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Library to reopen Friday after one bedbug found inside

BARBARAELLEN KOCH PHOTO | Suburban Exterminating supervisor Joe Delutri uses a steam machine that generates heat of up to 300 degrees to kill bedbugs.

The Riverhead Free Library will reopen Friday, two days after a single bedbug was found inside the building.

The library brought in a bug-sniffing dog Tuesday as a precautionary measure because of the increase in reports of bedbugs in public buildings, according to library director Lisa Jacobs. The library was immediately closed to the public Tuesday and Wednesday.

Suburban Exterminators visually inspected the buildings several hours later and did not find bedbugs inside. Exterminators laid out 30 dry ice bedbug traps around the building Tuesday afternoon and on Wednesday, entomologists discovered a single bedbug.

Ms. Jacobs said the library will be treated with a combination of heat and using the pesticide Topia.

The library will remain closed Thursday for Thanksgiving and reopen the following day at 9 a.m.

Bedbugs, which nest in beds and other furniture, feed off the blood of warm-blooded mammals including humans. Though the insect does not spread disease, it can cause irritating bites. Bedbugs were thought to be mostly eradicated in the U.S. in the 1940s, though there has been a resurgence in recent years.

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