9/27/2011 Bedbug Summit Discusses Latest Trends & Weapons

Bed bugs have become an increasing problem at hotels across the country. This week, dozens of experts invaded Chicago to gather for a summit about how to deal with those pesky bugs. They have some innovative ways to get rid of them.

 They are adaptable and not all pesticides work on them. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cautions residents to get professional help for bed bugs. The agency found over 100 people got sick and one woman died after using bed bugs pesticides.

Experts in town this week are swapping information about the latest techniques to keep bed bugs at bay.

The little guys are the stuff of nightmares. Bed bugs can range from the size of a sesame seed to the size of an apple seed. Their food source is you — so what better place to get to you than those overnight hours when we’re sleeping? It’s a veritable buffet for the bugs. As disturbing as that notion may be, they are not life threatening.

“There is awareness of this pest, but people are freaked out and the wrong messages are sticking,” said bed bug central/entomologist Allison Taisey.

Pest control specialists will swarm Rosemont for the next two days for the Bed Bug University North American Summit.

To start, there are special detections devices. There is a kind of coaster for your bed leg: the bugs can crawl in but can’t crawl out. There is an active monitor, which emits heat and CO2 like a person, irresistible to bed bugs.

Mattress and bed spring covers will allow you to see the bugs, as there are no nooks and crannies to hide.

To control the insects:

• Heat has proven effective if the item or area is heated to 120 degrees for an hour.
• There are portable heaters for rooms.
• And there is a device to kill any bed bugs you make have picked up on your journey.

Experts say the key to detecting and controlling the bugs is getting professional help.

“They’re really hard to find for one thing, and the products we have available to us&it takes a trained professional to use them,” said Taisey.

The Safer Pest Control Project has been monitoring pest activity in the Chicago area for 17 years. The project reports bed bugs are particularly a problem in multiple-dwelling structures — public and private.

The project’s executive director says, while the beds bug may not lead to the health problems of other pests, controlling these particular bugs can be more expensive.

“bed bugs, they don’t discern between any economics, cleanliness. It’s like, you are the food, so you are like the most delicious thing they’ve ever met. They need you to survive,” said Safer Pest Control’s Rachel Lerner Rosenberg.

The bugs can be hard to see. The marks can be hard to see. And some people don’t react to bed bugs — so some people may not know they have been bitten.

Some good things to know: they don’t fly, they don’t jump and they are not known to carry disease.

Continue Reading More/Watching Video: Bedbug Summit Discusses Latest Trends & Weapons

8/4/2011 Meet The Congressman Who Doubles As A BedBug Expert: Representative Robert Dold Ran A Family Extermination Business & Will Speak At Second Annual BedBug Conference This Fall

Things are about to get extra creepy and crawly for Rep. Robert Dold (R-Ill.) — the lawmaker’s office confirms he’ll be speaking at the second annual North American Bed Bug Summit in Chicago. 

According to a press release, the three-day summit in September will “provide an educational blue-print for major industries affected in the battle against bed bugs.” Sounds like hair-raising stuff. 

A spokeswoman for Dold told ITK, “His background as a small-business owner is running Rose Pest Solutions in Illinois. Given his expertise in this area, he will be addressing the convention.”

A statement on the bed bug convention’s website says, “Bob’s roots in pest management will provide attendee’s [sic] with a perspective that few other legislators can bring and his insights should be a highlight of this year’s summit.”

ITK suddenly feels all itchy …

Continue Reading More: Meet The Congressman Who Doubles As A Bedbug Expert

7/17/2011 Why BedBugs Won’t Be Stopped

Seems like everywhere you go someone in the media is talking about bedbugs. Most recently, a study compiled by Terminix, a pest control service company, ranked the top most infested cities in 2011. Among those in the study include: Cincinnati, Detroit, Chicago, Philadelphia and, edging out all of the competition at number one, New York.

So, why are these little bloodsucking critters not going away? It would seem that with all the news stories, we as a public would know the precautions needed in place so that we don’t find ourselves battling a case of the bedbugs. Well, we would be mistaken.

Our bedbug problem has been around in large numbers since 2000. It has grown and effected more homes, offices, theatres, planes and retail establishments in 2010 than any previous year.

There are so many answers as to what we should do. Knowing that the information you receive from a pest control professional can vary due to experience and education, here are some things to keep in mind when calling a “professional.”

