11/24/2011 Majority Of Travelers Neglect Checking For Bedbugs

As travel peaks this Thanksgiving, holiday travelers have one more thing to worry about catching besides flights – bed bugs. Atlanta-based pest control leader Orkin conducted a recent Omnibus survey and found that, despite nationwide media coverage of increased bed bug activity, only a third of respondents (33 percent) check for bed bugs at their travel destinations, and only 26 percent of respondents routinely conduct an inspection when they return home from traveling.

While 63 percent of people dislike bed bugs because they fear being bitten*, 62 percent do not check for them when they return home from traveling, and 56 percent of respondents report not knowing how to conduct a bed bug inspection.

“Being aware of bed bugs while traveling by plane, train or car is important because these pests are great hitchhikers,” said Orkin Entomologist and Technical Director Ron Harrison, Ph.D. “Bed bugs have been found in all 50 states where we provide service and travel easily from place to place on personal belongings and in luggage.”

Thirty seven of the 50 busiest airports ranked by the FAA are in cities on Orkin’s top 50 bed bug cities list. Of the top 10 bed bug cities, only Dayton, Ohio does not boast a major airport.

Consistent inspections, as well as early intervention tactics, are important to help lower the risk of an infestation and the need for extensive pest control treatments. One female bed bug can lay one to two eggs a day and up to 200 eggs in her lifetime. Typically, bed bugs come out at night to feed, but during the day, they are most likely found within a five-foot radius of where people sleep.

Pest control professionals use several different techniques to identify bed bug infestations, including:

Thorough conventional inspections – performed with the naked eye.

Trained bed bug-sniffing dogs.

DNA testing, a new technique employed by Orkin to help confirm the presence of bed bugs by swabbing areas these pests typically crawl across for bed bug DNA.

“These pests can be found anywhere – from the finest hotels to the cleanest homes,” said Harrison. “Bed bugs do not discriminate, so everyone should get in the habit of regular inspection.” When traveling, Orkin suggests using the acronym S.L.E.E.P. to avoid taking bed bugs home with you.

Survey surfaces for signs of an infestation, such as tiny rust-colored spots on mattress tags and seams and bed skirts.

Lift and look for all bed bug hiding spots, including underneath the mattress, bed frame, headboard and furniture. They are about the size and shape of an apple seed when fully grown.

Elevate your luggage on a luggage rack away from the bed and wall, since bed bugs can often hide behind head boards, artwork, picture frames and electrical outlet panels. Luggage can also be placed in a garbage bag or the bathtub.

Examine your luggage carefully while repacking and when you return home. Always keep luggage off the bed and store it in a closet or other area, far away from your bedroom.

Place all your clothing from your luggage immediately in the dryer for at least 15 minutes at the highest setting upon returning home from travel.

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10/29/2011 How To Keep Bedbugs Out Of Luggage: Remember These Tips For Safer Travel

If you are ever unfortunate to stay in a hotel room that is infested with bed bugs, then you will know how uncomfortable they can make you feel. If you are not careful they can get into your luggage and before you know it you have given them a free ride to your house.

Prevention is obviously better than cure, but if you suspect that you might be at risk of picking up some passengers then there are some precautions that you can take to try and minimize the risks of having some new bed bug pets at your home. Try not to put your clothes or luggage directly onto your bed, and if possible store your luggage on a metal luggage rack or in the bathtub when possible as bed bugs can’t climb metal or porcelain. Also, try to pack everything in plastic bags and pack a plastic bag large enough to hold your luggage.

If you suspect that you might have picked up some passengers, make sure you wash everything thoroughly in hot water and then dry it for a minimum of thirty minutes at the highest dryer setting. For more delicate items, soak in warm water with lots of laundry soap for several hours before rinsing. Other items can be put into a dryer for thirty minutes to eliminate bed bugs.

Your luggage itself should be vacuumed as thoroughly as possible before scrubbing with a stiff brush to dislodge any eggs that you missed. The vacuum bag should be sealed and emptied immediately. You can store the luggage in your garage to prevent any that survive from getting into your house.

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9/7/2011 Travel Website Raveable Assembles Hotel Bedbug Database

“We have assembled the largest database of traveler reports of bed bugs in hotels globally,” claims hotel review site Raveable, based in Kirkland, WA. TechFlash picked up on their story that the bed bug report population is exploding, but I think it’s worth qualifying that Raveable seems to be making statements about their own statistics, not bed bug populations assessed by more official means.

