Hi my name is Kevin and I am excited to announce that here at AIPM we are relaunching our company blog, and I have the opportunity to launch our first one. I am our Field Supervisor/K9 Bed Bug Handler, with both my Branch 2 Field Rep and QAC license. As I just mentioned I work with our scent detection K9 here at AIPM, I’m sure you’re very curious in to hearing more about it. But on this one I’ll touch base on the pest that we target when performing inspections, the infamous bed bug!
Bed bugs originated on the East Coast and eventually started to make their way over to us in the West. Some of you may not be familiar with them, neither hearing about them nor seeing them, and others of you may be more familiar with them than you’d like… They’re about the size of an apple seed as an adult and they get their names from their habitat/feeding behaviors. Typically, they’ll be found near beds, under mattresses/box springs, end tables, drawers/dressers, or in the living room on couches and other furniture. The reason that they tend to be found in these areas are due to their sedentary nature and feeding behavior, these are all places that people typically spend a prolonged period of time either resting or sleeping at night which is when they opportunistically will feed, on blood. Gross! I know!! Thankfully they aren’t proven to carry/transmit any diseases but they definitely are a nuisance pest.
There are a few ways to identify/treat these little guys. You can either start with a visual inspection, monitoring boards, other specialized identification equipment, or a more efficient and effective inspection with a professionally trained Bed Bug Detection K9. Once we have a confirmed case of a Bed Bug infestation we thankfully can provide a few treatment options. Depending on each specific case/the requirements for the job, we can either provide a chemical treatment, heat treatment, fumigation, or a combination of chemical and one of these other options. Bed Bugs can be difficult to treat so it takes a knowledgeable team of pest control specialists along with the help of homeowners to perform the preparation work required in order to have effective treatments.
Chemical treatments are performed with a variety of products which come in different forms, from sprays to dust-like products, each with their separate designated application instructions/locations. Sprays, most commonly in the form of aerosols are the most common we find homeowners using before reaching out to us for help. The products we use are the most efficient in getting these pests under control, and they’re only available to licensed pest control specialists like ourselves. We typically recommend chemical treatments when it’s a lower to moderate infestation level. Treatments can be effective after the first treatment per our experience, but sometimes it may require a series before completely solving an issue. With that being said, chemical treatments are the least expensive of the treatment methods that we provide.
When it comes to heat treatment, it’s a very effective treatment method that we find to provide excellent results, with a moderate price. The interior of the room, as well as all cracks and crevices, including in to the core of the walls, are heated until it reaches target temperature levels of about 130 Degrees Fahrenheit, and it is then maintained at that temp for a few hours. In between this time frame, technicians will enter the unit to move things around in order to make sure that anything and everything is treated. This is where proper preparation helps for more efficient treatments while aiming to cause the least amount of possible damage to items inside due to the heat.
Fumigation is another great form of treatment with a 100% guaranteed success rate when properly done, but recommended for the more severe infestations as it is a pretty expensive treatment option. To begin, the house is tented and a super fine chemical product is pumped in to the house eliminating virtually any and all pests within the structure, all the way in to the walls. It is an extremely efficient treatment method with a guaranteed success rate but not as common as a treatment method initially due to its high cost.
I hope this brief touch on the Bed Bug world was informative and helpful, and hopefully a little fun! I’ll be getting more in to our scent detection K9 on my next post which is definitely an interesting topic, so stay tuned! Hopefully this post is as close to a bed bug as you’ll ever have to come, but in case it’s not, don’t you worry, AIPM and our specialized K9/team is always here and Happy To Help! Until next time!! ☺
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