We're not sure, but a tipster tells us that Saatchi & Saatchi, which has represented Penney since late-2006, recently commissioned the store to deck out its new 17th floor lounge. That lounge, however, has now been closed due to the aforementioned bed bug invasion. The scientifically-backed company memo:

Our testing shows that the insect condition is limited to the 17th Floor. We will continue to test other floors on an ongoing basis and react accordingly.

As is normal procedure, the second phase of the eradication process will commence at 8pm Friday night and will take approximately 6 hours. Normal environmental conditions will not exist until Saturday noon. Please do not plan to work on the 17th Floor until after 12pm (Saturday). Everyone on the 17th Floor must vacate the floor by 7pm Friday night. All accessible switchplates and outlet covers will be removed during the day (Friday).

In 14 days, we will re-treat the entire 17th Floor to be doubly sure that conditions are 100% satisfactory.

All chemicals used are DEA and EPA registered and approved. If you have any health concerns, feel free to work from home tomorrow.

Screw health concerns. We'd be more concerned that Saatchi & Saatchi's little parasites would cling to us and invade our personal space. Oh, and the bed bugs, too.

It's Penguin! So says one inside source. This doesn't mean they're dirty people.

A tipster tells us this dirty rumor:

"Marie Claire magazine in the brand new hearst tower was infested by bed bugs on Friday, courtesy of a fashion intern. employees in the affected area were sent home on Friday.
Over the weekend, total fumigation of the floor. Will it appear in the reality show they've been filming up there?!
The girls were acting like they'd contracted HIV."

To make the event even better, we hear that Hearst officials announced to everyone in the entire area that the bedbugs were brought in by an intern, probably making said intern feel very, very bad. Not NBC Pooping Intern bad, but bad. Is there any career a bedbug cannot destroy?

[If you know more about this, email us]

[Yesterday her lawyer called her Joan Clark; a bad sign?]

FOX NEWS BESIEGED BY BEDBUGS

Joan Clark, a twelve year veteran of Fox News, can no longer go to work
after suffering emotional distress due to a continuous and ongoing bedbug
problem at work. Since October, Fox News has been struggling to control a
bedbug infestation at its headquarters, located at 1211 Avenue of the
Americas, in NYC without success. Ms. Clark, bitten in the original influx
in October '07, then in November '07, was once again attacked by these
swarming insects on April 30, 2007.

Joan Clark has been diagnosed with post traumatic stress syndrome and finds
that she is unable to return to work and maintain her normal daily routine.
As a mother with a young child, she is trying to cope and carry on as usual.
She is under the care of doctors who are treating her emotional problems due
to being thrice bitten by bedbugs.

Although her entire department was moved to a different floor, the bedbugs
moved with them. Ms. Clark repeatedly asked and got assurance from her
supervisors that the environment was safe.

Alan Schnurman, Ms. Clark's attorney who has handled numerous bedbug cases
said to his knowledge this is the first lawsuit concerning bedbugs in an
office. "We have had cases in hotels, cruise ships, and apartment buildings
but this is one of the first we know about in the work environment." Bedbug
infestation has reached national epidemic proportions. Even Congress has
taken note and on May 19, 2008, Congressman G.K. Butterfield introduced a
bill before Congress called the "Don't Let the Bed Bugs Bite Act of 2008" to
establish funding to eradicate this serious problem.

A lawsuit is being filed on behalf of Joan Clark and her husband Stuart
against the building's owner and the maintenance company in Supreme Court,
New York County. Ms. Clark has also filed a Workers Compensation claim
against her employer, the News Corp. A press conference is being held on
Thursday, May 29, 2008, at 11:00AM at the law office of Zalman & Schnurman,
61 Broadway, Suite 1105. Joan Clark and her husband will be on hand to
answer any questions in regard to this matter.

Locate the greasy gross culprit immediately!

Hamilton,

It seemed like a good idea at the time. Sometimes the commitment to generate publicity can get an agency in trouble. As you noted in your post, one of our more aggressive marcom specialists at Fleishman-Hillard developed a news release for a client that made light of the FOX News green room. Understandably, the folks at FOX didn't appreciate it. One of our strengths is maintaining good relationships with major media like FOX. We talked with our friends at FOX, and also made a note to our file on how to avoid these situations in the future.

Rich Jernstedt
CMO
Fleishman-Hillard

Fox & Friends anchor Steve Doocy used the made-up news peg of his son telling him about a new service from AT&T, a Fleishman client. "I started looking around for it and there was absolutely no publicity on it, no press," said Doocy. But in the course of his perfectly innocent investigation, he happened to discover that Fleishman was the PR agency behind it, which naturally led into a rehashing of some old criminal charges against the firm, and a chance to mock pictures of its CEO on air. Naturally! Let's just say we're going for both sides here. Your move, Fleishman. The very worthwhile video clip is below.

NO LONGER STUDIO GUESTS, DID BEDBUGS

FOLLOW NEWSMAKERS HOME?

Hot Shot® insecticide offers to help recent FOX News guests eradicate pests

ATLANTA, Mar. 19, 2008 - Following yesterday's New York Times report that the midtown Manhattan newsroom of FOX News was bitten by a case of bedbugs several weeks ago, the manufacturer of Hot Shot® insecticides is offering free product to the network's guests who may be worried that they accidentally transported the pests back to their homes.