For instance, their their press release lists the top ten cities with hotel bed bug reports. Raveable says, “Since 2010 the number of individual hotels with bedbugs has risen 250%,” but that’s not precisely accurate. I believe they mean, “the number of reports of individual hotels with bedbugs.” In short, since they are a start-up that began in 2009, I suspect them of measuring their increase in popularity with travelers in general, as well as their users’ encounters of the bed bug kind.

Their bed bug reports page offers a list of cities most recently infested, and the closest to us on that list is Portland, OR. That seems a little strange. Seattle’s page at the Bed Bug Registry has 100 entries, classified as “latest reports.” As some of those reports extend back to 2009, it is difficult to get a clear picture of whether things here are getting bed buggier or not. In any event, since 2009, 28 Seattle hotels have been flagged as having bed bugs at some point, which doesn’t rate on Raveable.

Raveable, commendably, says they do contact travelers to “confirm” the bed bug incident, and they also remove the reports after one year. That makes sense, as with bed bugs and hotels, what counts is either a steady stream of reports, indicating the problem has never been solved, or a fairly recent report, indicating the extent of the bed bug infestation may still be unknown.

Sadly, a review of the Bed Bug Registry’s reports gives you some inkling of the problem becoming intractable at some budget and residence hotels, where the rates don’t seem to justify cleanliness in general, let alone the expense of multiple pest removal treatments.

Bedbugger.com has news for itchy travelers who have thrown away one too many suitcases full of clothing: The Packtite Closet is coming soon. It’s a portable, blow-up bed bug roaster that allows you to treat all sorts of clothing on hangers, speeding the process: “We recently had 50 hung up items get to temp in right around 2 hours,” claims Packtite.

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8/30/2011 Are We In A Bedbug Cycle Of Growth? 

“Good night, sleep tight. Don’t let the bed bugs bite.” Largely eradicated by the early 1940s, bed bugs were almost unheard of until recently. As infestations continue to rise, some exterminators say avoiding bed bugs is becoming more difficult for area residents.

Fogle’s Pest Control owner Jimmie Fogle said he has seen a “moderate increase” in the number of cases over the last several months.

“They are coming back, but they are not as bad as 30-40 years ago,” Fogle said. “DDT was used then to kill them before it was banned by the government.

“They are attracted to cotton and wool. We find them mostly in bedrooms and the mattresses.”

The exact cause of bed bug resurgence remains unclear, although many exterminators feel increased travel is a key factor. According to the recently released NPMA/University of Kentucky 2011 “Bugs Without Borders” survey, 99 percent of pest control specialists have seen bed bug infestations in the past year.

Gressette Pest Management has seen a 30-40 percent increase in the number of bed bug calls this year over 2010. Company representative Gene Kizer says the insects have no mode of transportation except humans.

“I have my own theory, too,” Kizer said. “We see cycles of insects come and go and we are in a cycle of bed bug growth now. That happens with all insects.”

Orkin Pest Control entomologist Stoney Bachman said the number of bed bug cases has remained steady over the last three years.

“I’d say prior to that, they were unheard of in this area,” Bachman said. “Only recently have they become a household issue. Infestations can also spread in apartments because they can travel through walls.

“Five-star hotels in New York are having bed bug problems. More are actually seen in high-end homes because those individuals often travel more.”

The blood-feeding insects are reddish-brown in color, flat and about a quarter-inch long. Signs of activity include sores on the body where bites have occurred.

Gressette pest control technician L.W. Strock III said many people don’t attribute the bites to bed bugs unless it continues to happen.

“You will see blood stains on the bed sheets,” Strock said. “Having a lot of clutter in the room also gives them ample places to hide, which requires more invasive methods of treatment.

“Stores sell pesticides labeled for bed bugs and they can be somewhat effective as long as you follow the label to its entirety. But it will take you even longer to rid the problem using that compared to what is available to exterminators.”

Although some online information sites suggest there are simple precautions travelers can take to reduce the chance of transporting bed bugs, Kizer said there is little that can be done to prevent them. The eggs are smaller than a pinhead and can be transported on shoes.

Immature or even adult bugs can often stow away in luggage without detection.

“If people are suspicious they have bed bugs, they need to call an exterminator to come out and assess the situation,” Kizer said. “They are easy to identify and are not mistaken for any other insect.”

8/22/2011 Austin Texas Spends Big To Get Rid Of Bedbugs: Housing Authority Has Spent Over $40k Already

The Housing Authority of the City of Austin has spent nearly $40,000 over the past year fighting bedbugs in 15 of its 19 facilities.

