Bed Bug Extermination
How do we eliminate a bed bug infestation?
Aanteater now has a new heat extermination system which will eliminate bed bugs in just one application.
Every pest control business must develop a system for extermination based on their research and experience. Bed bugs are a new pest and methods and information about them is changing very rapidly. As a result many pest management professionals are still struggling to deal with bed bugs effectively. We belong to the national pest control association and the Ontario pest control association and we attend as many seminars as possible to stay abreast of the latest information. Our opinion is that expecting to eliminate even mild bed bug infestations with a conventional single chemical application is unrealistic, more badly infested living spaces may be impossible to eradicate, except where heat treatments are applied. There is considerable evidence showing sensitivity of bed bugs to heat. Heat treatments are far more effective, require less preparation work, yield immediate results and use no pesticides. Anteater’s heat system will penetrate the entire infrastructure to kill bed bugs wherever they hide. The property is heated evenly to 57°C/135°F and then maintained for 3.5 hours at that temperature to ensure that all wall cavities are heated throughout as well as insulating items like mattresses and pillows. This resurgence is worldwide, we are losing this war very rapidly at the moment but that doesn't mean that on an individual basis we cannot eliminate bed bugs and keep them out of a home or building.
How should I prepare?
Before the treatment begins, all occupants of the units being treated are to leave and not enter for at least 10 hours after the technician arrives. Technicians will be removing nearly everything from inside drawers and cupboards in areas being heated. Clothes will be hung up or spread out throughout the area in order to insure that everything is heated properly. Your house or apartment will look turned upside down when you get home.
The following items must be removed to areas not being heated. If your entire house or unit is to be heated then these items will have to be removed completely. Nothing else should be removed including backpacks or overnight bags as they need to be heated in case they contain bed bugs or eggs.
- Pets such as dogs, cats, birds, hamsters and aquarium fish
- Candles, candy, house plants, stick deodorant
- Wine, photos, oil paintings, stringed musical instruments
- Cd’s, blue ray, dvd’s, cassettes
- Medication
- Aerosol cans
Unplug all electrical appliances except refrigerators. Small electrical appliances like laptops should be removed. Do not remove anything that may have even a single bed bug or egg in it from areas to be heated.
Where did bed bugs come from?
Bed bugs have existed for a very long time, probably since the beginning of civilization although no one knows for sure. They were a very common pest all over the world before about 1945 after which they were virtually eliminated in many countries through the introduction of pesticides like DDT and slightly later a family of pesticides called organophosphates. Bed bugs are now considered a relatively new pest in Canada since no one in the pest control industry as well as most of the general public has any memory of them. The global resurgence began sometime in the late 1990s. What we are experiencing in Canada is happening all over the world. It is probable that increased air travel, modern pesticide practices, increasing resistance, a lack of public awareness and the wide spread banning of many common pesticides have all contributed to the sudden growth of bed bug populations. At Aanteater we saw our first bed bug 10 years ago. Each year the number of properties we see with bed bugs has grown until now in 10 short years we treat more bed bugs than any other pest. This summer (2010) we have done 3 times as many bed bug exterminations as we did during the summer of 2009. By our calculation at the current rate of growth there will be 10 times as many homes and apartments infested 4 years from now. This is a very serious problem.
