WELCOME TO 2015!!!
We hope everyone had a truly wonderful holiday season!
This is a long read but chalked with useful information, especially if you travel frequently.
With all the holiday traveling, we felt it appropriate to impart some bed bug information.
This information was retrieved from www.bedbugcentral.com, it is one of the best sites we know of for information on all things bedbugs.
Identification
Adults are small, brownish insects, just under a 1/4” long and are relatively flat. They are nearly as wide as they are long, and oval in shape. Immature bed bugs (nymphs) resemble the adults, but are much smaller and lighter in color. Newly hatched nymphs are translucent and are no bigger than a pinhead (1 mm). After feeding on a blood meal the immature bed bugs may appear bright red in color.
Bed bugs lack wings and therefore they do not fly, but they are capable of moving swiftly on both horizontal and vertical surfaces. The eggs are very small (approximately 1mm), whitish, and very difficult to see on most surfaces without magnification (individual eggs are about the size of a dust speck).
Early Detection
The detection of bed bugs can be very difficult and bed bugs can easily go undetected during an inspection particularly during the early stages of an infestation when only a few bugs or eggs are present.
Even the most qualified inspector will be challenged when the entire infestation consists of only one or two bed bugs or eggs that are present on a piece of luggage that hitch hiked a ride back to your house after a recent stay at a hotel.
The use of mattress and box spring encasements that have been specifically designed and tested for bed bugs is another tool that can be used to help detect the presence of bed bugs. The reason that encasements are so helpful is because your mattress and box spring have many hiding places for bed bugs that make inspection time consuming and difficult.
Without an encasement, evidence of bed bugs is often buried deep inside your mattress and box spring, and can be almost impossible to find. However by encasing the mattress and box spring the bug’s access is restricted to the smooth exterior of the encasement where signs of bed bugs, such as spotting and shed skins or the bugs themselves, are readily detected during an inspection. An additional benefit is realized as the encasements prevent the subsequent infestation of the mattress and box spring.
Are Bed Bugs Difficult to Control?
Bed bugs may in fact be the most challenging pest problem currently facing the pest control industry. There are many pests that homeowners may decide to try and control on their own but bed bugs should not be one of them. Even the most experienced pest management firms will have their work cut out for them and it may be difficult to guarantee the total elimination of bed bugs from some infested environments.
Reduction of bed bug populations is not difficult in most cases, however it can be extremely difficult, if not impossible to eliminate every last bug in some situations. If even one adult female survives, the environment may become re-infested. For example, one adult female may be hiding inside the binding of a book sitting on a book shelf, another may be located beneath a floor board etc. These small pockets of bugs allow the infestation to continue at low levels and make elimination an uncertainty. The consumer needs to be aware that 100% elimination cannot always be guaranteed with current conventional pest management methods.
When dealing with a company that is offering a guarantee, consumers should inquire what the guarantee really covers, does it guarantee complete elimination and how long is the guarantee? Most guarantees will be limited to no longer than a few months due to the potential for re-introduction of new bugs into the environment.
The bottom line is that bed bug work requires a highly trained professional. It takes hard work, follow-up efforts and it can be expensive.
