Pest Control

You can't throw a skim latte in L.A. without hitting a writer who has a screenplay that's been stuck in the system since grunge was breaking. But there are very few who can say that in the intervening years they've turned the same story into a well-reviewed novel, a German radio play and a potential Broadway musical.

Question: I'm considering breaking my lease because of bedbugs -- not in my unit but next door. The building owner exterminated the unit, but not the adjoining ones. I've read that these pests are extremely hard to eradicate and travel easily. Is the fact that my neighbor has them a legal basis for me to break my lease? Answer: Bedbugs are very difficult to control.

Nobody knows why the birds have staked their claim on this farm town 90 miles north of Sacramento. But it's the third consecutive year and, by all accounts, the worst. "The community has had enough," said Steve Holsinger, Willows' city manager. "They're just fed up." Memorial Park, a square-block stretch of green near the center of town, is encircled with yellow police tape and is off limits to normal use.

One of the nation's worst-hit cities for foreclosures in 2007 -- Bakersfield -- became an epicenter of West Nile virus that year largely because of mosquitoes breeding in abandoned swimming pools, UC Davis and Kern County scientists reported Thursday. The Central Valley city had 140 diagnosed cases, up from 51 in 2006, or a 275% increase. Over the same period, mortgage delinquency notices went up by 300%.

When Bonnie Friedman first heard about New York's burgeoning bedbug problem, she felt lucky to live in an upscale neighborhood. "I remember thinking, 'I'm so glad I live in Brooklyn Heights. I will never get a bedbug,' " Friedman said. Her first bite came a few weeks later. And as many others have learned, getting rid of the tiny intruders is often a months-long odyssey that requires equal parts detective work, obsessive-compulsive cleaning strategies and emotional healing.

U.S. officials will be closely watching grapes, peaches and other crops in California after a moth that can damage leaves and fruit was discovered near San Francisco, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said Thursday. The light brown apple moth, native to Australia, was found in Alameda and Contra Costa counties. It was the first time it had been found in the contiguous United States.

IF you live in the Los Angeles area and are of the genus \o7Rattus\f7 and the species \o7rattus\f7 or \o7norvegicus\f7, the last person you want nosing around in your habitat is Ray Alegre. A little after 3 a.m. on a recent Wednesday, Alegre knelt in the yellow industrial light of a warehouse parking lot in Commerce, getting ready to come after you.

Soldiers will be deployed to Belgian forests to tackle millions of hairy caterpillars that are causing allergic reactions, a military spokeswoman said. Procession caterpillars, so-called because they march in lines, are covered in long, toxic hairs, which cause dermatitis and respiratory problems. "About 24 soldiers and airmen will be deployed to help the fire brigade and civil protection authority," spokeswoman Ingrid Baeck said.

The worst summer flooding in years has claimed more than 400 lives and wreaked billions of dollars in damage in central China. Here in the villages around Dongting Lake, rising waters have brought a plague of biblical proportions: an invasion of 2 billion mice. The rodents have been on the march in Hunan province since late June, when waters submerged mouse holes surrounding China's second-largest lake.

A pest control company hired to kill pigeons around city subway entrances failed to follow policy when it left the dead birds behind, briefly causing six stations to close amid a scare, a Metro spokeswoman said. Dozens of bird carcasses were reported after the poison was left around the stations, leading the FBI and local hazardous materials crews to investigate, said Washington Area Metropolitan Transit Authority spokeswoman Candace Smith. No humans were hurt.