Bed Bugs

Our own Bed Bug Doctor was recently interviewed about Bed Bugs in Saratoga by Fox 23 News!

Surprisingly, one of the areas seeing the biggest boom in bed bugs is Saratoga Springs.

“I would say one or two calls every week,” says Luis Pabon, technical director of Catseye Pest Control. “I think in the next few years, we’re going to be like New York City.”

Without naming names, Pabon says Catseye has treated infested hotels, apartments and stores. Pabon says people are bringing them during their travels.

“They are the most professional hitch hikers I know,” he says. “They know how to get into cracks and crevices and wherever you go, they’ll follow.”

That could be bad news for the city, as thousands head this way for track season, starting Friday.

“That’s disgusting! I hope there’s no bed bugs in my bed,” says Mia Jeffries, of Saratoga Springs.

“I don’t want to know about that. That’s so gross,” says Rosalie Dirado, also of Saratoga Springs. “But still, if I knew that’d be good so I could go somewhere else.”

Before you check into any hotel room, Pabon recommends looking around.

Some tell tale signs: tiny blood spots on the bed and furniture.

Another tip: keep your suitcases in the bathroom. Pabon says it’s the last place the bugs will hide because it’s too slippery for climbing.

“You really have to be vigilant,” Pabon says. “And as long as you do your own inspection when you check in, you’re going to minimize the potential problem you may have with bed bugs.”

FOX23 News spoke with Saratoga Springs Mayor Scott Johnson. He says his office hasn’t received any complaints about bed bugs being a problem in the city.

Infestations of Bed Bugs have increased to an alarming rate. The nightmare begins when a Bed Bug finds its way into your clothing; it usually happens at a hotel but can start anywhere. Hospitals, businesses, homes, buses, apartments and hotels are just a few places where bed bugs are being reported.

A few simple precautions can prevent the nightmare from ever happening. It takes only one bed bug to hitch a ride on your clothing or suitcase and infest your residence. What’s worse is that they can live up to one year without drinking a drop of your blood. Depending on the conditions, bed bug nymphs can survive for months without feeding.
How do you know if you have bed bugs?

Bed bug bites are the best way to determine if you have bedbugs. If you suspect you have an infestation, you should contact a licensed exterminator.

Here are the facts about Bed Bugs:

• Bed Bugs are flat, brown, wingless and about 1/4 of an inch
• They have 6 legs, shiny reddish-brown but after a good serving of your blood, they appear dark brown and swollen.
• They can be seen with the human eye, but do a great job at hiding
• They feed on human blood preferring to do it in the dark when you’re sleeping
• Simply using chemical treatments will not remove the infestation
• These bugs love to hide in the seams of your mattress including:
• Sofa seams
• Cracks in the bad frame and or head board
• Under chairs, couched, beds and dust covers
• Under rugs, edges of carpets, drawers, baseboards and window casings
• Behind light switches, electrical outlet plates, cracks in plaster
• Televisions, radio clocks and phones
• Backpacks, Sleeping bags, Cloths
• Behind wallpaper, picture frames and other dark areas

A few ways to prevent bed bugs from getting into your home include:

• Hang clothing in the closet farthest from the bed
• Place luggage on the folding rack found in most hotels
• Place luggage in the dry cleaning bag found in the hotel.
• Most important, don’t bring home a mattress or furniture that has been used by unknown sources.

Mt. St. Helen, California’s fires and Katrina all have something in common and not just nature gone wild. They revealed a sad but serious human flaw; man’s failure to respond to warnings of impending danger thus resulting in the loss of life.

As I reflect back on the last 15 years on the rise of the Bed Bug Pandemic, our current dilemma is related to the fact that “they took no note” of the clear signs of the impending trouble. Only a hand full of pest management professionals saw the warning signs of a potential Bed Bug explosion if the situation was not addressed soon. At the time, there was a realization that the lack of materials available to treat Bed Bugs was going to be a major factor in their potential resurgence. The materials available were of the same chemical matrix, pyrethroids, helping to contribute to the Bed Bugs developing a resentence. Another major aspect was the lack of knowledge many in the industry had in regards to an insect that had supposedly been off the scene for decades. Add to that the difficulty and expense of getting new products approved for use by the EPA. The final component in the development of the Bed Bug Pandemic was ignoring the obvious warning signs.

Those who had been paying attention to the signs were able to develop their treatment techniques as new technologies became available. By making these necessary adjustments, this has placed Catseye Pest Control at the head as a reliable source of addressing Bed Bug infestations. Our newest technological advancement is The Cryonite Method, which we have added to our current Bed Bug Protocol. This, along with the use of IGR insect growth regulator, residual insecticide and mattress and box spring encasement, has proven to have the greatest success in challenging the Bed Bug Pandemic.