1. Are they licensed and insured?
2. Do they take the time to answer your questions and give you great customer service?
3. How are their online reviews? (Remember you can’t make everyone happy all the time.)
4. Do they have a guarantee on their work?
5. Can they supply you with the labels to the chemicals they are using upon arrival to treat your home or office? (In New York, it’s law, and you should research what they are putting into the atmosphere within your home.)

We can also take several pre-emptive measures to help place a barrier around our homes, offices and automobiles so that, if and when, we come in contact with bedbugs, they won’t hitchhike over to our place:

• Purchase mattress encasements. (They even have crib encasements now)
• Open packages from retailers (both on and off line) outside or in a garage.
• Be wise when you stay in a hotel. Watch my video on hotels and bedbugs here.
• Don’t bring used furniture into your home.
• Buy a bedbug spray that specifically says bedbugs on the can or bottle.

Number five on our pre-emptive measures checklist is one of the most important steps you can take to help keep the bedbugs out. Creating a barrier around your home, office and automobile is a triple threat cocktail to kill whatever comes into these areas.

Bedbug sprays come in all sizes and shapes. I recommend Pronto Plus® bedbug spray, as it’s effective in providing the coverage and barrier on the items you choose to apply it to and won’t leave you coughing for hours. Always research and find the solution that is right for your current situation and remember to read the labels of any product you spray or use in your home.

So now I ask you, why are bedbugs still growing in numbers all across America? We all have a responsibly to protect our families, friends and even our coworkers. Take the time to educate yourself about how these little critters work, especially if you are living in or visiting New York.

Continue Reading More: Why Bedbugs Won’t Be Stopped

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.

 Continue Reading More: How To Protect Yourself Against Bedbugs This Summer

5/27/2011 How NYC Became Americas Most BedBug Infested City: Problem Has Plagued Hotels, Subways, Retail & Even NYPD Police Cars

It probably isn’t much of a surprise, but bedbugs are taking a bigger bite out of the Big Apple so far this year, according to one exterminator company.

For the second consecutive year, Terminix ranked the city first in the nation for bedbug infestations, edging out Cincinnati, Detroit, Chicago and Philadelphia.  (In better news for New Yorkers, a rival ranking by competitor Orkin ranked the city only the seventh worst for bedbug cases.)

Terminix’s city rankings are based on the number of customer complaints and infestations discovered by employees of the company’s 350 U.S. branches. The company wouldn’t release specific data on just how many bedbug complaints it gets, but it said the problem is multiplying.

Bob Young, an entomologist and Northeast and Midwest division manager for Terminix, estimated that he has logged two to three times more bedbug calls over last year, following high-profile cases in which bedbug invasions forced several Manhattan businesses to close temporarily.

Is any borough of New York more infested than the others?

“Manhattan,” said Young, who is based in New York. He the added: “Clearly, Brooklyn and Queens. The Bronx. Even in the rural areas. They’re all over the place. These things, they hitchhike.”

Business for bedbug exterminators boomed last year. Bedbugs start at $500 a room, and off-site fumigation of personal belongings can add another $1,000, Young told WSJ columnist Anne Kadet last year. High-end residential jobs involving art and antiques can cost as much as $20,000.

This summer projections for bedbug activity probably won’t help New Yorkers feel more at ease. ”It’s a larger and larger problem each day,” Young said. “College students seem to bring them home with them.”

Young, who has been with Terminix for 15 years, said he started seeing the critters hit New York in the early 2000s. Since then, complaints have risen ten- to fifteenfold, he said, as the public becomes more aware of their presence.

Last year, bedbugs shut down the flagship Niketown store on East 57th Street, the Hollister Epic store in SoHo and a Victoria’s Secret on the Upper East Side, among other locations. And the insects made a debut at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

This year? “They’re even in police-department squad cars,” Young said.

Continue Reading More: How NYC Became Americas Most BedBug Infested City

5/24/2011 2011 Most Bedbug Plagued Cities List: NYC Takes Top Spot According To Pest Control Giant Terminix

New York, for the second year in a row, according to a study just released by pest-control giant Terminix. Not really a surprise, since NYC is a populous metropolis with well-publicized infestations everywhere from apartment buildings to businesses such as department stores, magazine offices, even Lincoln Center.

Terminix reports an increase in bed bug infestations in most states during the past year, in part because consumers are more aware and on the lookout for the tiny pests, Terminix entymologist Paul Curtis told me.

