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

7/5/2011 Cincinnati Ranks First In Bedbugs: Tops Orkin’s May List Of Bedbug Service Calls

6/9/2011 BedBugs Strike Reebok Sports Club Second Time: Upper West Side Gym Has Another Infestation

These bed bugs are attracted to blood – and apparently fame too.

The parasitic insects invaded Manhattan’s posh Reebok Sports Club/NY where celebrities such as Chris Rock, Antonio ‘L.A.’ Reid and Taye Diggs work out.

The insects were discovered at the Upper West Side guym – where Jerry Seinfeld first met his wife Jessica – last Thursday in the men’s locker room.

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

5/18/2011 Ohio Politicians On Bedbugs: Legalize Propoxur; Pair Is Advocating The EPA To Allow Product Back On Market

Two politicians from opposite sides of the aisle teamed up to fight bed bugs in a press conference held Tuesday morning.

During the press conference, Republican Congresswoman Jean Schmidt and Democratic State Representative Dale Mallory called on the EPA to solve the problem.

The pair is advocating that the EPA allow a product called Propoxur back on the market. It was taken off the market in 2007 because of potential health risks.  But Schmidt says Propoxur could have prevented fires like the one Sunday in Carthage, when heaters used to kill bed bugs burned the house down. At that house, exterminators used a technique that heats a home to 135 degrees in order to kill bedbugs. In this case, the heater destroyed this family’s home.

So what do the experts think about Propoxur, is it the solution to bed bug woes?

Glenn Sherzinger of Good Thing Pest Control says, “No matter what product you use its good treating technique and understanding the insect and knowing exactly where to place the product that is key to solving the problem.”

Propoxur was pulled from the market a few years ago because of health concerns caused by exposure to the chemical, like nausea and vomiting.

“Is it a harmful product? I don’t believe so but any chemical used improperly can be harmful,” said Sherzinger.

So Sherzinger says if Propoxur were brought back to the market to fight bed bugs, it should be left to the experts, and not stocked on the shelf at a hardware store.

The Ohio Department of Agriculture has also asked the EPA to allow the use of Propoxur by exterminators.

Continue Reading More & Watch Video: Ohio Politicians On Bedbugs: Legalize Propoxur

5/16/2011 Cincinnati BedBug Treatment Sets House On Fire: Propane Heaters Linked To Problem

Exterminator Richard Tyree was six hours into a heat treatment meant to kill bed bugs in a two-family home Sunday afternoon when a neighbor spotted black smoke pouring from the house.

Tyree called for help – but the ensuing fire destroyed the home in the 300 block of West Seymour Avenue.

The treatment had just 30 minutes left.

“As far as I know, we had an equipment malfunction,” Tyree said. “It can happen. It’s very unfortunate, (but) we’re not a company that runs from a problem.”

Tyree said that until Sunday, his company, Carthage-based R.S. Tyree Pest Control & Bed Bug Be Gone, never had an issue with the treatment, which he finds more effective than chemical methods. To kill the bed bugs, he uses propane convection heaters to raise a home’s temperature to 135 degrees. He requires residents to leave during the 6½-hour treatment and removes any flammable items from the home.

“We do up to 20, 25 apartments at the same time,” Tyree said. “We’ve never had a problem.”

Cincinnati Fire District Chief Glenn Coleman said one of the six heaters Tyree was using ignited carpet in a living room, a fire that went unnoticed in the empty home until flames could be seen through the windows. Coleman estimated the damage to the house at $90,000, a total loss.

A firefighter suffered a minor arm injury and was treated at University Hospital and released, Coleman said.

No residents were injured in the blaze, but Deborah Owens of Clermont County said the loss is a big one for her family. Owens and her husband own the house, and Owens’ sister lives on one side of the duplex with her boyfriend. Two other tenants, who are friends of the sister, reside on the other side, Owens said.

“We lost basically a family home,” she said. “Most of our family has lived there and the woman we bought it from, all of her family lived there for years.”

The fire was reported at 2:07 p.m. Tenants had been told to be out of house from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

A house next door sustained about $1,000 in damage.

Tyree said his small company has insurance.

“I would do anything I could to fix it,” he said.

Continue Reading More: Cincinnati Bedbug Treatment Sets House On Fire

12/22/10 USA’s Most Bedbug Infested Cities: Cincinnati Ohio Rank’s Number 1

Going out of town for the holidays? Traffic, blizzards or spending a long weekend with your crazy uncle may put a damper on the holiday cheer, but in your haste to come home make sure you’re not transporting six-legged souvenirs: bed bugs.

A decade ago bed bugs were still the vermin of lore–blood-sucking creepy-crawlies laid to waste by the amazingly effective (and toxic) pesticide DDT.

These pesky insects have made quite the stateside comeback lately.This year bed bug outbreaks have been reported everywhere from homes to office buildings, hotels, stores, schools and hospitals. No less than former president Bill Clinton’s Manhattan offices suffered an outbreak.