One thing I have learned being at the epicenter of the Bed Bug explosion is to never ignore the signs.

The Northeast’s bedbug problem is expected to worsen this summer as temperatures rise and vacationers increase traffic in hotels, entomologists and pest-control experts say.

At 65 degrees, it takes three months for bedbugs to become adults, said Susan Jones, a professor of entomology at Ohio State University. At 86 degrees, it takes only three weeks for them to go from eggs to adults. One pregnant female bedbug can produce up to 300 bugs in about six weeks.

FROM MSNBC
Itchy bites and tossed-out mattresses may not be the only things to worry about during a bedbug infestation. Researchers have found that the tiny bloodsuckers can also harbor antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

“The findings from the study are by no means conclusive,” said study researcher Marc Romney, of St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver, British Columbia, in Canada. “They suggest that bedbugs, which were primarily just a nuisance before, may be able to transmit diseases.”

Romney and his colleagues studied five bedbugs from three patients at a Vancouver hospital. Bugs from two patients carried the antibiotic-resistant bacteria Enterococcus faeium, referred to as VRE, because the last line of defense for treating this bug was the antibiotic vancomycin, which the bacteria have now become resistant to.
Three bedbugs collected from the other patient tested positive for the superbug MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), which is also resistant to antibiotics.

The MRSA strain found on the bedbugs was USA300, a virulent strain associated with skin and soft tissue infections. It’s been found almost everywhere, from cell phones to money and even along beaches. These bugs are usually associated with hospitals, where they are transmitted through contact between health professionals and patients, though the bacteria need to get into a person’s skin to cause disease.

“MRSA infections usually require a break in the skin, and bedbugs do bite, so they could transmit infections theoretically,” Romney said. “These bedbugs could carry the organism from one human to another.”

The researchers don’t know if the patients had already been exposed to the bacteria and transferred it to the bedbugs, or if the bedbugs brought the bacteria with them before hitching a ride to the hospital on the patient. [

“As closely as bedbugs reside in human domestic spaces, it’s not surprising that they would acquire human pathogens such as MRSA and VRE,” Richard Oehler, a researcher at the University of South Florida who wasn’t involved in the study, said in an email to LiveScience. “This may potentially affect all ectoparasites (including fleas and ticks, etc), but there is not much in the literature.”

The patients came from an impoverished part of the city, where MRSA infections andbedbugs are blooming. Both the bacteria and the bedbugs may lurk in these low-hygiene locations, which could have skewed the findings, Oehler said, though this is the first study to find that a bedbug can harbor antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
The study was published today (May 11) in the Center for Disease Control journal Emerging Infectious Diseases. The researchers note that since the results are based on such a small sample of bugs, the findings will need to be reproduced in larger studies.

You can follow LiveScience staff writer Jennifer Welsh on Twitter @microbelover. Follow LiveScience for the latest in science news and discoveries on Twitter @livescience and on Facebook.

Before booking a hotel room, you may want to read user reviews of the particular hotel and location — frequently, guests who’ve had bug problems report them online. Bear in mind that a report about one hotel does not mean the issue wasn’t isolated to one room, or that hotel management hasn’t since exterminated.

Still concerned? Concerned travelers may want to check their bed for telltale signs of the bugs, a more common practice years ago.

Before jumping into bed, here are a few spot check tips:

• Peel back the bedsheets and check the mattress, running your fingers along the upper and lower seams. Make sure to check the mattress tag, bed bugs often hide there.
• Experts recommend removing and examining the headboard if possible. Check for tiny black spots (excrement) that are smaller than poppy seeds. You may also see translucent light brown skins or, in the case of an infestation— live bugs.
• Check the bedside table. Look for signs of bed bugs in the drawers and along the wall on the side of the bed that is less likely to be disturbed by cleaning staff and guests.
• You may want to elevate suitcases and keep them off the floor, like on a luggage stand.
• If you see powder in the drawers or on the headboard, it is likely that the room has already been treated for bed bugs by an exterminator.
• If bed bugs are detected, travelers should request for another room. Be sure to inform hotel management.
• Just moving to a different room may not be the total answer. You should repeat the thorough inspection of any new or different room you are offered.
• When you pack to leave, inspect your luggage carefully first, and inspect every item as you pack to help detect any bugs or their signs. Laundering most cloth items with typical hot water and detergent followed by drying on low heat for at least 20 minutes (or standard dry cleaning) should kill all bed bugs in or on such items. Sealing freshly-laundered items inside a plastic bag should help keep any more bed bugs from getting in those items later to hide (and be carried back with you).

How to rid your bed bug problem!

