Bedbug infestations growing! OMG!

Just as students head back to college and families finish summer vacations comes the latest bad news from pest control companies: Bedbug infestations are getting worse and becoming more common in some places, including dorms, hotels, nursing homes, hospitals, office buildings, and schools and day-care centers.
According to a survey released Wednesday by the National Pest Management Association and the University of Kentucky, pest control companies say there has been double-digit growth in infestations in the past year.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/nation...ALJ_story.html

Bedbugs are a huge problem in Toronto too. It's really creepy.

splitimage

They have been a problem here in N.H. recently as well.

We had bat bugs growing up - not bed bugs. This was from living on a farm with a huge barn.....and bats. We went through, bleached everything and did an overhaul cleaning and that got rid of them. However, humans are not their preferred host.

Bed bugs aren't a sign of dirty people anymore. It used to be, if you had them, you were just gross people in a gross house. But people travel internationally so often now that they're common. The Hilton has the most cases because they have the most international locations - even though they're very nice hotel.

The only way to really, truly get rid of them is to bomb your house. Or have a pest control company come out and spray. The problem is that insects like these can lay "dormant" while they don't have a host. Just like fleas. So it may seem like there isn't a problem but once you introduce humans (typically they go by the presence of high CO2 levels, shadows and warmth) they come out of estivation. And if you are in an apt. complex or duplex the entire place needs to be done. Because they will only come back over.

And, if you are interested.....google how they mate. It's called traumatic insemination but I won't describe it here.....but it will show you why I'm an entomologist haha

So there are advantages to isolating lol. I heard "sleep tight and don't let the bed bugs bite" a lot growing up but I never saw any or got any bites.
On a related note I killed a black widow on the kitchen floor a few weeks back. I had no idea they moved so fast. Next day it was a brown recluse. A few days later a wolf spider although that one is just a guess because it was pretty smushed
Then a few days later I found a dead garden snake in the closet. Still haven't figured out how he got in

Sleeping tight actually can help! They like exposed parts. So you will usually get bites on fingers, toes etc... Black widows are actually pretty docile unless you attack so if you see any more, be calm and trap it before killing it to make sure you get it because they are fast. Also, I would advise against stepping on anything. That includes spiders and cockroaches. ESPECIALLY COCKROACHES!

They carry egg cases at the back of their abdomen and your foot may not kill the eggs. So there is a possibility that you could carry those eggs to other areas of the house or in your house from outside.

Snake I don't really know anything about. If you are seeing those spiders in your house out in the open I would have an exterminator come by and take a look around. Everyone has thousands around their house and don't know because they are in the places they should be and are actually being beneficial. When you get to the place where they are out in the open in your kitchen....you may have a problem. Brown recluses are the same. They like clutter so if they are out in the open, there are more than there should be.

All right guess I will wash the bedding today!

We've been having that problem in major cities here the last couple of years, and as Splitimage says (I'm near Toronto as well) it has been a concern due to widespread travel, student housing with students moving in and out and scavenging furniture, and in high density living structures. I hope it doesn't become a huge issue here. I am totally freaked out by the word "infestation", and the idea of anything feeding off of me. They are also really hard to get rid of because of how well they hide, and the multitude of possible hiding places, you pretty much have to tear everything apart and fumigate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bedbugs#Infestation

very informative.