Figs. 1-3: While waiting for you to eliminate bed bugs, customers with a light to moderate infestation can use a vacuum cleaner attachment covered with knee-high hosiery to suck up all the bed bugs they can find. They can then tie off the hosiery and dispose of the pests.
- Untrained consumers plus insecticides against bed bugs is a formula for disappointment.
- Customers awaiting your bed bug service visit still need to go to work and other locales — preferably, without taking bed bugs with them.
Every day, people discover for the first time that they have bed bugs. But very few can call a pest management professional (PMP) who can come out that day and get rid of them. Even if a company is ready to handle the job, there is still preparation that has to occur. It usually takes a couple of days before the work can begin, and often longer.
Some people go catatonic upon learning they have bed bugs; others are positively apoplectic. It is unreasonable to expect people to wait patiently for their appointment while bed bugs are biting them every night. When there are just a few bugs, it can be tough to find one. But when the population is well established, it may be a target-rich environment for even the novice bed bug hunter.
It’s unwise for the untrained to just have at it with some pesticide they bought online or from the hardware store. First, many over-the-counter products just plain, flat-out don’t work. Other products require knowledge and experience to be effective. Products that will actually kill bed bugs usually only do so when applied directly to the bug. Once they dry out, they lose much of their efficacy. (This is also true with the products we call the “good stuff.”)
Fig. 4: Customers can place items that are not dryer safe or that they de-infested in the dryer into smooth-sided plastic bins.
So what can our clients do while they wait a day or two for us to arrive? When the population is light to moderate, they can use a vacuum cleaner to suck up all the bed bugs they can find. It is best if they use the “knee-high hosiery technique” to collect all the bed bugs instead of sucking them into the vacuum cleaner bag (see Figs. 1-3). Once the hunt is over, the knee-high can be tied off and disposed.
For heavier infestations, the dryer is an appropriate death chamber for bed bugs in clothes and other dryer-safe items. Items that can’t tolerate a dryer can be sequestered in a plastic bin (see Fig. 4). The smooth-sided, clear plastic bins readily available at any department or big-box store are too deep and too smooth for bed bugs to get in or out. This can also be useful to store cleaned clothes and de-infested purses, briefcases and backpacks while waiting for service. After all, people with bed bugs still need to go to work and attend social functions.
Some PMPs insist upon as little disruption of the home as possible, to allow the crew to find the bugs undisturbed when they go in. That logic is sound, but we also have to be able to help people cope with the stress while they wait for relief.
Contributor Mark Sheperdigian can be reached at sheperdigian@earthlink.net.
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