Michael Potter, bedbug historian at the University of Kentucky, could barely suppress a groan.

"Look, I just can't," the noted entomologist said when asked to talk about the history of the ubiquitous, blood-sucking ectoparasites that are infesting hotels in New York, freaking out theatergoers heading to this week's Toronto International Film Festival and, in Pittsburgh, causing tied-up phone lines at the Allegheny County Health Department.

"I just can't talk about it anymore. I have been going crazy with media calls about bedbugs," said Dr. Potter, who nonetheless bristled slightly at the suggestion that people were overreacting a tad to a bug that doesn't spread disease -- just stress, sleeplessness and stigma.

"To those who say it's not a big deal, I say, sprinkle a few bedbugs into their briefcase," he said. "How would they feel then?"

Probably very itchy.

Somehow, in these last dog days of summer, the nation seems gripped with bedbug hysteria, but even paranoids have enemies: National pest control companies say calls about the critters have increased about 300 percent in the last five years, the county Health Department gets about a dozen calls a day, and in a joint statement issued a few weeks ago, the Centers for Disease Control and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency described an "alarming resurgence" of the Cimus lectularius, -- Latin for "bug of the bed."

Reasons for their resurgence, which began about 10 years ago, are complex and not fully understood, but everyone agrees bedbug infestations are about to get worse, not better.

During the past month, the media has been in full bedbug panic mode.

"I was interviewed last week by ABC, CNN, CBS's Martha Teichner for its Sunday morning show and a Polish TV channel," said Jody Gangloff-Kaufmann, a Cornell University entomologist.

The media is even interviewing itself: "Bedbugs Hit Home: CBS Producer's Hellish Hotel Stay," blared a headline as one television producer told a gap-jawed Harry Smith on "The Early Show" about waking up to a bloody pillow in his Portland, Ore., hotel room.

In Toronto, after a patron who watched a movie in the Scotiabank Theater -- the main venue for the film festival that begins Thursday -- announced on Twitter that he'd been bitten, officials hastily tested the theater and announced it bedbug-free.

Bedbugs do have lots of historical baggage -- Pliny the Elder incorrectly attributed them with medicinal properties -- but DDT and other mid-20th century pesticides, now banned, put them out of commission for a while.

Incompetence is believed to have played a role in their resurgence, says Penn State entomologist Steve Jacobs: too little pesticide, clumsily applied, or the wrong pesticide, only eradicated weaker strains. That allowed newer, more resistant varieties of bedbugs to emerge.

It got so bad in New York that Democratic U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer last year demanded federal financial assistance for Manhattan hotels battling the scourge -- to no avail. Last week, though, New York Gov. David Paterson signed a bill requiring landlords to notify prospective tenants if an apartment had had a history of bedbugs.

Pittsburgh wasn't listed in a recent Terminix survey of the top 10 most bedbug-infested cities, although we are, apparently, surrounded by them -- Philadelphia and the Ohio cities of Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati are on the list.

It's not clear we have dodged that bullet, though. While Joe Zajdel, a branch manager for Terminix Inc.'s division in Robinson, says Pittsburgh indeed has bedbugs -- he gets about a dozen calls a month -- he says our numbers are lower than elsewhere.

Why? Because Pittsburghers are a bunch of homebodies, duh.

"We don't travel as much as people do in other places, so we don't bring bedbugs in from outside as much. We're not as cosmopolitan. If we had the airport running the way they'd anticipated, it might be a different story," he said.

His competition at Orkin, Tom Scott, also a branch manager at Orkin's Western Pennsylvania division, counters that he gets a dozen calls a day about bedbugs.

"My goodness, it's terrible. People are hysterical, absolutely," he said, noting cheerfully that the critters can live up to two years without food -- i.e. human blood -- and then go to work as soon as that vintage bed frame where they've camped out is moved into a new bedroom.

Indeed, Uptown lawyer David Tkacik awoke one morning to feel what he described as "a strange painful feeling under my right armpit" not long after he moved into a new apartment in Forest Hills. He immediately fingered the moving company -- or rather, the mats they used to move his furniture.

