Bugs in the window

or something else

01/11/2012 0:51 AM

By Bonnie McGrath

2 Comments - Add Your Comment


The red "bugs" in the window (photo by Bonnie McGrath)



Red carpet

If you've ever walked past the first floor Michigan Avenue windows of the Congress Plaza Hotel at Congress and Michigan--the windows just south of the quaint little barbershop that looks like it's been there since the place was built at the turn of the last century--you have probably seen some oddities. Like old mattresses piled up behind broken blinds. Lots of darkness and lots of dirt. The hotel uses prime retail and potential curb appeal space behind several windows that hug the street for nothing but rumdum storage. Which doesn't make good business sense.


The other night I walked past one of the windows and something really icky caught my eye. It looked like fuzzy red insects were all over the sill and the blinds. Were they bed bugs from the old mattresses? Perhaps--but I didn't see any old mattresses behind this particular window--just corrugated plastic bags with something rolled up inside.

I couldn't get the vision of the bugs out of my mind.

So I went back the next day and got the attention of one of the strikers who have been striking at the hotel for almost nine years. I cajoled her into coming with me a few yards away to see something really awful in the window that she could share with others--that would add to the hotel's woes. So we walked over to the particular window in question and she smiled. "Oh, that's just carpet," she said, walking back to her picket sign.

And so it was. Little red pieces of carpet fiber from what was apparently rolled up in the bags: red carpet.

All I can say is, Congress, you've been in business there on Michigan Avenue since 1893 and have survived all those years, including a nine-year strike taking place right out your front door. You've got a great location, and people walk past the hotel day and night. It would be great advertising to put something attractive in your Michigan Avenue windows, something like the quaint little barbershop you already have--and not dirty, broken blinds, old mattresses and red carpet fuzz that looks like red bugs.


2 Comments - Add Your Comment



By Richard Pollack from The world
Posted: 01/11/2012 6:36 AM

At IdentifyUS we receive samples and digital images daily of creatures presumed to be bed bugs. The vast majority of these are not; they are, instead, far more innocuous insects, or bits of debris as was apparent in this case. We identify the creature so you can make intelligent decisions on how to respond. This can save you from unnecessary treatments and costs. Educational information about bed bugs, formerly hosted at the Harvard School of Public Health, is now at IdentifyUS LLC on the web.


By israel from chicago,il
Posted: 01/11/2012 2:08 AM

The Y has bugs to in our rooms to the last years