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Pest Control Specialists Contact Us

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Dayton, OH 45405

QUESTION:

How long will it take for bed bugs to reach maturity? I have a customer who thinks the bed bugs in her home were there before she moved in. She has had her current bed for 15 years, so in your opinion which came first, her or the bed bugs?

ANSWER:

This is an interesting question, but let’s get the basic biology of bed bugs out of the way first. Once deposited on a surface a bed bug egg will hatch within 7-10 days, depending on the temperature. A female bed bug deposits from 5 to 15 eggs each week, again depending on the conditions in the room, and can lay 200 to 500 eggs total over her lifetime of 6-18 months. Typically the new bed bug nymphs will become adult bed bugs in about 2 months, although this again varies from 1 month to 4 months depending on the temperature in their environment. There are 5 nymph stages and then the adult stage, and each nymph feeds at least once on blood and the adult may feed every week for its lifetime, which typically is about 6 months but may extend to well over a year, particularly if blood is not readily available. In a cool environment an adult female bed bug has been shown to be capable of surviving 425 days without finding a second blood meal. We are not going to starve these parasites out of our homes.

Bottom line is that temperature has a huge effect on the lives of bed bugs, and the warmer it is the faster they develop and the sooner they die. If this home is normal and lived in then we could expect freshly deposited bed bug eggs to become mature adult bed bugs in about 45 to 60 days. The female is sexually mature essentially the moment she molts to the adult stage, and will be inseminated as soon as a male discovers this new opportunity.

How does all this help you with your predicament? Part of the problem is the “Placing of the Blame” game. This customer appears determined to blame the previous owners for her current bed bug problem. Somehow I think this would be a serious stretch. If she moved in 15 years ago that puts her moving in date at the year 1996, and frankly, we still found The Common Bed Bug to be almost non-existent in the U.S. in those days. Is it “possible” bed bugs were already there? Well, certainly it’s possible, but it would seem to be highly unlikely, and even more so if she is only now complaining about their presence. I am going to go out on a limb here and guess that she may be renting this home, and therefore would have the actual owner to blame for the problems she now has. After 15 years though it would seem more likely to me that she has recently brought these pests into her home herself.

The subject of her 15 year old bed may not be that important though, with respect to the bugs. They can hide nearly anywhere within an infested room. The bed and all its seams and crevices may be a preferred harborage site for these bugs, but bed framing and nearby dressers, along with carpet edging, electronic devices, and wall voids are quite suitable too. Of course, people who buy used mattresses or get them free at garage sales may be asking for more trouble than the person who buys a bed new, but even an infested bed can be dealt with the eliminate the bugs and prevent them from hiding on the mattress in the future.

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QUESTION:

How do you deal with the Spiraling Whiteflies that are attacking the Gumbo Limbo trees?

ANSWER:

This is a newcomer to Florida with the impressive name of the Gumbo Limbo Spiraling Whitefly, although an alternate name is the Rugose Spiraling Whitefly, and it attacks far more plants than just gumbo limbo, including oak, palm, olive, and others. The name comes from the distinctive spiraling pattern created as the female whitefly deposits her eggs on the surface of a leaf. Otherwise the story for this new species seems to be fairly similar to many other whiteflies, according to fact sheets and articles from the Univ. of Florida. It creates a lot of honeydew which then leads to the growth of sooty mold, it creates large amounts of white waxy material on the leaves, and while it is feeding on the plants it rarely does much serious damage to larger, healthy trees. The primary concern is an aesthetic one, which does not demean the importance of yet another exotic import.

It was only in 2009 that this whitefly was first discovered in the Miami area of Florida, and yet already specialists have noted at least one parasitic wasp attacking the whitefly. This gives them hope that parasites and predators that specialize in other whiteflies may do a good job on this one. In California the awful Ash Whitefly of the 1990’s was successfully beaten back with an importation of a parasitic wasp, so the tiny parasites sometimes do a very good job.

