Friday, August 29, 2008

Bedbugs are here to stay

How frightening of a comment is that. Bed bugs are here to stay. For now I would venture to say that bedbugs are back, but here to stay, I don't know. If anything can be said for the pest control industry it is that we are a group of smart people who are full of ingenuity. My bet is that we will come up with a successful growth regulator for them or a powerful pheromone to trap them. We will succeed, no doubt, the question is when.

Monday, August 25, 2008

Bedbugs going to college.

It seems these days that bedbugs are going back to college so to speak with reports of these stealth critters infesting dorm rooms and the like. So what's a college student to do when faced with the bedbugs in the dorm? First thing's first. Report the problem immediately to the college, don't be embarrassed or scared, the faster this problems is revealed the easier it is to treat. Some questions have been asked about what products college students can get to spray in their dorm rooms for these bedbugs. I wouldn't recommend this, there is a product that you can get online called the Bedbug Luggage Spray by JT Eatons. This would be the perfect product to try to avoid transporting the bedbugs from college dorm room to your parent's home, and I stress try. Bedbugs are notorious hitch hikers and many times this is the cause of the problem in the first place. So when faced with the problem of bedbugs who have returned to college be sure to report and retreat!

Sunday, August 24, 2008

Bed Bugs in Dorm Rooms

Back to school and the battle begins. Many students are going to find themselves up against the toughest obstacle to get over besides passing grades, and that is bedbugs in the dorm room! This pest will get into the minds of students as they move back to the dorms of colleges across the country unfortunately and the news articles will hit the newspapers and the stories will appear on the news stations and the government will do nothing but sit by and watch the crisis continue. This problem needs to have research with strong funding behind it to come up with a silver bullet in eliminating this problem from our civilized world. If a bedbug spread malaria or west Nile virus like the mosquito does then the government would be throwing all kinds of money at it. Instead the college students of the world and the apartment dwellers and the hotel travelers and the home owners all have to suffer. Is that a bed bug bite or a flea bite? That is the question, a question that is becoming ever more easier to answer in today's day and age.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Why are bed bugs so hard to kill?

Why does it seem almost impossible to get rid of bed bugs? For one thing they are stealth fighters. They use gorilla tactics. They are also very hardy pests. Unfortunately, many of the bed bugs infesting our homes and apartment buildings are resistant to the insecticides we have today. So we are experimenting with different products and combinations to try to get a modicum of relief. Bedbugs are resistant to synthetic pyrethroids, which most of our insecticides are. Some products like Phantom are not, and this is why it is one of the good guys. Alcohol based products like Sterifab is another good product for contact kill. Bedlam has also been known to work well. Most of these products are not available to the public unless bought through a pest control products website like epest supply or DIY pesticides, other than that, you have to hire a professional. Be careful how much money you spend on all the sensationalism that is being sold out there. You'll go broke trying to fight a survivor until the pest control industry comes up with a silver bullet, which they will, eventually.

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Get rid of bed bugs

Eliminating bedbugs can be a tricky procedure. Bedbugs are hard to find let alone getting rid of them. Most times people don't know they have bedbugs until they start experiencing bites, even then they are not sure if the bites are bedbug bites or flea bites or some other kind of bite.
So some signs of a bedbug infestation would include bite marks on the body, blood spots on your sheets, actual bugs. The best place to inspect is behind the head board, the mattress, under the box spring.
Exterminating bedbugs is a job of precision. You must be thorough. Arm yourself with a vacuum cleaner with a hose attachment. Bedlam has been proven to kill adults and eggs, and a product called Phantom. These are all professional products and you must use extreme caution and follow the label which is the law. You may also want to pick up a good dust like drione dust. The last product to buy would be enough mattress and box spring covers for all your beds. Protect A Bed is the best product out there to cover your bedding. Now let's begin.
Depending on the level of infestation will depend on how involved the treatment will be. If it is a bad one you will need to consider laundering all your clothing, emptying the drawers to give access for treatment. If you have carpets they will need to be pulled back to reveal the tack boards to treat this area. Treat from top to bottom, all furniture, first using the vacuum to get all visible adult bed bugs. Now treat the cracks and crevices of the room and furniture with a product labeled for this. Be sure to take the electric socket covers and light switch covers off. Dust these voids, using caution. Next take the bed apart and vacuum all live bugs. Take the dust cover of the bottom of the box spring. Treat the bed per the label of whatever product you use. Next let dry. Put the box spring cover on and then the mattress cover on.
Now repeat for each bedroom, then the rest of the house. You will need a friend to help. Some precautions to take would be to put on foot covers, and a tyvek suit. After the treatment be sure to vacuum up some dust and then toss the vacuum bag. This is very important. As you can see eliminating bed bugs is an all day or sometimes a two day process. This is why it is so expensive to hire a pest control company to do it, and it is why to be sure that if you do call in a pro that they don't charge you a small fee and say it should only take an hour or two. These companies have no idea how to help you. SO good luck and hopefully you will have success in eliminating your bedbug problem. Be sure to follow up with a treatment in about 10 days.

Thursday, August 7, 2008

Bedbug Monitoring trap

As of now there is only one way I know of to determine if you have bedbugs or not. The use of a bedbug sniffing dog. Even using this method they recommend bringing in a second dog to verify the first one's findings. The human eye just can't beat the nose of a dog. One thing I found out about this week in a Bedbug seminar offered by PCT that I attended was the bedbug monitoring trap that will be coming down the pike soon. You place the device in a room for 24 hours and if there are bedbugs in that room they will be attracted to this device and trapped on a glue board. This is great news. It will let people who have mystery bites know for sure if they are bedbug bites of not, they will tell people who had their homes treated if the treatment worked or not, it will most of all give people piece of mind. Look for soon.

Saturday, August 2, 2008

The Future of Bed Bug Control

Bed bug control will soon be as regular and easy as treating for roaches or fleas I believe. This bug affects the multi-billion dollar a year tourist industry and hotel industry and they, along with the pest control industry, will not sit by and be out smarted by bedbugs. I think you will soon be seeing several bed bug monitoring traps come into market, bed bug pheromone traps, bedbug growth regulators like we have for fleas, and a more effective adulticide with a active that works by a different mode of action. We may be behind the eight ball with these critters, but don't count us out yet.