Dealing With Bed Bugs

Many associate bed bugs with cramped, urban flats or cheap hotels, but you would be wrong: bed bugs could be lurking in your mattress. Bed bugs derive their name from their tendency to live in beds, but they can be found in carpets, under wallpaper, behind baseboards, and in small cracks and crevices throughout a room.

Pete Jameson, owner of Dynamic Pest Control in Cheshire says that he has had many calls from local residents in the past five years. "You get a few calls every day about bed bugs now," Pete said.

Bed bugs reintroduced into the United Kingdom are resistant to many of the pesticides previously used. This means that treatments have also changed.

Pete says that many people will notice raised, red marks on their skin and possibly, blood on their sheets as the first indicators of a possible bed bug infestation. The insects are not, however, limited to the mattress. He has seen cases where bed bugs have crawled into clock radios, bedside picture frames and coving in the room. The bugs will also go into other rooms of the home should the bedroom become too crowded for their needs.

Bed bugs are quite hardy – they can live without feeding for up to two years, although the typical lifespan is 12 months. Bed bugs look like flattened ticks – before they have fed – and are light brown in colour.

Pete says that he has personally noticed an uptick in cases in the summer – with the rise in heat and also with the amount of children and families vacationing. In addition, college students moving in and out of student accommodation sometimes bring the bugs into the family home.

What is certain is that ridding your home of the pests is not a do-it-yourself project – there are many things that can be done and most times a pest control professional is required to do it. Treatments vary in price and length of time, but unfortunately it often takes 3 or more visits to clear a residence of a normal bed bug problem.

In addition to calling out the experts, there are a number of general housekeeping duties that can be done:

• Reducing the number of hiding places in which a bed bug can take cover, primarily by sealing wall cracks.
• Vacuuming and raising the room temperature to a high level will also encourage these pesky pests to move out.

Of course prevention is better than cure. Bed bugs are excellent hitch-hikers, so when staying away from home always check the mattress, box spring and headboard for the ink-like streaks of their droppings. In addition, handle used furniture with care: don't pick it up off the street and inspect antiques thoroughly before bringing them home.

Bed Bug Facts

• The common bed bug, which thrives in temperate climates like ours, is also known by its Latin name of cimex lectularius. They are reddish-brown, flattened, oval and wingless – but good luck seeing them, as adults typically grow only to 4-5 millimetres.
• The bed bug population diminished around the world in the 20th century in large part because of the use of the powerful pesticide DDT, which was banned in the United Kingdom in 1984. They've been on the comeback trail since the late 1990s.
• Exterminators are increasingly using a new tool in the war against bed bugs – bed bug detection dogs, which reportedly have a 90 percent success rate and work more quickly than humans.
• An informal survey of pest control professionals conducted by a pest control professor at one of the US's top university's stated that 68 percent of all bed bug infestations require three or more treatments.

Article provided by Dynamic Pest Control