Don’t let the bed bugs bite!

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Inquirer Reporter

The bed­time rhyme “Sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite” hits closer to home now that bed bugs have made a come­back in the United States.

Dave Dun­can, a licensed pest con­trol spe­cial­ist in Crest­line, calls the bed bug resur­gence “an epi­demic.” While he does not mean to cause a panic, he reported that three years ago, he may have got­ten one call a month about bed bugs. Last year it was one call a week, and now it’s becom­ing one call a day.

Accord­ing to Dun­can, Cleve­land, Colum­bus and Cincin­nati are all in the list of top 10 cities in the coun­try for reported bed bug cases. He has treated numer­ous cases in Galion and other com­mu­ni­ties in the area within the last cou­ple of years, and the exter­mi­na­tor does not see the prob­lem slow­ing down. If any­thing, he says it will get worse.

For the month of August this year, the Galion Health Depart­ment received three com­plaints about bed bugs — but that num­ber rep­re­sents the peo­ple who called. There may have been any num­ber of other cases that went unreported.

Stephanie Zmuda, envi­ron­men­tal health direc­tor at Galion City Health Depart­ment, admit­ted that bed bug cases are under-reported because the health depart­ments can­not do any­thing to help peo­ple who are infested. How­ever, she said she would still like peo­ple to call and report an infes­ta­tion so she knows what the com­mu­nity is deal­ing with.

Bed bugs have never been proven to spread dis­ease to humans, which is why health depart­ments do not label the issue as an epi­demic or pub­lic health pri­or­ity. But that does not mean the health — and bank accounts — of the vic­tims is not at stake.

Dun­can said he has per­son­ally seen the toll on a person’s men­tal health that bed bugs can bring. While the bite of a bed bug is pain­less, he said it’s com­mon for peo­ple who know or think they are infested to become para­noid and stop sleep­ing, not to men­tion stress­ing out about the sit­u­a­tion. Because of this, their over­all qual­ity of life decreases.

Zmuda agreed with Dun­can. “Aside from phys­i­cal effects, liv­ing with and bat­tling a bed bug infes­ta­tion can also be emo­tion­ally and psy­cho­log­i­cally dev­as­tat­ing,” she commented.

A con­cerned Galion res­i­dent, who wished to remain anony­mous, had an infes­ta­tion recently in one of the four rental homes she owns in town. It cost her $1,600 to get the prob­lem resolved, but that’s not why she’s concerned.

When the res­i­dent found out bed bugs can hide on back­packs, purses and cloth­ing, she was con­cerned that if chil­dren are unknow­ingly car­ry­ing them, the bugs will infest schools and spread rapidly.

And her con­cern is not para­noia: Bed bugs have been known to inhabit office build­ings, hos­pi­tals and, yes, even pub­lic schools.

“We can’t afford this,” the res­i­dent said.

FIGHTING AN EPIDEMIC

Dun­can gave a pre­sen­ta­tion on bed bugs at the Mans­field Pub­lic Library on Oct. 2. He has been in pest con­trol for 10 years and talked about the biol­ogy and habits of the insect, as well as how to pre­vent an infestation.

His advice? Know your enemy.

The bed bug is very secre­tive, hid­ing in small, dark cracks and crevices. It is noc­tur­nal, but can change its habits to adapt to a host’s sleep­ing cycle.

In its life­time, one bed bug can lay up to 400 eggs. It can also live up to one year with­out a blood meal in some cases. The bugs hide in every­thing, not just beds. They have been found in couches, chairs, books, wooden dressers and desks, car­pet, inside of walls, cars, elec­tri­cal sock­ets and even elec­tronic devices.

They can be trans­ferred very eas­ily, and it some­times takes as long as three months to know you have them in your home. “The way we social­ize and inter­act with each other makes it per­fect for bed bugs to just take over,” Dun­can said.

Despite pop­u­lar belief, bed bugs are not attracted to filth. Dun­can calls them “equal oppor­tu­nity” because they do not care if a per­son is clean or dirty, rich or poor. In fact, no mat­ter how clean a home is, it is still sus­cep­ti­ble to an infestation.

Multi-unit apart­ments are at the high­est risk, as well as places with mul­ti­ple peo­ple using fur­ni­ture like motels, dorm rooms and movie the­aters. The bugs can crawl through walls into adjoin­ing rooms and units.

As far as pre­ven­tion, Dun­can rec­om­mends inspect­ing your home reg­u­larly. Check under your bed sheets and mat­tress, espe­cially around the seams where bed bugs tend to con­gre­gate. Also check under fur­ni­ture cush­ions. In addi­tion to bed bugs them­selves, look for small, black fecal drop­pings and shed skin. (The same goes for stay­ing at hotels or a friend’s home.)

