Inbreeding: Continual Reinfestation?

In the last month, bed bug news has been like watching the 11 o’clock news that we are all used to.  Too much bad news and not enough good news.

Unfortunately this update is only going to add to the growing list of things that are bad about bed bugs and why you need to take extreme precautions in order to protect yourself.

Entomologist Coby Schal of North Carolina State University has been studying genetic diversity of bed bugs in apartment buildings across the United States. His findings are somewhat shocking. In most of his findings, the bed bugs in the studied apartment buildings are very genetically close, meaning that the entire population came from the same genetic stock.

This indicates that 1 pregnant female bed bug is able to exponentially increase a population by inbreeding amongst her young without genetic ramifications.  Furthermore this means, it can take only 1 or 2 bed bugs that were not killed in a treatment in order to build up that population again.  Make sure any treatment that you plan to get has at least a 3 month warranty in order to take care of those ‘stragglers’. It is those stragglers that will constantly cause your problem.

Steve’s Pest Management employs a multi-layered defence in order to contend with the stragglers.  Find us on facebook or at our website www.stevespestmanagement.com