Public awareness has certainly been a large part of the problem
Until very recently most people had never heard of bed bugs. This combined with the fact that bed bugs are very difficult to positively identify has been a major factor in their spread. Infestations often go for months without being detected. Bed bugs are very secretive feeding on a sleeping person for short periods of perhaps 5-10 minutes then crawling back to hide immobile in a tiny crack nearby for up to a week by choice and if no human is available for a blood meal they may survive for 2 or 3 months. Bed bugs are less than the thickness of a dime which means they can easily squeeze under a baseboard or into almost any crack in the bed frame. Even a trained professional will often miss low level infestations during an inspection. Bed bug bites are painless and many people show no symptoms from bites until the infestation is very advanced giving the bugs lots of time to spread. Picking up discarded or used furniture has been common practice, however much of that furniture may now be infested with bed bugs. If you discard furniture that is infested with bed bugs you should cut the cushions or mattress with an exact o knife or spray paint the word bed bugs on it to stop your neighbour or some passerby from bringing it back into a home. Beware of mattress companies that offer a free service where they pick up and discard of your old mattress when you buy a new one. The old mattresses may be removed from an infested house and stacked in the delivery truck right beside the days shipments of new mattresses contaminating the entire load. This doesn’t happen often these days but during the early years of the resurgence we saw this scenario many times. Hotels are the perfect vector for bed bugs to spread, new occupants every night or two bringing their luggage in to the room and sleeping in the same bed.
Some more ideas for avoidance
The greatest method of avoidance is increasing general public awareness as much as possible. Everyone needs to know as much as possible about bed bugs. See our one page bed bug fact sheet on the home page which we encourage you to print and photocopy. Picking up used furniture is simply not a good idea anymore. If you buy furniture from used furniture stores make sure to ask if they have methods and procedures in place to inspect and exterminate furniture that moves through the store.
In an apt building new tenants moving in should have to place all their furniture in a quarantine room for 1 night. A bed bug monitor in the room will determine by morning with reasonable accuracy if the new tenant is infested. If that tenant is infested they may rent a specialized portable trailer that heats all their belongings to 50°C for 2 hours. This process will guarantee they have no bed bugs. It will also kill cockroaches, and any other insect pest that may be present.
If you travel in hotels you should be very careful. Don't put your clothes in the drawers, don't put your suitcase under the bed or on the luggage stand. Your suitcase should go on a table as far from the bed as possible. Then pull the table away from the wall.
Bed bug proof mattress and box spring encasements that have been specifically designed for bed bugs as well as bed leg traps are valuable in simplifying early detection as well as slowing an infestations progress. The bed leg trap is placed under the bottom of bed legs and prevents bed bugs from getting into or leaving the bed. It also helps give an idea of how severe the infestation is based on the number of bed bugs caught after a few days. Using mattress and box spring encasements eliminates the complex architecture of the mattress and especially the box spring where bed bugs hide. The bed bugs cannot penetrate the encasement from the outside and there is almost nowhere on the encasement for them to hide which means an inspection of the encasement will reveal bed bugs very quickly. Unfortunately they do not prevent bed bugs from hiding in the bed frame or anywhere else in the room as well as being quite expensive.
What do they look like?
The adult bed bug is a wingless insect that is flattened from top to bottom and reddish brown or brown in colour (see the photo at the beginning of this article). They are 4-5mm in length or about ¼ of an inch. When engorged with blood, its body becomes elongated and swollen, and its colour changes from brown to dull red. Young bed bugs or instars vary in size from about 1 mm to 4mm depending on their stage of development and vary from translucent white at birth to having similar colouring as adults. Bed bug eggs are also about 1 mm in length and white making them nearly impossible to see.
Life cycle and physiology
Bed bugs hatch and develop through 5 instar phases before becoming adults, under normal conditions this takes about 50 days. They will feed about once a week through all life stages. In contrast a mosquito feeds only once during its lifetime a bed bug may feed 40 times. Average life span is just under one year. A female will often deposit eggs every day to a maximum of 200 to 500 during her life time.
How do I inspect my bedroom for bed bugs?
