2011 Bugs Without Borders Survey

Before I go into detail about this weeks topic, a personal story. Myself and a group of friends travelled over the previous weekend to a popular Michigan travel destination. Upon arrival at the hotel, because of my awareness, room inspections were completed and low and behold... Bed bugs in 1 of the 3 rooms where we were staying. The hotel agreed to move our 3 rooms to another wing of the hotel and after 3 more room inspections we were satisfied that we were clear. Unfortunately with bed bugs you must always be vigilant and not complacent.

This week I am going to relay information posted by the National Pest Management Association's "2011 Bugs without Borders Survey: New Data Shows Bed Bug Pandemic Is Growing" that was recently released. You can find the entire article here : http://www.pestworld.org/Bed-Bug-Survey-2011.

Some of the highlights of this survey of Pest Professionals:

1) 99% have encountered Bed Bug infestations in the last year (11% a decade ago)

2) 9 of 10 Pest Pro's dealt with bed bugs in homes, but they are especially on the rise in Pulic Areas:

-College Dorms - 54%, up from 35%

-Hotels/Motels - 80%, up from 67%

-Nursing Homes - 46%, up from 25%

-Office Buildings - 38%, up from 18%

-Schools/Day Cares - 36%, up from 10%

-Hospitals, - 31%, up from 12%

-Transportation - 18%, up from 9%

-Movie Theatres - 17%, up from 5%

3) Over 70% of Pest Pro's name Bed Bugs as the hardest to control

4) Most Professionals feel Bed Bugs are year-round with a minority stating they get more bed bug calls in the summer.

5) Visual inspections are still the #1 monitoring/identification tool used. Although canine detection units are on the rise.

6) 25% of Consumers still attempt to DIY with bed bugs, but engage in often dangerous techniques and are mostly ineffective in their attempts.

You may ask why are Bed Bugs growing to such Pandemic porportions and why can we not get rid of them?

The answers lie in a multi-faceted answer. The largest factor that has allowed bed bugs to spread so effectively is that no one insecticide/pesticide is 100% effective in killing bed bugs on contact and residually. Current bed bug strains are resistant to most pesticides, meaning if you sprayed 100 bed bugs, only a portion of them would die, depending on the active ingredient. Most insecticides have very little residual effect, meaning after the pesticide is 'dry' bed bugs are not harmed by them.

Now remember bed bugs spend most of their time hiding in places that alot of the time are inaccessible, like in wall voids, electrical outlets, under carpets and the like. So if you have to kill them "on contact" it would be virtually impossible to find them all. Pesticides are just part of the problem. Other issues includes very porous multi-family home structures where bed bugs can move from unit to unit easily. This porous nature allows them to spread and move easily, while the moderate and heavily infested units are treated, the lightly infested units go unnoticed.

Furthermore, DIY's and people that do not report the problem until they are largely infested compound the problem. Increased international travel has also caused the spread not only of bed bugs but of different strains of bed bugs that have different resistance levels to multiple pesticides currently used. Imagine in an apartment building, bed bugs from South America, India, and Asia, all transported from the host countries with varying degrees of resistances to the differing pesticides used in the industry. One pesticide will not control them all and so integrated pest management approaches and alternate methods need to be used now more than ever.

Steve's Pest Management, treating bed bugs for 8 years, with over 10,000 treatments in the last two years, has developed a 5-Layer Defense process against bed bugs that includes either no or very little pesticide use. Our process comes with one of the best warranties available today. Visit our website at http://www.stevespestmanagement.com.

New Study on Bed Bugs Reproduction

Before I delve into the new published study on Bed bugs, I wanted to let our readers know that Bed Bugs Canada blog is going to be a weekly review of items in the news for Bed Bugs. This format will let us review the current breakthroughs, best practices and our own experiences with Bed Bugs and bring them to light for those that need the information. Bed Bugs Canada is a published blog by Steve's Pest Management a professional Pest Management company in the forefront in the battle against Bed Bugs.

The new study presented at the 13th Congress of the European Society for Evolutionary Biology, revealed that female bed bugs prepare in advance for the onslaught of the violent copulation to avoid getting sick.

Male bed bugs puncture the abdomen of female bed bugs with a bacteria laden injection of sperm, and it was unknown till know how the female bed bugs knew when to ramp up their immune system to deal with this threat. The feeding/breeding cycles of bed bugs are inherently linked the study found. If Bed bugs were fed irregularly, the female most likely died from the copulation, whereas if a consistent food source was available on a regular schedule, the females were able to produce antibodies at the appropriate time, 1-2 days before the regular feeding.

This study shows that any measure that interupts their regular feeding pattern will help control the breeding cycle. In this way, proper bed encasements and Climb Up Interceptors(tm) seem to be a perfect in preventing bed bugs their proper meal.

Tune in next week for another review of the latest on "Bed bugs".

Full article available at sciencemag.org.

Have more questions? Need more answers? Feel free to find Steves Pest Management on Facebook, Twitter or the web at www.stevespestmanagement.com.

Generating bed bug control

Yup, we finally have our 100 Kilowatt generator up and running! This unit has already proven invaluable for some of our larger jobs. We can now bring 400,000 BTU's to your home and destroy all your bed bugs with heat.

Nightwatch proves it's worth

As this bed bug pandemic continues to spread we have found our Nightwatch units to be very useful. We have supplied many units to apartment complexes and hotels so that they can check units between occupants. The triple action of heat, pheromone lures and CO2 has proven to be very effective in identifying a bed bug infestation, The main thing to realize is the bed bugs don't all emerge every night and therefore the Nightwatch should be set up for a minimum of three nights but preferably seven nights.
So if you suspect bed bugs, install a Nightwatch and wait for the results. If there are no bed bugs caught, then the skin irritation can be caused by fleas, dry skin, delusional parasitosis or other non bed bug related irratants.

Total heating apartment units

We have started using total heat units pumping out 31,000BTU and have been very successful. Actually, more successful than I thought was possible after hearing some negative reports in the past. The heat draws the bed bugs out of the wall when it reaches 95 and shortly afterwards kills them all at 120 degrees. This is the perfect tool for hotels that need to be sure all bed bugs are dead in a unit that bed bugs were found in. the main disadvantage is they draw 47 AMPs so you need a huge portable generator if you are doing large rooms.

Cryonite Treatment

Well we have started work with Cryonite. The product shows good results for contact killing of bed bugs but we have noticed a lack of penetration of cloth surfaces, which is a definite disadvantage when treating beds, sofas, etc. There does seem to be a need for this product for electronics and other areas sensitive to liquids or dusts, since the Cryonite goes from a solid to a gas. the unit itself is slightly bulky and heavier than we would like. I would have to say not one of my favorite or main control products but definitely another tool in the tool chest for our war on bed bugs!

ONPHA Toronto Conference

Scott, Stefan, Al and I provided a bed bug management booth at the ONPHA conference on November 19th, 2010. We were very happy with the response and positive feed back about our work and our programs. ONPHA is being proactive on their bed bug management programs and positive results are sure to follow!