Since September 2010, the authority has been treating the insects, whose bites leave itchy red welts on the skin. Over the past year, 166 of the housing authority’s 1,928 units have been treated for bedbugs, said Sylvia Blanco , vice president of housing and community development for the agency.

“There are peaks and valleys,” Blanco said. “It also depends on the season, but right now we’re having a spike because people are trying to get out of the heat. They’re staying indoors, and sometimes they’re bringing the bugs with them.”

Bedbug infestations in recent years have increased dramatically all over the country. The bugs have wreaked havoc in all kinds of buildings: luxury hotels, department stores and private homes, to name a few. Locally, they’ve hit student apartments around the University of Texas and the Austin State Supported Living Center, which houses people with intellectual disabilities. Austin Travis Integral Care has spent $14,000 over the past year battling the bugs in seven of its 46 properties for people with mental illness.

The Austin housing authority contracts with Oliver Termite and Pest Control for monthly treatments for roaches, ants and other insects at all its housing facilities, Blanco said. The company sprays for bedbugs after receiving a complaint from residents. Each apartment generally gets one treatment, which could include two or three visits from the exterminator, Blanco said.

“Maybe on occasion it could take a second treatment,” she said. “But typically it’s pretty effective in the first treatment.”

If the bugs come back after the warranty period, usually 30 days after the last treatment, residents are required to pay for additional service, Blanco said. That costs residents between $175 and $265 . The pest control company also speaks with residents extensively on ways to avoid a reinfestation, such as inspecting all furniture before bringing it into the apartment.

The housing authority does not deny treatment to anyone and tries to be flexible when charging residents, all of whom are low-income, Blanco said. Many people pay off the bill through a payment plan.

Bedbugs are notoriously hard to get rid of because they are nocturnal and elusive and can go more than a year without eating. They hide in crevices, in furniture, even in books. In apartment complexes, they can easily travel from unit to unit, said Missy Henriksen, spokeswoman for the National Pest Management Association in Virginia.

“They will crawl through the baseboards, cracks in the walls and the electrical outlets,” she said.

Even the most extensive treatments can be ineffective. The Fort Worth Housing Authority spent hundreds of thousands of dollars last year battling bedbugs in one apartment complex — even paying to replace carpets and treat residents’ belongings — but still had to permanently shutter the building when the bugs refused to surrender. More than 200 residents had to move.

Simmie Burke, 68 , said he had bedbugs about a year ago in his third-floor home at Austin’s Lakeside Apartments, a Trinity Street complex owned by the housing authority. The pest control company sprayed, he said, which slowed the insects down. But when the insects returned a few weeks later, Burke decided to battle the bugs on his own, treating the apartment and all of his belongings with pesticide .

“A lot of people have them, but they’re ashamed,” Burke said. “They shouldn’t be. It’s not about hygiene. They’re all over the place.”

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7/13/2011 Detroit Is Nations Third Most Bedbug Infested City: Problem Is Here To Stay

Detroit is the nation’s third most bed bug-infested city. But the reality is it doesn’t matter where you go, cities across the U.S. are dealing with bed bugs.Pest control companies say bed bugs are a growing problem and, as of right now, they are here to stay. And while they might not carry disease, they do carry a stigma but, even that is changing.Bed bugs don’t care how clean a home is, how much it costs or even how much you paid for a hotel room.”A place to live, something to eat and perhaps a little company,” said Mark Sheperdigian, that’s all a bed bug needs to survive in your home.Sheperdigian, an entomologist with Rose Pest Solutions said while getting bed bugs is easy, getting rid of them is tougher. After all, a single female can lay hundreds of barely-visible eggs a month.Part of the problem they are tough to battle is the products used to eradicate them decades ago are no longer allowed to be used.”The products we have today, the bed bugs show a great resistance to which means it doesn’t work as well, doesn’t kill them as quickly, if it kills them at all,” Sheperdigian said.Sheperdigian said not only are the chemicals different, people are different now too. People travel more and we aren’t as educated about bed bugs prevention.”Clearly the bed bugs have changed from what they were before and they have continued to change and it’s our job to get in front of them,” Sheperdigian said.In fact, Sheperdigian said since 2002 their business has nearly doubled every year and it’s showing now sign of slowing down.”So many of the conferences are dominated by bed bugs or purely about bed bugs that it’s kind of taken over. The bed bugs don’t show any signs of slowing up. We don’t have anything to stop them dead in their tracks,” Sheperdigian said.

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7/8/2011 Bedbug Surge In New Jersey Keeps Exterminators Busy: Population Larger Than Ever

Gregorio Lozano and his team pulled up to the target address and got ready for battle, donning white bio-hazard suits and off-loading silver tanks of cryogen.

