Thomas arrives in a Romanian village, where he encounters a group of jolly gypsies who laugh at him and warn him and whose blood rituals he witnesses in the night.

“Theater people are vagabonds, wandering gypsies,” he writes.

"We deeply regret any distress caused, particularly to members of the traveller and gypsy communities who have been directly affected," the company added.

Heat-treating wood, for example, can also help ward off the gypsy moth, spotted lanternfly and the Asian long-horned beetle, Tamm said.

Washington has had success over the past five decades in detecting and eradicating the pests — formerly known as gypsy moths.