9/13/2011 Avoid Bringing Bedbugs Home From School: 5 Tips To Prevent InfestationBed Bugs are on the rise in schools in New York City and towns nationwide. The Bed Bug experts at Bell Environmental Services offer five practical and important tips for students, teachers, and staff to avoid bringing bed bugs home from schools.

Pens? Check. Notebooks? Check. Lunch? Check. Bed Bugs? – Wait a Minute!

While they’re not on any school’s list of items to bring to class, it is inevitable that some students, teachers, and staff will unwittingly carry bed bugs into schools. Others will unfortunately take these hitchhiking insects home in their backpacks. Some bed bugs will even decide to make classrooms their new homes. As the bed bug epidemic worsens, these insects have spread to elementary, middle and high schools in towns nationwide. In New York City, bed bug incidents in public schools rose to 3,590 last year, more than triple the 2009-2010 school year.

As parents prepare their kids for the new school year, giving students the knowledge of how to prevent bed bugs coming home from school is just as important as getting them the right supplies.

“Vigilance is the best, ongoing defense against bed bugs in schools and at home,” said Glenn Waldorf, of Bell Environmental Services, a leading pest control company and bed bug specialist. “Bed bugs are great hitchhikers that crawl into backpacks, bags, and jackets to get to and from school. Once present, a pair of bed bugs can multiply into a large infestation in a short period of time.”

The entomologists at Bell Environmental Services offer these five tips to help students and teachers avoid bringing bed bugs home:

• At school, place backpacks and jackets inside large, resealable plastic bags, and don’t let them sit on the floor in a closet or in pile with other coats and bags.

• Upon returning home from school, empty backpacks completely outside the home, if possible, and inspect bags and items inside for bed bugs.
• At home, keep backpacks in plastic bags or closed storage bins. At minimum, do not leave backpacks in or near bedrooms.
• If bed bugs have been found at their school, have children disrobe immediately upon coming home, and place clothing in sealed plastic bags. Place clothing in a dryer (medium-high heat for 20 minutes) and throw out the plastic bags. Bed bugs can’t survive high heat.

• Engage the school administration. Ask them what precautionary and proactive measures they are taking to prevent the introduction and spread of bed bugs. Encourage them to educate students how to identify bed bug signs and use teaching tools such as “Roscoe and the Big Bed Bug Hunt,” a free coloring and activity book on bed bugs authored by Bell Environmental.

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7/1/2011 How To Protect Yourself Against Bedbugs This Summer

If you’re worried about encountering bed bugs this summer, or — poor you — you’re already coping with them, you’re in good company. One in five Americans has had bed bugs or knows someone who has, and 80 percent are afraid of encountering them in hotels, according to a survey by the National Pest Management Association. And for once, a public health panic is reasonably well-founded; bed bugs are indeed turning up in hot spots all over the country, with new infestations in major cities hitting the news with regularity.

I’ve been reporting on bed bugs for quite awhile. I’ve covered how to protect yourself from bed bugs when you travel, including a new spray product reputed to fend them off from hitching home in your luggage, and how to get rid of bed bugs if you are unfortunate enough to bring them home with you. I’ve even offered additional bed bug prevention tips for frequent travelers.  In fact, I’ve become something of a reluctant expert in the science of bed bugs and bed bug-prevention. So now I’m going to tell you what you really need to know about bed bugs that no one else is telling you.

1. Know Your Danger Spots. If your summer vacation is going to take you touring the National parks of the West or Southwest, you probably don’t have to take more than routine precautions against bed bugs. They really haven’t made it out to the hinterlands in great numbers yet. But if your summer travel is going to take you to a major cities, particularly one in the midwest or eastern seaboard, watch out. The list of contenders for the “top 10″ danger zones in constantly changing as new pest reports come in, but Cincinnati, New York, Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and, perhaps surprisingly, Denver and Los Angeles consistently make the list. Boston and Baltimore made a recent list issued by pest management company Terminix, which also included Dallas and San Francisco for the first time. Other midwestern cities with major bed bug problems include Dayton, Cleveland, and Columbus, Ohio (in fact the entire state of Ohio is under siege, according to pest management experts), Indianapolis, Minneapolis, and Louisville, Kentucky. Another list added Houston and Las Vegas to the list of western cities newly introduced to the bed bug disaster. (Thanks to Terminix, Orkin, and ChemtecPest for these lists.) If you want to know how bad bed bugs are in your summer vacation destination, look it up in the bed bug registry, which keeps up-to-date reports which can even be searched by hotel. Warning: gross-out factor high. Be aware, however, that you may be looking at reports from a year or more ago, in which case the particular hotel may have cleaned up its act.

