Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Start Your Bed Bug Fund Today!

Can bed bug treatments be covered by home owner's insurance? This is the questions that has been asked across the country and the unfortunate answer is no. This is tragic, especially since a basic bed bug treatment can cost close to twelve hundred dollars and if you get a heat treatment for your home you are looking at three thousand or more, depending on the size of your home. This is just the treatment cost. What if you are unsure if you have them and you want a definite yes or no answer? Hire a dog. This service where a dog goes through your home to inspect for bed bugs can run a few hundred dollars. How about mattress and box spring covers at a couple hundred bucks? How about laundry and dry cleaning service? How about the bed bug sequel? Sometimes you need to get another treatment after all the follow up services. After all is said and done, you can wind up spending close to five or six thousand dollars. Yikes!

One thing I have started to do is put money aside in case bed bugs rear their ugly head. It is a good idea to have such a rainy day fund because when bed bugs hit home, you are going to want to get rid of them sooner than later, and you may not have the funds to treat the bed bugs properly. It's a simple message. Invest in your future.

Saturday, September 4, 2010

Bed Bugs in the News

You must be living under a rock these days if you have not seen or read a story about bed bugs. Stories of movie theaters in New York being closed because of bed bugs and the offices at CNN having bed bug problems are all the rage. It makes me think that we've gotten the word out like we have been wanting to and the public are more aware than ever about bed bugs, the problem is, unless they can afford a boat load of money to heat treat their home with thermal remediation or fumigate it, they may be trouble. The raise in awareness has put a spike in the amount of calls that pest control companies are receiving, many of them are just for simple inspections. The public wants to know if they have bed bugs. Can you blame them?
My hope is that all this public awareness will ignite a fire under the EPA to allow for some flexibility for the manufacturers of chemical that might actually work against these little terrors. I guess only time will tell.