Insecticides can be very helpful, but the problem with whiteflies is all of that wax, which repels water-based sprays applied to the leaves. The most susceptible stage of the whitefly is the crawler stage, which is the first stage out of those eggs. At this point it is mobile and has not created all of the wax to coat itself, and topically applied products can more easily contact the bug. If you choose to do foliar sprays they should be spaced 7-10 days apart to try to get the crawlers before they move onto their next and more resistent stages. Here you could use any insecticide labeled for whitefly on ornamental plants. One of these could be a low-impact material like a summer horticultural oil or soap. These need to contact the insects directly and leave no residual effect. For all foliar sprays the treatment must concentrate on the LOWER surfaces of the leaves, as this is where the eggs are deposited and the whiteflies spend nearly all of their time.

More effective may be systemic insecticides that actually get INTO the foliage of the plant where the active ingredient can then be sucked up by the feeding whitefly. The systemics also tend to last much longer than foliar applied contact materials as they are protected within the leaf tissue. A product like imidacloprid (e.g. Merit) can be applied to the soil around the tree and taken up by the roots and transported to the foliage. On many plants this provides season-long control of insects such as aphids, and it may do well on whiteflies too. But, this is still early enough in the battle with this pest that the Univ. of Florida has not published any specific findings on what works or does not.

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QUESTION:

A tenant on the 2nd floor of an apartment bldg has what appears to be psocids in their kitchen – on the counter top, floor, under the sink. I treated once with Cy-Kick inside and Temprid on exterior foundation and windows. Ten days later I treated with Temprid inside. A week later they called the manager and still see them. Any suggestions?

ANSWER:

I can’t help but suggest that your first step might be to verify that the Psocids are actually still present in this apartment, and do this visually as well as with the use of glue traps. My cynicism occasionally (often?) rears its ugly head, and it is possible this particular tenant is imagining their presence still, is seeing something else other than psocids, or just likes getting his unit treated as often as possible. It would be worth a personal visit to ensure that the problem still exists, and if it does then an approach other than just applying insecticides is needed. The materials you used would certainly kill psocids if the bug and the active ingredient manage to come together, and in fact either one of them should be sufficient. Since psocids so often are associated with damp conditions a microencapsulated formulation might be more appropriate, but in most kitchens really excessive dampness would be unusual.

Psocids are one of those annoying little bugs that gets INTO things, and in one respect they may be a stored foods pest. Everything you read about them tells us that moisture control is the key. They rarely cause actual damage to food themselves, but their presence in food is a contamination that is undesirable. The primary foods of book lice, which of course are not actually “lice”, is MOLDS, and it doesn’t take much mold to fill up a psocid. Thus, any slight amount of dampness that can initiate the growth of mildew, mold, fungus, or whatever you want to call it, can attract and sustain book lice. These tiny insects also are very mobile, so they wander out fo the infested materials and onto the counters and floors and walls and into other things. The key is to find the infested packaging or any other material and eliminate it first, then you can achieve success with the use of insecticides applied around the general area. Your applications of Cy-Kick and Temprid probably did a fine job of killing the exposed psocids, but it was incapable of getting inside voids or packaging to attack the main problem.

Psocids feed on a great variety of materials too, so your focus in your inspection needs to look beyond just food containers. They are nasty little pests in insect collections, so dead insects in window sills or old insect nests (wasps, bees) could be fed upon. There might be a mildew problem under the kitchen sink or under the refrigerator that provides the perfect conditions to support large numbers of them. In some respects the presence of insects like psocids, fungus gnats, phorid flies, and other moisture lovers tells us of an unsanitary condition that should be found and corrected. The presence of excessive moisture could eventually lead to a decay fungus problem on structural wood.
So, I suggest you return to this apartment to verify the actual presence of these insects and if they are still there in some numbers that you take a flashlight, get the complete cooperation of the tenant, and perform a very detailed inspection of this apartment and all of the cupboards where food items are stored. It could be some very old package of baking mix that is just out of condition now, but finding the source is necessary.

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QUESTION:

In your opinion what’s the best chemical to combat scorpions?

ANSWER:

Trust me, I will get around to the chemical part of scorpion management eventually, but I still feel the need to discuss the other parts of an overall IPM program for scorpions. Chemicals alone are not likely to give the best results that you and your customer are looking for, and the customer needs to buy into the need for their cooperation in this too. I suspect that too many homeowners still perceive “pesticides” as the magic bullet that can overcome all obstacles such as sanitation, harborage, and exclusion issues that need to be addressed and corrected.