3. Travel Prepared. The last thing you want to do is arrive and start worrying about bed bugs. Take the worry out of travel by bringing protective supplies, including plastic bags to store your clothes in (those air-lock travel bags do double-duty by making extra room in your suitcase, as well as keeping bugs out.) Don’t be tempted to hang your clothes in hotel closets or leave them strewn over chairs, unless you’re 100-percent certain the room’s bug free; bed bugs are now known to favor upholstered furniture and yes, they can climb walls. Put your suitcase on a luggage rack and pull it out from the wall. If you’re going to New York, Ohio, or anywhere else where bed bugs are known to be, well, practically everywhere, you ca also bring a household remedy reputed to keep them at bay. (No guarantees here.) These can include Vaseline, which some say you use to coat the legs and rails of the bed so the bugs can’t climb up, and an herbal spray, Rest Easy, that promises to repel bed bugs. I travel with it and spray it around the edges of my suitcase and all over the luggage rack, just in case. Or you can take the extreme measure being recommended by some and bathe the bed rails, headboard, and the edges of the mattresses in a mixture of rubbing alcohol and floor cleaner. (Seriously, people recommend this but it smells so vile you’re probably better off staying home.) When I come home from a trip, I wash everything I’ve brought with me and dry it in a hot dryer and leave my suitcase stored in a plastic garbage bag for two weeks, also with “just in case” in mind.

There’s a lot more to say about bed bugs, but I’ve probably disgusted you enough for one day. More posts to come, including how to get rid of bed bugs once you’ve got ‘em. Still excited about that summer vacation? Just kidding.

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6/28/2011 BedBugs On The Rise In Albany New York Area: Exterminators Getting Many Calls A Day

Bed bugs are on the rise in the Capital Region, according to Northeast Pest Control.

The company says they’re getting five to six calls a day as opposed to just one or two calls a season a decade ago.

There may be another reason for the rise: the summer months.

Russell Yake says that the summer months are particularly prone to bed bugs, primarily because people do more travelling.

“It’s a little bit warmer so they travel around more freely in the summer as opposed to the winter.”

So what can you do to prevent bed bugs? To start, Russell Yake says be vigilant and be aware.

“When you come home unpack your luggage before you come into the house I recommend putting it in the dryer. Anything over 115 degrees will kill them,” he said.

Northeast Pest Control uses heat vacuuming and placement of traps to get rid of the bugs. Russel Yake says that if you’ve got them, professional help is probably your best bet.

Continue Reading/Watching Video: Bedbugs On The Rise In Albany

6/7/2011 How Hotels Can Avoid Bedbugs: Experts Give Top Tips To Avoiding Bedbug Infestation

Bed bugs can be a real “pest” for hoteliers! We ask Bed Bugs experts, Heat and Go, how to stop them becoming an endemic throughout your building.

Operations manager, Cliff Eccles, reveals all.

1. Early Detection System
   Bed bug detection is now made easier with electronic “sniffing devices!” It’s like having a canine detective in your pocket! It is used by professional pest technicians to locate those hard-to-find pockets of bed bugs – they usually hide in confined spaces. After a few hours in these spaces, the CO2 they produce builds up and an electronic bed bug detector can indicate their presence.
2. In-House Staff Training
   To provide early detection your Staff need to know how to identify a bed bug – the signs of activity, where they are most likely to hide, where to detect them and what to do in order to stop them spreading! Through staff training, you can understand the insect and detect them early, prevent them spreading and minimise expense and loss of revenue.
3. Mattress Encasements
   The first thought is often to throw away the mattress which can be expensive and time-consuming to replace. With a heat treatment, the mattress and all other furniture in the room is cleansed against bed bug eggs and adults. To stop the mattress becoming re-infested, specially developed mattress encasements are available, which are bite proof and totally sealed to stop Bed Bugs harbouring on the mattress. An encasement is recommended after every heat treatment to minimise harbourages. A range of suitable sizes are available.
4. Annual Room Inspections
   Part of your due diligence against bed bugs is ensuring visitors don’t get bitten. Therefore, you need to declare at some point that the room has been thoroughly inspected and is bed bug free. Heat and Go’s trained technicians can provide a documented room inspection, so the room can be declared bed bug free.
5. Heat Treatments
   Bed bugs need to be heat treated. We use wireless temperature probes strategically placed to provide consistent feedback to our technicians who will make adjustments as necessary until the correct temperature to kill bed bugs and their eggs has been achieved.

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1/14/11 New BedBug Study: One in Five Americans Have Been Infested Or Know Someone Who Has With Bedbugs

NEW YORK — One in five Americans has either had an experience with bedbugs themselves or knows someone who has and a majority say the tiny blood-suckers are a source of worry for them, according to a new survey.

