The blood-sucking menace that has infiltrated Manhattan's skyscrapers has taken another scalp, after the headquarters of media empire Time Warner became the latest landlord to own up to the presence of bedbugs.

The city that supposedly never sleeps is under attack by night from an epidemic of stealthy, tiny, red-brown creatures that leave a tell-tale trail of itchy welts, distress, embarrassment and anxiety.

Homes, designer shops and government offices have fallen victim to bedbug infestations, which have exploded from 500 cases in New York during 2004 to 10,000 last year. "As part of a routine cleaning and preventative process, it was discovered that there were bedbugs present in a small contained area within Time Warner's offices," said a terse statement from the parent company of CNN, Warner Bros and Time magazine, following a leaked memo warning staff at the landmark Time Warner centre, on the corner of Central Park.

Time Warner is not alone. Characterised by entomologists as expert tourists, bedbugs cling to clothes, shoes and luggage until they reach a warm crevice, usually a mattress, where they can launch nightly attacks on sleeping hosts. Several high-end clothes retailers, including Abercrombie & Fitch, Hollister and Victoria's Secret have been obliged to temporarily shut Manhattan stores to eradicate unwanted visitors. Even the office of Brooklyn's district attorney has suffered an outbreak.

Alarmed by the proliferation, New York's state legislature approved a requirement for landlords to disclose buildings' "bedbug history" to new tenants and set aside $500,000 for a bedbug battle plan.

The speaker of the city council, Christine Quinn, declared: "To the bedbugs in the city of New York – drop dead. Your days are over, they're numbered, we're not going to take it any more."

One luxury department store, Bergdorf Goodman, has hired an insect-sniffing beagle as an early warning system for the presence of any six-legged parasites.

Common before the second world war, bedbugs seem to have developed a resistance to DDT-based treatments.

Their sudden resurgence is put down to the rise in international travel and New York's cramped quarters."Our great grandparents pretty much knew how to deal with bedbugs and how to prevent them," says Marc Lame, an expert at Indiana University. "Most people now think they're just something out of a nursery rhyme."

Among the few surefire techniques to kill the pests is to heat flats or offices to a temperature of 120F. But this is an expensive, equipment-heavy process.

Timothy Wong, technical director of New York pest control firm M&M Environmental, said his firm is getting as many as 75 phone calls a day from distressed bug victims: "I've had everything from people being very calm to complete hysteria, with people crying. For most people, it's very stressful. Your whole life is upside down until it's taken care of."