Bed bug via Wiki Commons.

.@BYTES1GHz is a single serving of undigested tech for the unfocused and/or unconcerned. Don’t be disappoint. Like. Enjoy.

#WhutItDo: SRI International is, like, my favorite wizard’s nest. These brains helped invent stuff like SIRI, the computer mouse, and those awesome gloves from Mission:Impossible – Ghost Protocol. Now the dudes are turning their magic against the Bed Bug menace. In a blog post, Rajeev Vaidyanathan, Bed Bug Wizard at SRI, was all, like, “[M]ost of the news coverage about bed bugs tends to focus on hotels or retailers, giving us the impression that we are at the highest risk for infestation when we visit these places. In reality, the most vulnerable populations live in low-income housing. They are the physically and mentally disabled, the elderly who may not be able to feel the bites, veterans, and those in homeless shelters, hospitals and psychiatric clinics. The bottom line is that we are failing these communities.”

The plan is to collect the critters one by one and flush them down a tiny toilet that cost a trillion $$$ in R&D—I assume. Why is the toilet tiny? Because they didn’t need a normal sized one. But, seriously: they’re going to cast Sequence Genome on the little devils and roll for perception till they can figure out something that works.

#TheFutureOfStuff: Well if Bed Bugs turn out to be super invincible, at least now we know—thanks to SRI’s supreme research skills—that we could just get rid of poor people. ZING!

By Beth Mellow

When his buddy’s apartment was infested by bed bugs, Hunter Fine didn’t recoil in horror or offer to call an exterminator. He reacted in the only way that befits a creative type: He created art.

“One of my friends in the East Village got the bugs and had to get rid of all his stuff. I was telling him that there should be a way to warn people from moving into buildings with bed bugs. And then the idea sort of matriculated,” said Fine.

Bed Bug Hotels, Fine’s latest street art project, is both a physical and online exhibit. Fine began working on the project this summer, constructing colorful miniature buildings only inches high with kitschy names like “Bed Bug & Breakfast.” Last month, he started placing the tiny hotels in insect-infested buildings in the Lower East Side and East Village where the pests have been reported. A corresponding web site, BedBugHotels.org, and tumblr featuring these works were launched simultaneously in an effort to encourage people to construct their own pieces, take photos and share Fine’s project via Twitter, Facebook and Google+.

“It’s pretty cool how you can put something up in the urban atmosphere and someone will take a picture or find the pictures you post online and pass it around on social media networks to all their friends,” said Fine.

The installation of the Bed Bug Hotels was just as scrappy and grassroots as the methods Fine uses to spread the word about his project. Fine enlisted his friends to help out by taking photos or acting as cover while he set the Bed Bug Hotels up at each site. “I try to stay within legalities and wouldn’t do anything that would warrant an arrest. It’s sort of passive aggressive that way,” Fine added.

Creating projects with viral potential—especially ones that are buzz-worthy —comes naturally to Fine. Working a day job as an associate creative director at the advertising agency BBDO New York, he has learned the subtle art of messaging effectively to the masses.

“Having a background in creative advertising makes you poke holes in all ideas. It teaches you to never go with your first thought, or do something that’s been done before. Coming up with installations uses the same ethos in the thinking process—spend time making the idea great and making sure your message is clear,” he noted.

Bed Bug Hotels is not the first art project Fine has taken to the Downtown streets. Last spring, with fellow advertising industry veteran Jeff Greenspan, Fine created the popular Urban Traps. The project focused on two subcultures in New York City: “hipsters” and “bridge and tunnel” folk.

For each group, Fine and Greenspan laid out large metal traps containing five items to lure their respective prey. Of course, the hipster-focused piece included Pabst Blue Ribbon and bike chains, while the bridge and tunnel work was comprised of self-tanner and PATH tickets. These traps were set up throughout Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn. A D.C. installation about Tea Partiers featured gun cleaner and Dick Armey’s manifesto Give Us Liberty. The works, highlighting the stereotypes of these cultural subgroups, seemed to resonate, and images of Fine’s pieces appeared on several high-traffic blogs, including Gothamist and Gawker.

While Fine, a 32-year-old Lower East Side resident, currently considers the street his primary canvas, he dabbles in other art and creative mediums as well. “I tend to try to do everything at once. I was really into stop-motion animation for a while and still continue to work as a freelance animation director whenever needed. I’m working on two graphic novels right now. I also have a few projects in various stages of development with several friends that involve disrupting the community in the same way the Bed Bug Hotels and Urban Traps did,” Fine explained.

Although he cites a variety of influences for Bed Bug Hotels and his vast body of work, Fine believes that living on the Lower East Side has shaped his art to a certain extent: “I feel like most people tend to do projects about what they know. Most writers write about where they live, and I feel it’s the same for me.”

Top photo: Hunter Fine’s street art project from 2010 ,“Urban Traps.” This one was tailored for the hipsters of the Lower East Side and Brooklyn. Photo courtesy of Hunter Fine.
Photo credits: As part of his “Bed Bug Hotel” installation, Fine attaches his whimsical insect abodes on the sides of bug- infested apartment buildings in the East Village and the Lower East Side. Photo courtesy of Hunter Fine.

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A recently passed law by the New York State Legislature requires landlords to notify prospective tenants if there was a bed bug infestation in their building within the past year. The law is part of an effort to help eradicate the blood-sucking insects and an acknowledgement of their growing presence in the city.

But would landlords be unfairly stigmatized for having bed bugs that came from an old tenant?

Linda Rosenthal, an assembly member from the Upper West Side that wrote the law, feels that the bill is a simple disclosure law that will help those about to sign a new lease make an informed decision.

“They deserve to know the history of infestation in that apartment and in that building so they can make a choice whether they want to move in or undertake an extermination process before the move-in,” Rosenthal said of her bill.

The law requires landlords to give these tenants the bed bug notice. As of now, there’s no fine for violating the law, but Rosenthal wants to see the compliance rate before seeking penalties.

Rosenthal believes landlords will be more vigilant in fighting bed bugs if they know prospective tenants will find out.

“I also want it to be an incentive for them to ensure that apartments and buildings are properly treated for bed bugs,” she said.

This is the latest bed-bug regulation to become law. The City Council created a task force and allocated $500,000 to create a web portal with information on preventing and getting rid of bed bugs.

The Rent Stabilization Association, a group representing property owners, believes the new law unfairly targets landlords for a problem often caused by tenants.

“Why was there no requirement enacted into law that a tenant has a legal obligation to inform an owner about the presence of bed bugs?” said Mitchell Posilkin, general counsel to the Rent Stabilization Association. “All of a sudden, a landlord gets associated with having a bed bug problem that’s already been cured.”