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BED BUGS ON THE RISE

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BELTSVILLE, MD, 6/29/11 – The universally familiar rhyme, ‘goodnight, sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite’ may date back to Colonial America, but its relevance has recently reemerged with news and reports about these unsightly critters showing up in hotels, hospitals, and even movie theatres across the nation. According to the National Pest Management Association (NPMA), reports of bed bugs have increased 71 percent in the last five years. While the lack of hygiene and pesticide use can be blamed for the high rates of bed bugs in the time of our founding fathers, recent outbreaks seem to point to the significant increase in global travel as its culprit.

Bed bugs (pictured right) are 1/4 inch, flat, brown, wingless insects and are often dubbed ‘the perfect parasite’ because “they bite you while you’re sleeping and those bites are painless,” [1] says entomologist Michael Potter who works at the University of Kentucky and specializes in pest management. Perhaps equally important to their nuisance is what bed bugs avoid doing; they do not stay on the host after a bite, they often hide in far from obvious locations, they do not spread disease like many ticks and mosquitoes, and the symptoms of their bites take days to appear, making it difficult to realize an infestation until it is too late.

An infestation, once successful, can be outright horrific (below right shows an infested mattress). Exterminator James Self, who owns a pest control business in Beaumont, Texas, recalls once seeing such a number of bed bugs that he mistook it for “wallpaper decoration or something. [it] was like a scene out of a horror movie” [2]. Other stories of tourists returning from foreign hotels with small, red welts up and down their legs, or a mother finding a stash of these quarter-inch long insects in her daughter’s Barbie Doll collection have spread both the paranoia towards bed bugs as well as the belief of what they are capable of.

Although Potter says “we are still in the early stages of bed bugs showing up in these less conventional places like clothing stores, libraries, modes of transportation and office buildings”, bed bugs are certainly on the rise. “At first they were found only in dense cities such as New York and San Francisco, but now there are reports of bedbug infestations in homes and hotels from Ohio and Texas" [1].

Now is the time when we could tell you that a quick fumigation or steam cleaning should fix any infestation you may have, but unfortunately these methods are rarely effective and very expensive. The truth is, there is no miracle cure for bed bugs, but experts recommend a few containment and prevention methods to decrease the likelihood of an infestation.  According to Potter, vigilance is key when checking a hotel bed or your own: "First thing I do before I unpack is I remove the bed sheets and the blankets and I examine the upper and lower seams of the mattress… looking for the little brown bugs themselves as well as the black speckling which are the droppings” [1].

If you find that you have an infestation, immediately remove your mattress, vacuum the entire area, and seal any cracks and crevices. Long-term prevention methods can include freeing the room of clutter, using non-chemical pesticides in un-sealable cracks, and keeping your luggage off the floor or bed while traveling to prevent taking the bugs home with you.

It may also be a smart decision to purchase a new mattress and pillow protector if you are worried about an infestation. Aside from preventing current or future bed bugs from nesting in your mattress, these mattress and pillow protectors also block stains, dust mites, and harmful allergens from your bed. Visit HealthyBack.com or one of our store locations to browse bed protectors as well as other products that block bed bugs from becoming unwanted roommates.

“You should be worried [about bed bugs] — very, very, very worried", says Michael Raupp, an entomologist at the University of Maryland. He says, "The problem is, as people go about their daily act of going to an office or going to a movie theater, for that matter, the probability that they are going to bring bed bugs with them increases" [3].


For more information and products that will help prevent and protect yourself from bed bugs, click here.


Sources:

[1] - http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129701363

[2] - http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129345182

[3] - http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129345182

 

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