Although the exact cause remains a mystery, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency chalk up the resurgence of these tiny terrors to “increased resistance of bed bugs to available pesticides, greater international and domestic travel, lack of knowledge regarding control of bed bugs due to their prolonged absence, and the continuing decline or elimination of effective vector/pest control programs at state and local public health agencies.”

Translation: Bed bugs are great travelers. Every region of the country has been besieged, with bed bugs hitchhiking rides in handbags, the folds of clothes, luggage, planes, trains, cars–even ambulances.

While every major metropolis has reported infestations in 2010 (as well as a rapidly increasing number of smaller towns), some cities have been harder hit than others. We tapped the nation’s two largest pest exterminators, Orkin LLC and Terminix, to find the cities with the worst bed bug infestations. Each company has 400 offices nationwide and compiled a list of the hardest-hit metros, based on the number of calls they’ve received and bed bug jobs performed relative to population. From their lists of the 15 cities with the worst bed bug problems, we then focused in on 13 cited by both.

“This list is based on our experience, and it’s not to say that other cities might not be as bad,” stresses Ron Harrison, Orkin entomologist and director of technical services.

Bob Young, Division Service Manager for the Northeast and Mid-South Divisions at Terminix, explains his company’s methodology like this: “We based it on sheer number of calls that come into our service centers…plus the services that we perform…basically total that and measure the increase that we’ve been seeing, and it’s been growing exponentially over the years.”

The results? Bustling densely populated urban epicenters with high turnovers of tourists and business travelers are among the worst sufferers. Those cities include New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.

The state most afflicted by bed bugs is a bit of a surprise: Ohio. Three of the Buckeye state’s cities–Cincinnati, Columbus and Dayton–are on the exterminators’ bed bug-infested lists.

“At this point we don’t know, nor does anyone know, why cities in Ohio seem to have a much higher influx of bed bugs per capita than larger cities,” says Orkin’s Harrison.

Continue Reading More: USA’s Most Bedbug Infested Cities

12/7/10 BedBug Prevention For Your Home: Stay Safe This Holiday Season While Traveling & At Home From BedBugs

If you’re a junk collector or you occasionally shop at flea markets, second hand stores or even pull stuff off the curb to repaint, you need to be careful because bedbugs are on the rise. Second hand mattresses and even new products and clothing could be infested with bedbugs.

Another major problem relating to bedbugs? Travel. With the holiday travel season upon us we have to be extra vigilant to prevent picking up bedbugs or inadvertently giving them to a relative. Travel

I recently stayed at a major brand hotel in New York and after pulling the bed sheets off to check for bedbugs I had an unpleasant surprise. Although I didn’t see any live bedbugs the mattress was riddled with what appeared to be fresh red blood stains.

I asked to be moved to another room. Although I didn’t see any blood on that mattress I still had two sleepless nights in that hotel, just the thought of bedbugs had me itching for two days.

I called the headquarters of the reward program to let them know of my disgust and was told to contact the manager of that location. He told me that the mattress had been tested and the spots were chocolate stains. I asked to get a copy of the report, but have not received it as of yet.

Regardless of the cause, the mess is not good for business especially since New York is fighting a war with bedbugs. You would expect them to check each bed carefully when they prepare it for the next guest, but as evidenced by my experience that is not the case.

I was lucky this time and avoided a possible situation. But you must be diligent when traveling or bringing anything into your home because it won’t matter how great your decor is if your home is infested with bedbugs.

Here are a few tips to keep your home bedbug free:

— When traveling, keep your clothes in your suitcase and zipped. Avoid placing your clothes on the bed.

— Always check the bed for blood stains and bugs immediately after you arrive in the room. The most common area to find blood stains are in the seams of the mattress. You should also look on the wall for any signs of blood spots.

— After you return home vacuum your bags in the garage to get rid of any bugs that may have tried to hitch a ride from the airport or taxi.

— Wash all of your clothing in hot water, if possible. Avoid placing the suitcase on your bed. Store your suitcase in a large plastic bag away from your bed.

— Check all of the items you bring into your home to add to your decor or wardrobe. Vacuum everything out, even new furniture, and wash your new clothes and rugs. If you see a bedbug or signs of a bedbug contact an exterminator immediately.

— If you are expecting guests be sure to take the same precautions when they arrive at your home. At the very least vacuum their bags in the garage.

———

TOP CITIES WITH BEDBUGS

A recent report compiled by Terminix ranked the top 15 cities with the most bedbugs in the United States in August of 2010.

1. New York

2. Philadelphia

3. Detroit

4. Cincinnati

5. Chicago

6. Denver

7. Columbus, Ohio

8. Dayton, Ohio

9. Washington

10. Los Angeles

11. Boston

12. Indianapolis

13. Louisville, Ky.

14. Cleveland

15. Minneapolis

Continue Reading More: BedBug Prevention For Your Home

11/19/10 Bedbugs To Spread With Holiday Travelers: Must Use Caution To Avoid Infestation