Monday, April 2, 2007

Bedbugs and the state of the industry

So where do we stand right now with regards to the bed bug epidemic that is spreading across the country at an alarming rate? Not a whole lot. I can say that there are entomologists who are hard at work and back in the labs studying bedbugs and better ways to get these bugs under control. The problem is this, up until about 5-10 years ago, we hadn't heard that much if anything about bed bugs. They had successfully been licked. With world wide travel it seems, the bedbugs have been reintroduced back into our society. So far the pest control industry is finding resistance to the insecticides we have available. I'm not saying that every bedbug is immune to our chemicals, but there are strains of bedbugs that are showing resistance. The treatment method that should be followed is one of thoroughness. Work with your pest control person and be sure to follow his or her advice. If they ask you to clean all the junk from your closets and empty all your drawers or whatever the case might be. The do it. The pest control person is not trying to give you extra work, but it is a team effort to get any bit of control we are going to get. Until the scientists can get a better idea on how to treat bedbugs and what is going to successfully control the bed bugs then we are going to be playing a game of try this and that. We do know that vacuuming and mattress covers are working and they should be kept in the "tool box". Another thing that works is fumigation. Problem with this is that it is very expensive and isn't logical to use in every situation. Have no doubt that the battle will be won, but it will be a process of elimination to get there.

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