in on the red bumps popping up on their skin, which they reportedly received after visiting chain cinemas.
“We are freaking out about ‘la puce’,” said Alfredo Mineo, an American writer who lives in Paris. “There are mattresses lining up on my street with little signs telling people not to touch them. I’m like, ‘Great, now I have to live with ratatouille and la puce.” (The French also call bedbugs punaises de lit.)
For Yaz Bukey, a Parisian accessories designer and art director, initial reports of bedbugs in Paris seemed sensational. “During fashion week it was only foreigners speaking about it, but now it’s growing everywhere and more people speak about it,” she said. “I’m feeling very itchy, but right now I don’t have any.”
Last week, Paris’s deputy mayor, Emmanuel Grégoire, warned: “In reality, no one is safe … you can catch bedbugs anywhere and bring them home.”
That’s what happened to Sheth. She planned to bring her 117,000 followers along on a romp through events hosted by labels such as Dior and Maje. She did not expect to bring any pests back.
“I really enjoyed myself in Paris and had a few thoughts that I might move there at some point, because it is the epicenter of fashion and I love it so much,” Sheth said. “This whole bedbug thing obviously gives me something to think about before I make such a big decision.”
Sheth spent her Wednesday deep-cleaning all the clothes she wore in Paris. “Even if I just wore it for 10 minutes, it’s going in the wash,” she said. “I’m not thinking about freezing or burning them, because these clothes are quite expensive. I’ll double wash them and hope and pray that nothing has followed me back here.”
The are two expert-approved ways of ridding clothes of unwanted hitchhikers. One can run clothes in the dryer on high heat for an hour, or leave them in the freezer for two to three days. (No one suggests burning anything, but fashion people can be a dramatic bunch.)
On social media, people blamed editors and influencers for bringing bedbugs back to their homes in New York and Los Angeles. “Can we ban flights from France starting now?? NYC doesn’t need a bedbug boom,” read one tweet.
Daniella Sinder, an actor and writer in New York, posted a video taken inside different vintage stores in the city. “Quick thrift trip before the Parisian bedbugs arrive and make it a high-risk activity,” she wrote in the clip.
For now, fear of a New York outbreak is speculative. A representative for New York’s department of health and mental hygiene said in an email that they were not tracking any reports of a Paris infestation hitting the US.
“It’s too early to tell if this infestation has impacted American cities and bedbugs in France look and behave identically to bedbugs in the US, so we may never know for sure the true impact that the Paris infestations are having on US travelers,” said Dr Jim Fredericks, an entomologist and senior vice-president of public affairs at the National Pest Management Association.
Brooke Borel, a science writer and author of Infested: How the Bed Bug Infiltrated Our Bedrooms and Took Over the World, said that just because someone has bedbug bites does not mean they are spreading the pest.
“Bedbugs are visible to the human eye,” she said. “It’s important to inspect clothes, suitcases, and sheets. If someone brought bedbugs home, there probably won’t be a lot of them – maybe one or two.”
Some of the clothes worn to Paris fashion week may be too delicate to throw in a dryer, but that’s no excuse not to treat them. “You can use a steamer instead,” Borel said. “I’m guessing people who go to fashion week have access to a steamer.”