"We want our newsmakers to live in a 'no-pest zone' and will ship them a complimentary fogger to rid their homes and offices of these itchy pests," said Allison Kaplinsky, brand manager for Hot Shot® products, which are manufactured by United Industries Corporation. "We understand that the problem no longer exists at the studio, but if these important people have been scratching their ankles, we want to help."

Generals, senators and rock stars who visited the studio may call a Hot Shot® representative at 314-982-1778, provide their name, the date they visited the studio, and the name of the program on which they appeared. The representative will take down the caller's contact information to arrange for delivery.

"Contrary to popular belief, bedbugs aren't caused by an unclean environment," said Kaplinsky. "They are actually transported by people, and often brought back after travel and hotel stays. We heard of the FOX News problem, and wanted to help guests who might have taken bedbugs home with them."

Bedbugs are nocturnal and feed on human blood. Generally active only at dawn, adult bedbugs are reddish-brown, flattened and wingless. The bugs are attracted to human warmth and the presence of carbon dioxide. While they typically don't pose a serious medical threat, the bug bites can leave scars and cause infection due to scratching.

Concerned FOX News guests and staff should call 314-982-1778 to request product between today and Wednesday, April 2.

About the Hot Shot® Flea Killer Plus Fogger
The Hot Shot Flea Killer Plus Fogger kills both adult and pre-adult (larvae) fleas for seven months. It also kills bedbugs, cockroaches, ticks and ants. Each can treats up to 5,000 cubic feet of unobstructed space.

About United Industries Corporation

United Industries Corporation, maker of Hot Shot® brand insect killers, is a subsidiary of Spectrum Brands, Inc., and is a leading supplier of lawn and garden care products and household insect and pest controls. Spectrum Brands is a global consumer products company whose merchandise is sold by the world's top 25 retailers and is available in more than one million stores in more than 120 countries around the world. Headquartered in Atlanta , Georgia , Spectrum Brands generated FY2007 net sales of approximately $2.0 billion. The company's stock trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol SPC.

# # #

But the source of the bugs was not determined until the exterminator inspected the homes of about 20 employees. Mr. Vandeveer said the exterminator later described one employee's home as having "the worst infestation he had seen in 25 years in the business."

The important question here is, of course, who had the infestation? We always thought Shep Smith looked like he slept in a pile of bloodsucking insects, but obviously there's no way for us to say authoritatively, short of spending the night with Shep Smith, which would require quite a good incentive. So we ask you: Which employee was it? Guesses in the comments, or email us with actual info.

A typical line reads like this one, from a story in the Lexington Herald-Leader in Kentucky: "The pest control service Orkin in Lexington has received approximately 30 to 40 calls about bedbugs this year; that's at least twice the number of calls about bedbugs received by the pest control company last year."

In New York, the city housing authority has fielded and checked out more than 2,500 bedbug complaints in the past three years; fewer than 500 turned out to be actual infestations. Even allowing for some overlap — two calls about the same bugs, for instance — that's as many as two or three callers who don't have bedbugs for each caller who does.

"We had a lady come in here with a garbage bag she said was filled with bugs that were biting her," says Matt Nixon of American Pest Management in Takoma Park. "She handed it to my dad and she said, 'If you open that and you get bit, it's your problem.' And there was nothing in there except lint, hair and dry skin. We deal with people like that every week." [Washington Post]

• Hey, who tagged our office? And what the heck does it say?
  
• Community bedbug prevention efforts at the McKibbin Street Lofts in East Williamsburg (AKA West Bushwick.) [Curbed]
  
• Gilmore Girls comes to an end. So long, hussies! [TMZ]
  
• What will happen to CNBC's contract with Dow Jones (CNBC gets a lot of its business reporting from the WSJ, Barron's, etc.) if the Murdoch deal goes through? Fox News on CNBC, that's what! [MSNBC]
  
• The New York Times sports magazine, Play, now has an e-mail newsletter. It pays its writers "significantly less" than a print article would. [NYO]

Or, maybe, this some sort of brilliant disposal ploy—instead of creepy-crawley futon covers, maybe the trash is stuffed with underage condom-free Czech porn, unshredded financial documents, and a thousand review copies of Slate culture gal Meghan O'Rourke's latest volume of verse?

• Why you can never, ever trust anyone to tell you the truth about bedbugs. Or the truth in general, come to think of it. [eefers]
  
• The executive editor of the Post goes back home to the U.K. to edit the Murdoch-owned News of the World. [Guardian]
  
• Why your $12 cosmo might cost $14 soon. [Eater]
  
• In other restaurant-related news, avoid Restaurant Week at all costs. [BankersBall]

They're back, are they? Yeah, we know.

We wonder if perhaps reporter Andrew Jacobs — the man behind such beautiful imagery as "[b]edbugs are back and spreading through New York City like a swarm of locusts on a lush field of wheat" — has just recently had his own unfortunate run-in.

Or else maybe he's spent two years working on that locusts simile.

Just Try to Sleep Tight. The Bedbugs Are Back. [NYT]
Related: Night Visitors [NYer]