They were on the hunt for bedbugs.

With the bedbug population larger than at any point in recent memory, exterminators are busier than ever, with infestations of the wingless red insect — no bigger than a pin head — increasingly being found far beyond homes and bedrooms. They’re now being found in stores, offices and the workplace.

“There really is a mass paranoia about the insects now,” said Steve Spinelli, owner of Titanium Laboratories in Nutley, which devotes 80 percent of its business to bedbugs, up from 15 percent in recent years.

Experts say labor lawyers have begun advising businesses on their liability and whether they should pay to treat not only their offices, but the homes of employees as well.

David Cassidy, a labor lawyer at Norris McLaughlin & Marcus in Bridgewater, expects to see the issue come up soon in new union contracts.

In rare cases, Cassidy said, bedbugs might warrant employee disability claims if someone is bitten at work. Even if no one is bitten, morale tends to drop after an infestation, he said. Some employees get labeled as “dirty” if their peers suspect they’re responsible for the bedbugs, Cassidy said.

“We’ve coined this harassment as giving someone the ‘Scarlet B,’” he said.

Despite increased concerns, experts say most people know little about bedbugs or infestation signs. Others try to remain ignorant, preventing the chances of catching the infestations at a small size.

“There are still people out there in New Jersey that are incredulous that it can happen in New Jersey, to them, said Peter Di Eduardo, an account manager at Bell Environmental exterminators. “They think it can only happen in New York.”

Americans once thought bedbugs were relegated to good-night wishes. Effective pesticides wiped out most U.S. bedbugs in the 1950s. But increased international travel to places like South America, Asia and Africa allowed bedbugs resistant to traditional pesticides to travel back to America, said Changlu Wang, a professor at Rutgers University’s Department of Entomology.

Outbreaks began to pop up in major cities, especially in New York, attracting media attention and scaring people about what lives in their mattresses.

At the same time, some exterminators were found to be equally ill-informed about how to deal with bedbugs. In January, the state Department of Environmental Protection fined a Newark company, TVF Pest Control, $860,000 and revoked its pesticide business license after spraying at least 50 residences and apartments for bedbugs in three counties with two banned chemicals during a six-month period, according to the DEP.

“If you’re spraying pesticides incorrectly, and besides the fact that you can make people sick, you wind up irritating the bugs, so you’re ending up spreading them to your neighbors’ apartment,” Di Eduardo said.

The state Legislature, meanwhile, has gotten into the act. The Assembly in 2008 set basic guidelines for landlords and tenants facing an infestation. Since then, the Legislature has passed seven more laws, including the establishment of 30-day warranties from exterminators and requirements for health care facilities and shelters to keep a standing agreement with a pest-control company.

Most recently, the Senate has proposed a $500 tax credit to offset the high costs of extermination.

Lozano, who first learned to battle bedbugs when his own house was infested, works in Bell Environmental’s bedbug division, created about two years ago to deal with increasing infestation. In the past year alone, bedbug calls have risen about 50 percent.

“How many calls have we been to? I don’t know — thousands by now,” Lozano said. “This is my second call today.”

At a home in Paterson, Lozano and his extermination team — garbed in white suits and latex gloves — moved through the downstairs, checking sofas, beds and drapes. This was actually the second treatment, and the team found some lingering bedbugs.

As they searched, Lozano stopped and pointed to the shoulder of Di Eduardo, who had accompanied the team.

“Look at that sucker!” Lozano said. A large bedbug had crawled up Di Eduardo’s suit, nearly to the neckline. Di Eduardo looked down, picked it up between thumb and forefinger and squeezed it, leaving a trail of blood on his latex gloves.

“You know, I’m most worried about taking them home to my wife,” he said. “She’d shoot me.”

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7/3/2011 Top 10 BedBug Myths: The insects, making a comeback around the globe, cannot fly and are really not interested in hanging out on your body–but they do occasionally bite during the day

Once a pest of the past, bedbugs now infest every state in the U.S.. Cimex lectularius—small, flattened insects that feed solely on mammalian and avian blood—have been living with humans since ancient times. Abundant in the U.S. prior to World War II , bedbugs all but vanished during the 1940s and ’50s thanks to improvements in hygiene and the use of pesticides. In the past 10 years, however, the pests have staged a comeback worldwide—an outbreak after the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney was a harbinger of things to come. This revival may be the worst yet, experts say, due to densely populated urban areas, global travel and increasing pesticide resistance—something to consider as the summer travel season gets underway.

