Tips and Tricks: Six steps to bed bug success*

By Bob Hickman,
Market Development Specialist, BASF Pest Control Solutions

We encourage pest management professionals (PMPs) to inspect, to gather the information that leads to good decisions; to prescribe a treatment strategy to achieve specific goals in the account and combat pyrethroid resistance; to communicate with the client to promote cooperation, establish expectations and convey value; to treat using effective techniques and materials that support the strategy, such as non-repellent materials; and to follow up to assess the results.

When it comes to the right treatment strategy, consider all options — chemical, mechanical or a combination of methods. An integrated pest management (IPM) program can include the following steps:

1. Vacuuming and other mechanical means to quickly kill and remove exposed bed bugs.

2. A directed contact/residual treatment to quickly reduce bed bug populations, especially in complex harborages where the mechanical methods are less effective.

3. Treating and neutralizing eggs wherever eggs, bed bugs or bed bug harborages are found, using an insecticide with both contact and residual properties.

4. Treat cracks and crevices with a contact/residual insecticide around bed frames, box springs, headboards, and in areas associated with baseboards, moldings, carpet edging, wall fixtures, nightstands, dressers and other furniture.

5. Spot treatments to baseboards, headboards, undersides of dressers, drawers, and to certain areas of other furniture that bed bugs are likely to crawl on near aggregation sites or en route to feeding.

6. Void treatments to enclosed spaces where bed bugs may live, hide or travel; common voids, hollow bed frames, voids under platforms, behind walls and other hollow structures.