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Educate Consumers about Bed Bugs
28 Oct, 2008 By: Mark Sheperdigian Direct To You: Bed Bug BusinessThe great bed bug resurgence of the millennium has captured the hearts and imagination of pest management industry, but the public is not catching on quite as quickly. It is no surprise — the American public will not become critically concerned with bed bugs until they get some of their very own.
Cooperation and pretreatment preparation are the province of the public, and their knowledge of bed bugs has a direct impact on their ability to help us. Whether they are tenants in an apartment complex or homeowners in a residential neighborhood, we are faced with the task of educating the public before we can effectively eliminate the bed bugs.
Of all the things the public don’t know about bed bugs, the most important is what bed bugs look like and how to know if they have them. Too many people are just getting used to the fact that bed bugs are not mythical and so, as far as they are concerned, bed bugs just might have magical powers. Here are some common myths and misconceptions:
1. They’re microscopic. Fresh-out-of-the-egg nymphs are very small, but they are not microscopic. Then again, poppy seeds are not microscopic, either. Bed bug eggs are really small and pearly white, but you can see them if you know what you are looking at.
Adult bed bugs about 3/8 in., but may be as large as ¼ in. The eggs and first-instar nymphs are really small — only several hundredths of an inch. A great way to show people what they look like and how big they are is to bring some adult and nymph bed bugs with you. (Don’t bring live ones; it really puts people off their feed.)
You can bring mounted specimens easily and inexpensively. I glue them to a small piece of cardstock put into a coin mount. This allows close inspection and protects the specimens. You can even mount the eggs. Learn more about this technique on page 24 of the NPMA Field Guide to Structural Pests by Eric Smith and Richard Whitman.
2. You can get an infestation from a single egg. Eggs are awfully small, and with even a pedestrian imagination you can see how they could be concealed anywhere or overlooked everywhere. An egg can be transported just about anywhere, but a single bed bug cannot build its own infestation. Half the eggs out there are male and are not even capable of laying eggs; the other half are female, but without a male, she will lay no fertile eggs. You need both genders close enough to get together before the spark begets a flame.
Conceivably, though, a pregnant female or a pair of bed bugs are all that are necessary to start an infestation. This is why it is critical for homeowners to be both aware and vigilant.
3. You can get rid of them by cleaning. While it is theoretically true that you could eliminate an entire infestation if you got it early enough and killed every bug through your cleaning efforts, in reality a homeowner would probably delay contracting competent help until the infestation had grown to significant proportions.
It is also important to note that many of the bed bugs you remove by vacuum cleaner will live through the experience. If the homeowners have been using their own vacuum on large groups of bugs, they may have a vacuum full of bed bugs.
4. You can prevent getting bed bugs. Here again, what is theoretically true just does not happen very often in real life. We can reduce our chances, but we cannot be careful enough to prevent bed bugs while living a normal life. Help your clients to understand the common sense steps to reducing their chances of bringing them in:
• Do not bring discarded furniture or goods into your home unless you can confirm they are bed bug-free.
• Check your hotel rooms when you travel.
• Be tactfully aware when friends or relatives come to visit.
You will find a wide variety of misinformation out there, and the wives' tales are getting old quickly. We as professionals need to be a source of correct information to our clients, our client’s tenants, and the public. The better informed the public becomes, the more effective we can be in protecting health and property.
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