PMP Growth Summit 2025: Bed Bug Roundtable

Attendees at the 2025 PMP Growth Summit who participated in the Wednesday and Thursday morning breakfast roundtables found the early rise worthwhile. The opportunity offered attendees a chance for a candid discussion on common issues, solutions and best practices when combating bed bugs.

What follows are just a few highlights.

“For us, one of our biggest issues with bed bugs is that we are in a town with two major universities. When school is in session, our population grows by more than 60,000 with all the students. Because these students come from all over the world, bed bugs are brought in — and after a little while, they become a problem in a few apartments. The affected students start to stay on their couches or at a friend’s place, all while unknowingly transferring bed bugs to those areas. An entire complex can become infested before we get alerted to it.” — Stephen Pelphrey, operations manager, Adams Exterminating Co., Denton, Texas

“Everybody’s level of what makes an infestation is different. Seeing one bug could be detrimental to somebody, whereas another person lives with 10 bugs before they call in. How you deal with that and respond will be different with each person, but if you’re not listening to them, they will get frustrated. They’ll move on to somebody else.” — Kevin Citarella, partner, Florida Pest Pros, Spring Hill, Fla.

“The worst is when customers want to send photos of their bites. A woman called me saying, ‘I’ve got to send you pictures.’ I said, ‘Please do not send me pictures of any part of your body. I don’t want anything like that on my phone!’” — Don McCandless, CEO, Aprehend, State College, Pa.

“Ninety-eight percent of our jobs is about reassuring customers; the other 2 percent is actually doing pest control. You are solving problems more than anything else.” — Derek Wood, manager, Florida’s Finest Lawn & Pest Control, Ocoee, Fla.

“It’s about striking that balance between listening vs. not necessarily validating their complaints. It takes a lot of experience to get to that point. A new technician might feel like they have to say, ‘Oh yeah, that’s true.’ But you can’t say that’s true if it’s not. You can say, ‘I hear you. I understand.’ But sometimes, that’s very hard to do.” — Blair Smith, BCE, director of technical and quality assurance, Clark Pest Control, Lodi, Calif.