The company’s list of most bed bug-plagued cities, based on customer complaints validated by Terminix and infestations discovered during pest calls:

1. New York
2. Cincinnati
3. Detroit
4. Chicago
5. Philadelphia
6. Denver
7. Washington, D.C.
8. Los Angeles
9. Boston
10. San Francisco
11. Columbus, Ohio
12. Dayton, Ohio
13. Baltimore
14. Louisville, Ky.
15. Dallas

This is the second year Terminix has put out a list. Baltimore, Dallas and San Francisco appear on it for the first time this year, replacing Indianapolis, Cleveland and Minneapolis.

Bed bugs have always been around, especially since strong chemicals such as DDT were banned, says bug expert Curtis. But today, “People are more aware and communicating” about the issue,” though “there’s still a stigma attached to having bed bugs,” he says. Businesses such as hotels are loath to let customers know about infestations, because that would deter potential clientele. So it can be very difficult to gather accurate information on the extent of bed bug infestation.

I asked Curtis whether it’s true that you can get bitten in seats on planes, trains and buses or in theaters. “There’s no question,” he said. “This is an insect looking for a dark place with a human host, looking to get a blood meal” And bed bugs are “consummate hitchhikers,” moving around easily on people and in bags, he says. Plus, they inject an anesthetic when they bite, so you may not feel it. Some people don’t get bite marks, he says. In other cases, a bite may not show up for a few days, making it hard to tell where you got it.

What to do? Be really careful bringing traveling bags and clothes into your home, he says. “When I get home I put my clothes in a plastic bag. They go into the washer and then the dryer on high (heat kills bed bugs). I vacuum my luggage.”

In hotels, Curtis always strips covers off the mattress and inspects it and the area behind the headboard and under box springs for dark spots (bed bug fecal matter), blood (from a feeding), the bugs themselves (which can range from head-of-a-pin size to appleseed-like), or for rows of tiny eggs.

He does not use hotel drawers and keeps his luggage on a rack as far away from the bed as he can. Bed bugs like to “harbor close to their food sources,” he says. So watch out for beds and upholstered seating. If you want to get extreme, you can place suitcases in big plastic bags that zip closed and you can leave luggage in the bathroom, which is less likely to harbor bed bugs. “But there is no silver bullet” for eradicating them, he says. Heat, cold and multiple treatments are often tried, especially since bugs can lie dormant for a long time.

Terminix has a bed bug learning center online, with answers to many questions about the critters. Other pest control companies, such as Orkin, have posted tips for bed bug detection and treatment.

The good news is that bed bug bites generally don’t cause harm and that “30%-40% of people never have a reaction to them,” Curtis says. Many never realize they were bitten.

Prevention is the key to avoiding extensive and expensive treatments of homes and businesses (which can mean throwing out mattresses and replacing carpets). You also can look at bedbugregistry.com, which contains about 20,000 user-submitted reports, to see if any infestations have been reported at hotels where you’re planning to stay. I checked out a couple of fleabags where I have stayed (and one where I refused to check in because the room looked sketchy), and both had client reports of bed bug bites. In those cases, I was surprised to see how unsympathetc and unhelpful users say management was in responding to the issue.

Continue Reading More: 2011 Most Bedbug Plagued Cities List, NYC Takes Top Spot

4/16/2011 Beware Of Bedbug Exterminator Scams: Warnings From Around The Country Of Consumers Getting Duped

Bed bugs are a national obsession, and with good reason. Their population has jumped by 500 percent in the United States in just the last few years, and many of us would try just about anything to get rid of them.

“Early Show” Consumer Correspondent Susan Koeppen has learned firsthand just how annoying bed bugs can be. She got them.

Koeppen said, “One thing I’ve learned – getting rid of bed bugs can cost you big bucks. Bed bugs are becoming big business. But now, even some in the pest control industry are warning you may get ripped off trying to get rid of bed bugs.”

Just six months ago, Koeppen attended a bed bug summit in Chicago where she asked this important question: “I’m in hotels every week. What are the chances I’m bringing them home?”

Phil Cooper, of Bed Bug Central, a website devoted to bed bug information, replied, “You will be bringing them home.”

Sure enough, after a recent ski trip in Utah, bed bugs hitched a ride home in her ski bag.

After suffering bites and hiring a bed bug-sniffing dog to find the little suckers, Koeppen had to pack up her closets, launder and dry-clean everything, so the exterminators could go to work.

