Back With A Vengeance

A resurgence in infestations of bed bugs has led to a number of researchers across the globe looking into devising a trap that can capture and kill this tiny blood-sucking parasite. The ultimate goal is to develop a trap that can effectively monitor the presence of the pests. However, bed bugs are secretive, elusive and hard to kill, and they frequently defy efforts by pest control companies to learn whether they've been eliminated from an infestation site.

Some property owners have resorted to hiring expensive, specially trained dogs to sniff out bed bug hiding places. But dogs won't necessarily be able to find bed bugs lurking near the ceiling. Build a better bed bug trap, and hotel chains, property managers and pest control companies will beat a path to the door.

Alas, it seems that the researchers involved are still quite a distance off from a monitoring trap. First, scientists have to figure out what makes the cryptic, fast-moving, hungry Cimex lectularius tick.

There's a lot that's still unknown. For years, researchers ignored bed bugs because the insects had been largely eliminated from developed countries thanks to the widespread use of long-acting pesticides such as DDT. From the 1970s on, they virtually disappeared.

In the late 1990s, however, bed bugs – reddish-brown oval insects that grow to about the size of an apple seed – re-emerged. Infestations began to be reported in hotels and houses, where the pests fed on unsuspecting victims as they slept, requiring eradication efforts that cost hundreds and even thousands of pounds per location.

Experts theorize that bans on DDT and other insecticides, and increased international travel led to the bed bug renaissance.

Quick Facts about Bed Bugs

• They have a painless bite, the better to keep you undisturbed while they feed. Afterward, you can get itchy welts from their bites. But bed bugs haven't been shown to spread disease.
• They’re very hardy. They're very tough to kill. But they can be killed.
• Heat will kill them, but you have to cook them to 50°C.
• Cold will kill them. Bed bugs need to be chilled down to minus 20 for 10 days to two weeks to be sure. A company here in the UK has developed a minus 80-degree carbon dioxide spray that is supposed to do the trick.
• Bed bugs seem to be unaffected by being deprived of oxygen.
• It's hard to starve them. Bed bugs have been known to survive up to a year without eating.
• Bed bugs have an ability to conserve water that's equal to a desert insect.
• Bed bugs stink – something similar to the smell of dirty socks.
• Simple soap and water or bleach or alcohol will kill a bed bug on contact, but you can't put a whole bedroom or hotel room into a washing machine. And it can be hard to find all the bed bugs hiding in a room.

In a typical infestation, most bed bugs will cluster in the seams and crevices around a bed, but maybe 10 percent or 20 percent are often found some distance away, hiding in computer equipment or in the ceiling smoke detector or flattened between a picture and the glass in a picture frame.

Bed bugs are a lot more resistant to poisons than they used to be. It takes 1,200 times the amount of insecticide to kill recently captured bed bugs than it takes to kill individuals from bed bug colonies that have been in captivity for more than 30 years.

Bed bugs are extremely adaptable and seem to have the ability to quickly evolve and become immune to many of the pest control techniques designed to eradicate them. What is important is that if you think you may have an infestation, you must act quickly and bring in some professional help.

SDA Pest Control, "Long Acre", Bluntisham Road, Needingworth, St. Ives, Cambridgeshire