“By every metric that we use, it’s getting worse and worse,” says Coby Schal, an entomologist at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. Health authorities and pest control operators are regularly flooded with calls, and the epidemic may not have yet peaked. And because bedbugs are indoor pests, there are no high or low seasons throughout the year, he adds, only continual bombardment. “It’s just the beginning of the problem in the U.S.,” Schal says.

Spreading rapidly with the bedbugs is a mass of misinformation about their biology and behavior. Straight from the experts, here are the facts behind some of the most notorious myths about the diminutive bloodsuckers.

Myth 1: Bedbugs can fly
Bedbugs lack wings, and therefore cannot fly. That is unless you put a blow dryer behind them, says Stephen Kells, a bedbug researcher at the University of Minnesota. Then they’ll fly about 1.2 meters. On their own, bedbugs crawl about a meter a minute, he says.

Myth 2: Bedbugs reproduce quickly
Compared with other insects, bedbugs are slow to reproduce: Each adult female produces about one egg per day; a common housefly lays 500 eggs over three to four days. Each bedbug egg takes 10 days to hatch and another five to six weeks for the offspring to develop into an adult.

Myth 3: Bedbugs can typically live a year without a meal
Scientists debate this point, but evidence suggests that at normal room temperature, about 23 degrees Celsius, bedbugs can only survive two to three months without a blood meal. But because they are cold-blooded, their metabolism will slow down in chillier climates, and the insects may live up to a year without feeding.

Myth 4: Bedbugs bite only at night
Although bedbugs are generally nocturnal, they’re like humans—if they’re hungry, they’ll get up and get something to eat. “If you go away to visit a friend for a week and you come back and sit down on the couch, even though it’s daytime the bedbugs will come looking for you,” Schal says. Keeping a light on, then, unfortunately does not keep these tiny vampires away.

Myth 5: Bedbugs live exclusively in mattresses
“‘Bedbug’ is such a misnomer,” Kells says. “They should also be called pet bugs and suitcase bugs and train bugs and movie theater bugs.” Bedbugs spread away from beds into living areas and can be seen on any surface, he says, including chairs, railings and ceilings.

Myth 6: Bedbugs prefer unsanitary, urban conditions
“Bedbugs are terribly nondiscriminatory,” Schal says. Bedbugs can be found anywhere from ritzy high-rises to homeless shelters. The prevalence of the bugs in low-income housing is therefore not a result of the insect’s preference, but of dense populations and the lack of money to pay for proper elimination strategies. “Any location is vulnerable,” Kells says. “But some people are going to have a harder time getting control of them because it is such an expensive treatment.”

Myth 7: Bedbugs travel on our bodies
Bedbugs do not like heat, Kells says. They therefore do not stick in hair or on skin, like lice or ticks, and prefer not to remain in our clothes close to our bodily heat. Bedbugs are more likely to travel on backpacks, luggage, shoes and other items farther removed from our bodies.

Myth 8: Bedbugs transmit disease
Bedbug bites can lead to anxiety, sleeplessness and even secondary infections, but there have been no reported cases of bedbugs transmitting disease to humans. They do, however, harbor human pathogens: At least 27 viruses, bacteria, protozoa and more have been found in bedbugs, although these microbes do not reproduce or multiply within the insects. Canadian researchers announced (pdf) in the June issue of Emerging Infectious Diseases that bedbugs isolated from three individuals in a Vancouver hospital carried methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, aka MRSA. Still, there have been no reported cases that the bugs actually transmit human disease.

Myth 9: We should bring back DDT
When the controversial pesticide DDT was banned in 1972, most bed bugs were already resistant to it, Schal says, and today’s populations are even more widely resistant thanks to the use of a new class of pesticides. Pyrethroids, the main class of pesticides used against bedbugs today, targets sodium channels in bedbug cells, just like DDT. Consequently, as bedbugs develop resistance to pyrethroids, they also become cross-resistant to DDT.

Myth 10: You can spray bedbugs away
Thanks to pesticide resistance, those cans of spray at your local hardware store simply will not do, Schal says, adding: “Relying strictly on chemicals is generally not a good solution.” The most effective solutions are fumigation and heat treatments, but these can cost a cool $2,000 to $3,000 apiece for a single-family home. Scientists are diligently pursuing other strategies, including freezing and bait similar to that used for cockroaches. In the October 2010 issue of the Journal of Economic Entomology Schal and colleagues at the U.S. Department of Agriculture published a technique that employs inexpensive infrared and vibration sensors to track bedbug movement, which could be applied to the development of automated traps that detect the pests.

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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