Because she’s done so many stories about bed bugs, Koeppen knew how to find a reputable company to do the job. But warnings about bed bug scams are popping up across the country, and it’s no wonder. Revenues from bed bug extermination are exploding, from $98 million in 2006 to $319 million in 2010.

When Shantel Woon-Sue got bed bugs, she says she got scammed.

She paid an exterminator $1,500, but despite taking her money, he never got rid of the bedbugs.

Woon-Sue said, “I do feel cheated. The company came out, and I thought it was taken care of, but in actuality, it wasn’t.”

And she’s not the only one feeling scammed. In a hidden camera investigation, the CBS News station in Los Angeles found one man trying to charge $350 to get rid of bed bugs. Another also wanted money after finding the pests. But there was just one problem: the house had already been inspected and found to be bed bug-free.

So what should you look for if you want your house inspected for bed bugs?

John Russell is a bed bug specialist. His company has done more than 50,000 bed bug inspections.

He says bed bug sniffing dogs are up to 98 percent accurate.

He says a visual inspection alone is not nearly as effective.

Russell said, “A proper visual inspection can take … an hour. You know really looking into every dresser drawer, flipping the dressers, looking into everything it can take a long time.”

The National Pest Management Association says consumers need to be careful when hiring a company to handle bed bugs.

Missy Henriksen, of the National Pest Management Association, said, “During the bed bug scare, consumers need to understand that there is good news. There are trained professionals throughout the country who know how to deal with bed bugs properly.”

As for Woon-Sue, she finally got rid of her bedbugs after hiring a bed bug sniffing dog and spending hundreds of dollars more than she expected.

Woon-Sue said, “I was extremely disappointed because it really does interfere with your entire life.”

Koeppen added, “It’s a lot of work to get rid of bed bugs, so it’s very important to hire someone that knows how to handle them.”

She advised consumers look for someone who is licensed. And if you are hiring a bed bug sniffing dog, find out if he is certified and how long he has been working with his handler.

Koeppen said her bed bugs are now gone by all indications. but added the bugs do a number on your mind.

“So far, so good. No more bites,” she said. “But it does a number on your brain. Every little piece of fuzz I see on the bed, ‘Oh, it’s a bed bug.’ Every little itch. ‘Oh, my God it’s a bed bug!’ But so far so good.”

Koeppen added, “We were in a beautiful place (when we picked up the bugs). A place I would go back to because it was so nice. And I stay in hotels every single week. I’m in a hotel today. I could bring home bed bugs tonight. You never know.”

To protect yourself at home, Koeppen recommended these products:

Protect-A-Bed: $50 to $90, depending on the size of your bed.

These wrap around your mattress, your box spring, to keep the bugs either in or keep them out from nesting in your mattress.

Continue Reading More/Watch Video: Beware Of Bedbug Exterminator Scams

11/16/10 NYC: Struggling Actors Turn To Bedbug Careers: Great Alternative To Waiting Tables

For struggling New York actors reduced to waiting tables for a living, there’s finally an alternative career path: bedbug hunter.

Ever since the city began suffering from a widespread infestation of the pernicious bugs last year, demand has soared for people to get rid of them. Actors, it turns out, make the perfect bug busters.

“Actors have great personalities and follow directions well,” says Janet Friedman, owner of Bed Bug Busters NY, who employs many people from the theater world to clean up the vermin. She favors entertainers, she says, because they can improvise, work quickly and are used to the drama of a stressful situation.

Meagan Gilliland, a 25-year-old actress who moved from Chicago to New York in September 2009, secured a gig with Bed Bug Busters before arriving.

While she’d rather be acting, she says her new job doesn’t bug her.

On the contrary: Ms. Gilliland says she uses her acting chops while she goes through every inch of a person’s apartment. In a particularly dusty apartment—sometimes clients are hoarders—she puts on a smile trying to “pretend to be OK, like you’re still having a good time with friends and stuff, while you’re choking on a lot of dust.”

“The performance aspect, the training that most of us have in our own fields, definitely helps when you have one of those more difficult places to go to,” she says.

Just as waiting tables in fashionable restaurants gives aspiring actors access to New York’s movers and shakers, bedbug hunting can provide a platform for making connections with “high-up people in the New York scene,” says Ms. Gilliland. To date, she has been offered several babysitting gigs from her bedbug cleaning job.

Continue Reading More: NYC: Struggling Actors Turn To Bedbug Careers

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.

Continue Reading More: How To Avoid Bedbugs During Your Holiday Travels