Rats on the West Side, Bed Bugs Uptown

“Bedbug-Covered Man Forces Evacuation of Manhattan Courtroom,” reports NBC’s New York affiliate:

A Manhattan courtroom was briefly evacuated Tuesday after bedbugs were spotted crawling up the neck of a man who showed up to answer a desk-appearance ticket, according to a published report.

The woman who first noticed the bloodsucking creepy crawlers yelped to others in the courtroom and chaos ensued; several people ran out of the proceedings, including the man with the bugs on him, the Daily News reported.

A Manhattan Criminal Court spokesman confirmed to the News that there was bug-related havoc in one of the arraignment rooms around 11:30 a.m., but said that no evidence of bedbugs was found in the area.

Court officers called in an exterminator as a precaution. The courtroom was evacuated for a time during the extermination treatment, and when it reopened, the three rows near where the alleged bug man had been sitting were roped off.

Rest assured, Mayor Bloomberg will get right on New York’s growing bedbug problem — just as soon as he weens its citizens off of Manhattan’s escalators and builds more bike lanes.