Woman: Today we'll be discussing bed bugs by first describing them, second, taking a look at their comeback, and finally, we'll talk about the eradication of bed bugs. In 1939, a Swiss pharmacist named Paul Herman Mueller discovered that a chemical known as DDT could effectively solve the world's pest problem. Countries stricken with malaria and typhus considered it a miracle, nearly eliminating typhus altogether.

The bed bug population was almost wiped to extinction with frequent DDT sprays in the United States, but in 1962, Rachel Carson wrote a book called Silent Spring, and explained how DDT harms the bird population and could cause cancer. Consequently, DDT was banned and the bed bug population began to grow.