ABSTRACT
This chapter draws on a study of bedbug/human cohabitation – multispecies environment – in a Glasgow locality to tease out the ethical issues of analysis based on the tenets of deep ecology. A genealogical analysis of human/bedbug relations shows how the intimate concerns of everyday bedroom life connect with ecological factors that extend to deep time. Human contributors establish how their experience of living with bedbugs has forced them to confront their horror of the creatures. The chemical facilitation of super bedbugs is just one strand of the story of pesticide extermination. The multispecies home poses a particular problem for social work. Social work was founded in modernism and humanism which places the protection of human life as a priority. The multispecies homes of Govanhill give some insight into the potential horror of living in a world where boundaries are not as clear as Western norms assume.