Seventy eight percent of respondents were most concerned about infested hotels, while others said they were wary of picking them up at work, at the doctor’s, at the movie theater or on public transportation.

“I was surprised just how pervasive the problem is,” said Missy Henriksen, a vice president at the National Pest Management Association, which commissioned the online survey of 504 adults.

Bedbugs, which are about the size of a grain of rice and flat-shaped, like to nestle in furniture and bedding upholstery and are notoriously difficult to get rid of.

Exterminators use powerful chemicals to rid apartments of bugs, an invasive process that forces tenants to temporarily move out.

Young renters who live in cities are most vulnerable to bedbugs, the survey showed.

Some respondents said they changed their routines to minimize the likelihood of encountering the bug.

A quarter of respondents have checked a hotel room for bedbugs and 12 percent have changed or canceled travel plans for fear of the pest. Others said they checked second-hand furniture and store dressing rooms.

Having a bedbug infested home can also hurt people’s social lives. A third of respondents said they would not invite friends who had the infestation into their homes, as people can carry bedbugs around on their clothing.

But the poll also found wide-spread misinformation about bedbugs. Nearly half believed, incorrectly, that bedbugs transmit disease to humans and more than a quarter thought they are more common in lower income households and dirty homes.

“The truth is that bedbugs do not discriminate in regard to cleanliness, nor do they prefer one socio-economic class to another,” Henriksen said.

“Bedbugs are found in penthouses and five-star hotels as well as in low-income housing and budget motels.”

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11/18/10 Don’t Let Bedbugs Bite Your Pet

The traditional bedtime admonition, “don’t let the bed bugs bite” has taken on a new urgency, as bed bug infestations have recently plagued many a swanky hotel, including New York’s famous Waldorf-Astoria.

Although the exact reasons for the resurgence in the bed bug population are unknown, it is suspected that the increase in international and domestic travel, developing resistance to common pesticides and the relative lack of knowledge as to how to combat these blood suckers all may play a role.

Bed bugs fall into the category of crawlies known as ectoparasites, which means they feed off of the outside of their victims. Contrast this with their creepy cousins, the endoparasites, which wreck havoc on the innards of their victims. Bed bug bites leave red welt-like lesions on the skin. Sometimes, these don’t show up for as long as two weeks after the bites are inflicted.

Potentially the most concerning aspect of bites from many endoparasites, including fleas, mosquitoes and ticks is the fact that many of them transmit diseases that are much more serious than their bite wounds. Not true of bed bugs, which carry no serious diseases that we know. Occasionally, humans have sustained allergic reactions to the bites of bed bugs, and the stress and strain of dealing with infestations has been

known to cause mental health issues as well.

Bed bugs don’t colonize their hosts but instead feed and then scurry away to the nearest hiding place. It turns out that hiding is one of the things that bed bugs are very good at, which is yet another reason why we’re having such a hard time getting them out of our lives. Bed bugs may bite you while you slumber at a nice hotel, then wedge themselves into a crack on your luggage for the trip back to your place.

With all this news about bed bugs of late, I’ve gotten a couple of inquires about pets and bed bugs. Just like humans, dogs and cats are potential victims for bed bugs, but the good news is that you don’t have to worry about your dog giving safe harbor to a large colony of bed bugs. While it’s possible that a bed bug could hitch a ride on your dog or cat just like it could on your suitcase, it’s unlikely to stay there for long, and it surely won’t move in for good.

If you suspect that you have bed bugs in your home, you’ll need to take steps to treat your pet’s bedding and clothing. But there’s no need to apply pesticide to your pet. Wash bedding and clothing in very hot water. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has some excellent information on its website regarding dealing with bed bug infestations.

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11/17/10 NYC: New Mattress Disposal Rules Aimed At Curbing Bedbugs: Dept Of Sanitation Will Now Require Mattresses On Streets To Be Sealed In Plastic Bags

The city is looking to kick bed bugs to the curb.

Starting December 3, the Department of Sanitation will require city residents to fully seal any mattresses or box springs in plastic bags before leaving them out for curbside pickup.

Failure to do so can result in a $100 fine.

Sanitation Commissioner John Doherty says this will help safeguard workers and stop the spread of bed bugs throughout the city.

The sanitation department will delay enforcing the rule for 30 days until January 3, when full enforcement will begin.

For more information, call 311 or visit nyc.gov/sanitation.

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11/2/10 How To Avoid Bedbugs During Your Holiday Travels

You’ve heard the horror stories. You’ve read the headlines. Bedbugs are here.

So are your holiday travel plans, perhaps to see relatives up North.

