Bed Bug Breakdown!

Good night, sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite!  Unfortunately, that's not a cute rhyme if you are really dealing with bed bugs.  We recently treated a hotel near the airport for bed bugs, and it was intense!

Treatment for bed bugs must be very thorough.  The entire room has to basically be turned upside down to perform a complete inspection and treatment.  All bedding was taken apart and furniture moved.  Every nook and cranny was treated including the bed frame, box spring, tufts of mattresses, behind the headboard, baseboard cracks and crevices, under the carpet tack board, switch covers, lamps, chairs, desks, light fixtures, and wallpaper crevices.  We used a variety of products including aerosols, dusts, insect growth regulators, and residual liquid treatments.  We treated a total of three rooms, and each room took around 1 1/2 hours to treat.

Bed bugs are parasitic insects that feed exclusively on blood.  As their name suggests, they are commonly found in beds and bedding.  However, they can be found in any place that people occupy like chairs, sofas, movie theaters, etc.  Adult bed bugs are light to reddish brown in color and have a flattened, oval shape.  They are most active at night and generally feed on their host without being noticed.  Itchy welts may appear on exposed skin areas.  Other health effects from bed bugs include skin rashes and allergies as well as psychological effects.

In addition to bites, some signs of bed bugs are fecal spots, blood smears on the sheets or mattress, and empty molted exoskeletons.