To limit the pos­si­bil­ity of the bugs enter­ing your home, avoid buy­ing used things at garage sales and used cloth­ing stores as much as pos­si­ble. If you do, inspect your pur­chases closely.

If you think you may have bed bugs, DO NOT attempt to solve the prob­lem your­self. This is advice that Dun­can and Zmuda both emphasize.

Spray­ing pes­ti­cides and insect repel­lents just scat­ters them and they are resis­tant to some chem­i­cals. Dun­can also explained that proper pro­tec­tive equip­ment such as a mask, gloves and boots are needed to treat an infes­ta­tion. “You can do more harm to your­self than the bed bugs can do to you,” he said.

Also, if you have bed bugs, do not throw away a mat­tress by car­ry­ing it through the house and putting it on the curb. Instead, wrap it in plas­tic imme­di­ately, then mark it when it is dis­posed of so peo­ple will know it is infested. (For exam­ple, spray paint­ing “bed bugs” on it might stop other peo­ple from tak­ing it.) Dun­can recalled one mat­tress that infected three dif­fer­ent places because no one knew there were bed bugs inside it.

If you throw away any clothes or other fur­ni­ture, mark those as well. Recently he did a job in Galion that had noth­ing but rental fur­ni­ture inside. Employ­ees of the rental store came and took the fur­ni­ture out of the infested house. He did not know if the fur­ni­ture was treated before being rented out again.

Clothes and bed­ding linens can be treated by putting them in a dryer on the high­est heat set­ting for twenty min­utes. (A tem­per­a­ture of at least 113 degrees kills them—not hot water, but dry heat.)

Ulti­mately though, both Dun­can and Zmuda say to call a pest con­trol spe­cial­ist. Dun­can is not just pro­mot­ing his busi­ness. At the Oct. 2 meet­ing, he rec­om­mended that peo­ple call mul­ti­ple pest con­trol oper­a­tors to get esti­mates and ask ques­tions on how they treat the prob­lem. He added that some will do free inspec­tions, but peo­ple should have a rea­son to ask for an inspec­tion (spot­ting bed bugs, drop­pings or shed skin).

Zmuda noted: “Pro­fes­sional pest con­trol spe­cial­ists have access to the pes­ti­cides that are most effec­tive against bed­bugs and have been trained to apply them properly. “

Dun­can said real pest con­trollers should be licensed by the state and be able to show you a card to prove it. Also, they can­not be licensed with­out hav­ing insur­ance, so they should be able to prove that as well. An aver­age cost for a chem­i­cal treat­ment in this area is $400, depend­ing on size of the home. Heat treat­ments cost much more and a freez­ing treat­ment is not always effective.

He does a com­bi­na­tion of heat and chem­i­cal treat­ment, then comes back in two weeks and treats again to ensure he errad­i­cated all the bugs. For him, the bot­tom line is: don’t spend the money and still have the problem.

***

Quick facts about bed bugs from the Galion Health Depart­ment web­site (www.galionhealth.org/environmental-health/bed-bugs)and the Cen­tral Ohio Bed Bugs web­site (www.centralohiobedbugs.org):

Appear­ance: egg sacks look like a small grain of rice; babies are clear, but as they grow and feed, they become a reddish-brown; and adults are reddish-brown with oval-shaped bod­ies, they are flat when unfed and the body swells when they feed.

Bed bugs are noc­tur­nal and feed on human blood about every 7 days. They have been known to feed on ani­mals, but humans are pre­ferred. The bite of a bed bug is pain­less. A sin­gle bug can be respon­si­ble for numer­ous bites dur­ing the night, and scratch­ing the bites can lead to infection.

While bed bugs haven’t been known to trans­mit dis­ease to humans, their bites usu­ally leave behind itchy, red welts sim­i­lar to mos­quito bites. (Symp­toms vary from per­son to per­son, though).

Bed bugs do not jump or fly but can walk very fast. They are attracted to body heat and car­bon diox­ide. They hide in small cracks and crevices, usu­ally inside beds and fur­ni­ture that peo­ple fre­quently sleep and sit on.

A sin­gle bug can lay up to 400 eggs in its life­time, allow­ing them to mul­ti­ply very quickly. They can be trans­ferred very eas­ily because egg sacks are extremely sticky.

For more information:

Galion Health Depart­ment — 419–468-1075

Ohio Depart­ment of Health Zoonotic Dis­ease Pro­gram ID Ser­vice — 614–752-1029

OSU Pest Diag­nos­tic Clinic — 614–292-5006

www.ca.uky.edu/entomology

Posted by Matt Echelberry on Oct 5 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.