As luck would have it, "I actually had the evidence," he says, since the company left the mats in his garage, wrapped around a sofa that had been too big to get through the apartment's front door. Mr. Tkacik, who happens to have defended clients accused of harboring bedbugs, swung into action, having the mats tested (sniffed) by a specially trained dog, backed with DNA testing by Orkin. Both yielded positive results, so Mr. Tkacik asked the company to compensate him $750 for his sofa.

He says the company's owner refused. The company owner, who asked not to be identified, firmly denies Mr. Tkacik's claims.

"He says he has the evidence, that the mats are in his garage," said a company spokesman. "Did he tell you that his garage doesn't have a door on it? This is extortion, plain and simple."

The owner's reaction is typical, and not necessarily unwarranted, because it's not always clear where bedbugs come from. Complicating matters for defendants is the cost of treatment -- thousands of dollars, in many cases -- not to mention the stigma, said Bill Todaro, the county Health Department's resident bug man.

"Landlords are usually pretty averse to following up on the problem," said Mr. Todaro, who noted that his department gets about a dozen calls a day -- up from one call every couple years when he first started working in the department more than 30 years ago.

"It's a very steep learning curve for landlords to understand where they are in the deal and to take a leadership role in inspections," he said.

"No one wants to talk about it," agreed Orkin's Mr. Scott, noting that just the day before, he'd treated an apartment "where every bed was totally infested, but people had been sleeping on them and ignoring them because they didn't want to admit there was a problem."

Dr. Jacobs, the Penn State entomologist, said one of his students recently returned from "a northern county in Pennsylvania with a collection of bedbugs from his motel room, where they'd spread boric acid everywhere -- even though boric acid doesn't do a very good job [in killing them]."

Which northern county?

"Oh, I can't tell you that, the county commissioners would come after me," Dr. Jacobs said with a laugh.

Of course, on TripAdvisor.com's website, under a search for "Pittsburgh and bedbugs," posters outed a wide range of local hotels and motels -- "Bedbugs galore!" wrote one poster about an upscale establishment. Another complained about the lack of response from management, "even after we showed the bug to the desk clerk."

"You mention that you first were made aware of your bites while you were driving, may I suggest possibly having your vehicle inspected for signs of insects/bugs?" retorted the manager of a hotel to another posting.

Until scientists, pest control professionals, public health officials and politicians come up with a coherent bedbug policy -- more effective treatments and less denial -- the bedbug frenzy shows no sign of abating.

And some people, mainly entomologists, think that's ridiculous.

"These bugs came over on the Mayflower. They were a way of life," says Robert "Butterfly Bob" Snetsinger, a retired entomologist at Penn State and one of the few researchers who spent his career studying bedbugs, despite their somewhat quaint, outdated reputation.

At 82, he now spends his time tending a public butterfly garden in State College, but says he's been amazed at "how much people are freaking out. Bedbugs are the big thing now."

Actually, another Pittsburgher predicted their resurgence back in 1980, Dr. Snetsinger says.

Harry Katz, former longtime owner of a Downtown pest control company ("Killer Katz Kills Bugs") made the prediction in a chapter he wrote about bedbugs in the "Handbook of Pest Control" -- the industry's bible -- which in turn was authored by the late Arnold Mallis, formerly with Gulf Oil in Pittsburgh and a legendary expert on insect eradication. Both have been inducted into the Pest Management Professional Hall of Fame.

Mr. Katz, now 94 and recently transplanted to his son's New York apartment after years in Miami, paused when asked about his own history with bedbugs.

"I feel like a mosquito in a nudist camp; where do I start?" joked Mr. Katz, noting that he spent many years locked in combat with the apple seed-sized pests, which fascinated him. His biggest professional disappointment came after treating a badly infested building in the Hill District, where he encountered an especially large bedbug specimen, which he sent to Mr. Mallis.

"He sent it along to UCLA, and the scientists there said it was indeed a new strain of bedbug and asked for more specimens. Alas," he sighed, "I had done too good of a job in the apartment building and lost a chance to have a bedbug named after me."

Well, maybe he can take some comfort in knowing he's now living in New York, bedbug capital of the world?

"I hope so," Mr. Katz said. "My mouth waters just thinking about it."

That's Fascinating, where Mark Roth spotlights the odd and the interesting in everyday life, is featured exclusively in the Opinion section on PG+, a members-only web site from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.