Tiny and sneaky, the nocturnal critters have been causing paranoia and mayhem coast to coast, most prominently in large cities like New York and Chicago but also everywhere in between. They’ve been seen in plush hotels, cheap motels, rental cars and moving vans, movie theaters, airplanes and even government buildings. Locally, the bugs were recently found at a north Tampa men’s shelter and an outpatient mental health clinic run by the James A. Haley VA Medical Center.

Some of the hysteria, experts say, is just that. Though bedbugs feed on human blood, they can’t transmit disease.

But they gross us out. We thought we got rid of them after World War II, but when we banned the pesticide DDT in the early 1970s and began globe-trotting more, the bloodsuckers found a welcome mat back into American homes.

Don’t let yours be one of them.

Know your enemy

There are six stages of life for Cimex lectularius. The easiest to spot is the adult, which is flat, plump, reddish-brown and about 1/4-inch long — tinier than an apple seed. Often missed, though, are their young, which are pale white and about the size of the period ending this sentence. All of them bite.

Learn to spot their eggs and droppings, too. On the Web, bedbugger.com is rife with images and videos, including some showing bugs feeding on Louis Sorkin, an entomologist at the Museum of Natural History in New York.

Avoid problem spots

The site Bedbugregistry.com takes reports from all over the country. A recent search for Florida found 289 cases of bedbugs in hotels and buildings, including several in the Tampa Bay area. TripAdvisor.com also lists reports of bug-ridden hotels. When planning your stay, you might consider calling your hotel and asking about their protocols for dealing with the insects.

In general, be wary of second-hand furniture and mattresses, which can be infested. Bedbugs can survive for more than a year without feeding. Most fumigators can treat an average-sized couch for about $150.

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11/1/10 Not All Bedbug Prevention Items Are Worth The Money

The bedbug scare has given birth to a wide range of devices and treatments that promise to keep these nasties out of your home, or help you eradicate them if they have already arrived. The problem? Some of these products are pure hokum, according to one industry expert.

Electronics

We asked White about the Home Sentinel Indoor Home Pest Control Repeller found on Amazon.com, which claims for $39 to eliminate pests, including bedbugs, “with tremendous ion-pumping power, heavy pounding electromagnetic waves, …and pest repelling ultrasonic sound waves.”

His answer? “Those [electronic devices] have shown no effect on insects whatsoever.”He is frequently asked about a similar product he finds equally as ineffective, the Riddex Bed Bug Zapper, which also claims to drive away bedbugs using ultrasonic waves. “If pest control was that easy,” White said, “none of these pest control companies would have a job.”

Ultraviolet light

Another device that he finds ineffective is the Purelight UV Light Sterilization Ultraviolet Hand, which in its ad “guarantees a 99.9% kill rate of bacteria viruses including dust mites & bed bugs.” White said that, “There has been no evidence that has shown that these are effective in any way, shape or form against bedbugs.”

Ozone

He has also tested claims that ozone, which is an effective treatment for house molds and bacteria, can be used to kill bedbugs. Laboratory tests by manufacturers found ozone effective in killing bedbugs at concentrations of 100 parts per million or more, but when White set up real-world tests of the technology in infested homes, the ozone purveyors were unable to generate anything close to this concentration. Therefore, the treatment was ineffective. White also expressed concern that, since ozone is an unstable molecule, it might react with other molecules in the household to produce hazardous substances.

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10/27/10 Bedbug Prevention

For homeowners plagued by the recent rise in the bedbug population, sleeping tight again may be more difficult than they thought.

Bedbugs are pesticide-resistant, can live for up to a year without food and can endure temperatures between 32 degrees and 120 degrees. Their resilience has caused headaches for pest-control companies and residents alike.

This year, Memphis-based pest-control company Terminix named Detroit as the third-worst metropolitan area for the insects, and the infestation is making its way throughout southeastern Michigan and into Livingston County.

“It’s starting to come this way, too,” said Jeff Wilhite, owner of Absolute Pest Control, 211 S. Michigan Ave., Howell.

Bedbugs in their adult state are flat, brown insects about a quarter-inch long. Females lay three to five translucent, 1-millimeter-long eggs per day. The bugs feed on human blood, but will feast on other warm-blooded animals if humans are unavailable.

They carry no diseases but are irritating creatures, and their bites can cause red, itchy welts.

The Michigan Department of Community Health has seen an increase in the number of bedbug reports, according to James McCurtis, the department’s spokesman.

“There’s no concrete reason in terms of why we’re seeing an increase in bedbugs,” he said. “It could just be that people are recognizing them better.”

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Other Bedbugville Prevention Stories

4 Steps To Solve A Bedbug Problem

How To Kill BedBugs…Heat Treatments

How To Get The Bedbugs Out Of Your Clothes