The Bed Bug is an ancient insect whose roots are thought to go back to the times of cave dwellers. For many years, Bed Bugs were found in numerous communities around the US. As late as the 1950′s, Bed Bugs were a considerable problem. After the discovery of DDT and its application here, the incidence of bedbug infestations declined.

Why has this pest surfaced once again? There are a number of theories. There is much more world travel, and there are more people visit from other countries that have Bed Bug problems. This pest is carried from one place to another in luggage and on clothing. With more bedbug problems, hotel and motel travelers run a greater risk of contact with Bed Bugs and may eventually bring Bed Bugs home with them.

So with that being said …Here are the top 4 ways to protect you from Bed Bugs

Number 4: Never Order rental furniture — There is really no way of knowing if they have been exposed
Number 3: Avoid purchasing items from storage facilities — storage facilities aren’t bug proof
Number 2 : Avoid purchasing used furniture, TV’s, linens and cloths — there is no way to know if the items were infested.
And the…
Number 1 way to protect you from Beg Bug is: Never bring home items found on the street (furniture, beds etc.) — They may be on the street because they were already infested!

“Bed bugs can be a very creepy problem, but the bites are easily treated at home in most cases, and while the infestations can be hard to cure, a pest management professional can help you to identify and treat your Bed Bug problem and get you back to sleeping tight,” concluded John Gagne, Owner Catseye Pest Control

Mt. St. Helen, California’s fires and Katrina all have something in common and not just nature gone wild. They revealed a sad but serious human flaw; man’s failure to respond to warnings of impending danger thus resulting in the loss of life.

As I reflect back on the last 15 years on the rise of the Bed Bug Pandemic, our current dilemma is related to the fact that “they took no note” of the clear signs of the impending trouble.  Only a hand full of pest management professionals saw the warning signs of a potential Bed Bug explosion if the situation was not addressed soon.  At the time, there was a realization that the lack of materials available to treat Bed Bugs was going to be a major factor in their potential resurgence.  The materials available were of the same chemical matrix, pyrethroids, helping to contribute to the Bed Bugs developing a resentence.  Another major aspect was the lack of knowledge many in the industry had in regards to an insect that had supposedly been off the scene for decades.  Add to that the difficulty and expense of getting new products approved for use by the EPA.  The final component in the development of the Bed Bug Pandemic was ignoring the obvious warning signs. 

Those who had been paying attention to the signs were able to develop their treatment techniques as new technologies became available.  By making these necessary adjustments, this has placed Catseye Pest Control at the head as a reliable source of addressing Bed Bug infestations.  Our newest technological advancement is The Cryonite Method, which we have added to our current Bed Bug Protocol. This, along with the use of IGR insect growth regulator, residual insecticide and mattress and box spring encasement, has proven to have the greatest success in challenging the Bed Bug Pandemic. 

One thing I have learned being at the epicenter of the Bed Bug explosion is to never ignore the signs.

For those of you who doubted that Bed Bugs are here to stay, here’s the latest news out of New York City.  Renowned department store Bergdorf Goodman has hired a Bed Bug hunting dog to patrol its store to make sure they avoid the dreaded bug.  Their unique ability to hide in books, behind pictures and in cracks and crevices stresses the fear they can create in the heart of retailers (from Rent-a-Center to Wal-Mart).  Bed Bugs have also been discovered in movie theaters, public transportation, air planes, libraries and office buildings. 

The following example indicates why Bed Bugs are so difficult to eliminate.  Over the years, I have seen just about every location possible for Bed Bugs to hide but this one beats them all.  A client had a recurrence of them in a room that had been repeatedly treated.  Once again the reality of an insect’s ability to survive was made clear in this case.  As a pest management professional I can never overlook the obvious.  After close examination, we found the source of the re-infestation in this room.  Bed Bugs were in the client’s prosthetic leg.  Every time he placed it next to the bed when he went to sleep he was re-infesting the bed.  The other thing to keep in mind is that he was also taking the bugs with him wherever he traveled.

In an earlier Newsletter, I stated that the future “did not look good” as it related to the treatment and control of these nasty blood sucking pests.  There are many contributing factors; from a lack of effective residual materials to uninformed health professionals.  This stresses the importance of educating ourselves and our clients on the need of vigilance by both parties if control is to be achieved.  Incidentally, another contributing factor to the difficulty in dealing with this problem is the attitude many have today of instant gratification (there is no magic bullet).  Also, the idea that as a client, they play an important role in the process is unthinkable (after all, they are paying us). 

New York City leads the top 10 cities in North America on Insight Pharmaceuticals’ list of Bed Bug infested cities.  This highlights that for those in the Capital District of New York we have not yet seen the tip of the iceberg, as the calls coming in indicate that they are here!