Everyone needs to know how to inspect a bedroom for bed bugs. Early detection will mean your home is much easier to treat and there is less chance that the problem has already spread to other bedrooms. OK, how do you inspect a bedroom for bed bugs? 50% of all the bed bugs in the entire room will be in the mattress, box spring or bed frame. This is the place to start. Strip the bed clothes then lift up the piping along the edge of the mattress bed bugs or feces may be present. Feces appear as small black staining on the fabric. Next you remove the mattress and take a quick look to see if there are any bugs between the mattress and box spring. Then lift the box spring and check the bottom edge where it lies on the frame, and turn back the plastic corner guards on the bottom. Underneath the plastic corner guards on the box spring is the single most common spot to find bed bugs. After that if you still haven't found bed bugs cut the webbing out from the bottom of the box spring and look inside around the wooden inner frame. Adult bed bugs may squeeze into very small cracks and crevices and eggs are so small that even a very thorough inspection may not detect bed bugs if the infestation is not severe. Although inspections are valuable, they should not be considered proof that bed bugs are not present.
Pesticide resistance
Pesticides effectiveness is largely the result of its long term residual properties. We spray the pesticide, it dries and then the bugs crawl across the dry residual and die. Direct contact with most pesticides will still almost always kill bed bugs however the latest research shows that less than 5% of populations tested show any negative effect from the residuals from all Canadian commercially available pesticides even at concentrations 10 times those recommended on the label. DDT was extremely effective in the late 1940's and 50's in controlling bed bugs however by the time it was banned the resistance in bed bug populations was so high that even DDT was virtually useless. The family of pesticides called the organophosphates is what actually finished the process of eradicating them. Nearly all pesticides work on an insect’s central nervous system. Today's bed bugs have developed at least 2 mutations that seem to have made them resistant to virtually all nervous system based pesticides. If pesticides are ever to be a silver bullet again then what we need is something radically different in the way that it affects insects, some pesticide like nothing that has been invented in the past.
Temperature
Heating bed bugs to 50°C or 122°F will kill all life stages in less than 1 minute. Heating treating a house or apt unit is effective however it is a very complex extermination and requires a trained professional. A dryer is the quickest simplest way to kill bed bugs in clothes very quickly but make sure the setting is hot and allows time for the dryer to reach maximum temp. We recommend leaving clothes in the dryer for 20 minutes. Bed bugs can survive for at least 5 days at -10°C which means that placing items outside during the winter in southern Ontario is not particularly effective. It may take many hours for thick pillows and other insulating material to cool completely even in much colder conditions.
False alarms and fear
People are usually fairly sure if they have bed bugs when they call us but not always. They may not have seen any bed bugs but are getting bites. They may simply be having a reaction to some new soap or other chemical, they may have an allergic reaction to something or they may even have a dog with fleas that are now biting them or a spider bite. It’s not always possible to be absolutely sure. Doctors are unable to distinguish a bed bug bite from any other possibility either. Flea bites are almost always below the knees while bed bugs bite all over. We have a bed bug monitoring machine which we can put in the house which will tell us with a fairly high degree of accuracy if they have bed bugs however in very new infestations where there may be only a small number the monitor may not give a positive indication. It is a fairly expensive machine, so the rental charge in a small apt unit or house is hardly worth it. In addition it takes 12 hours to get confirmation. I don't encourage renting the unit in many circumstances however for a property manager or landlord to own one might be very useful. Bed bug infestations or even the possibility of a bed bug infestation can often cause anxiety, stress, and insomnia.
There are lots of new methods being used and promoted these days
Vacuuming is discussed a lot and it is reasonably effective where bed bugs are badly infested and visible, but not as good as a good commercial steamer used properly. The problem is the eggs may be cemented into cracks and may be nearly impossible to remove. Adults may also be in cracks where vacuum power may just not be enough. Steam at 300°F injected at high pressure is just a more effective tool however bed bugs may be behind baseboard and in many places where steam will not reach.
Cryonite is another system where dry ice is sprayed on the surface of upholstery and baseboards in order to kill bed bugs. It is much more expensive than steaming and reviews have been fairly poor about its effectiveness. Certainly cryonite alone will not cure an infestation.
Heat treatments are finally becoming more popular and are the most effective method, eliminating the problem in just one visit.
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