Dinner At The Movies

Days after two NYC clothing retailers temporarily closed due to bedbug infestations, the New York Daily News quotes city exterminators who say they've recently been called out to treat movie theaters for the bloodsuckers.

Experts warned Sunday that cushy theater seats pose a far bigger bedbug threat than racks in clothing stores - despite last week's news of bedbug infestations at two Manhattan shops. "In a movie theater, you are sitting in one spot for two hours. They have the opportunity to feed on you," said Jennifer Erdogan, director of Bell Environmental Services, a pest control company that fumigates movie theaters, offices and stores. "Bedbugs need people to stop moving to get a blood meal." Shoppers are still scratching from reports that bedbugs shut down Hollister in SoHo and its sister store Abercrombie & Fitch in the South Street Seaport. To moviegoers, the mere mention of flesh-hungry insects noshing on audiences was worse than any horror film playing Sunday in Manhattan. "That's sick," said Cassandre Augustine, 18, of Flatbush, Brooklyn, who was headed to see "Get Him To The Greek" in midtown. "It makes me extra germophobic. Now I have to wear long pants all the time."

Exterminators refuse to identify the theaters with the problem, citing confidentiality agreements signed with the owners.