Harborage and sanitation probably are one and the same for scorpions. There are potentially dozens of places in a landscape or yard that could provide harborage for these nocturnal animals, and many of these sites are unnecessary. It could be firewood or lumber piled on the ground that instead should be stacked neatly OFF the soil and away from the structure. It might be other clutter such as old boxes or appliances tossed outside and left there. It might be landscape features such as rocks or boards that could somehow be better situated so scorpions could not get under them during the daytime. It is helpful to the homeowner to do your inspection of their property to point out and put in writing all of these possibilities, and the more they can correct these harborage sites the fewer scorpions can there be on the property and the further from the home they need to hide, reducing the chances they will attempt to enter the structure.

Exclusion is vital, and your inspection also looks for every possible crack, gap, or hole through which scorpions might move to get inside the home. Houses can be pretty porous, and even around my own home, which you might think should be managed perfectly to keep bugs out, there are many great openings to admit bugs. In your area you might also have the “bark” scorpions in the genus Centruroides, which are quite toxic and which can climb trees and walls, so your inspection of the exterior should include a look at trees and shrubs to see if branches touch the structure, and gaps under the eaves at roofline, since the scorpions can easily climb rough stucco walls.

I mention all of this because we should never come to rely completely on pesticides. They just don’t last that long and we should have a good stewardship of their use and the environment by using them only when necessary. If scorpions are living on a property there are reasons they are able to do so. If they are entering the structure there must be openings available to them. Changing both of these conditions can dramatically reduce the need to apply toxins, and keep you from having to constantly apply the material to keep an effective residual in place. In addition, a constant exposure to insecticides is a great way to encourage a buildup of resistance to the active ingredients by the pests.

According to some of our folks in scorpion-infested Arizona the synthetic pyrethroids continue to be excellent for scorpion management, along with the other issues listed above. Microencapsulated formulations such as Demand and other lambda-cyhalothrin products seems to be a popular choice. The microencapsulation helps to protect the active ingredient from the intense heat of the southwest states, and lengthens the time the product is available. The capsules also may more easily adhere to a passing scorpion, giving a better chance to get the a.i. onto and into the bug. If you have access to voids that the scorpions may hide within you could use a residual dust, and this may include dusting into access points around the perimeter of the structure.

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QUESTION:

How do I control nematodes in a customer’s lawn? Is there a chemical available for use?

ANSWER:

Nematodes are one of the toughest adversaries in turf, and because of this it is extremely important to verify that they actually are there and are the problem. A soil sample should be taken to a qualified soil analysis lab, perhaps at your local University, to positively identify the presence of nematodes. The best time to sample is during the warm months, as populations of these pests are much lower when the soil temperature is below 60 degrees. The damage from nematodes will look very much like the damage from a number of fungus problems on turf, so the correct diagnosis will help to determine the path to choose for management. These “worms” are microscopic and too small to be visible to the naked eye, so lab-verification is necessary.

According to a number of university resources on nematodes there are very, very few effective products for use after the turf is already established. Nemacur (fenamiphos) is one of the few remaining materials, and even this may be hard to come by since it is a fairly toxic organophosphate that may be phasing out of existence. This is particularly so for home lawns, as essentially ALL uses of organophosphates have been banned by the EPA for residential use.

It would be good to provide your customer with information on turf types that are resistant to nematodes and if nematodes are truly the problem in this lawn then complete removal and replacement with a resistant variety may be the best answer. Prior to a lawn being set in place the soil may be treated with some fumigant or other technique that would kill any nematodes in the soil, but these treatments could also kill turf, so PRE-planting is limited.

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QUESTION:

We have a 6 unit apartment that has a flea infestation. The source seems to be a dirt floor in the basement where the tenants use the washer and dryers kept there, so they are carrying the fleas into their apartments. What method of treatment and/or product would you recommend for this? Thanks for your help.

ANSWER:

You would think that flea control would be a cut and dry process. Bathe the dog, vacuum and spray the home. But, some of the worst flea problems I have seen were in homes or apartments where there were no pets, and in at least two of these the source was traced to the soil in the crawlspace below where some wild animals (raccoons maybe? feral cats?) must have taken up residence at some point in time and for some length of time to have seeded it with so many eggs. A third one was traced to landscaped areas outside the apartment where feral cats were living under thick shrubbery.

So, hopefully my little introduction gave us some hints about where to begin, and that is with determining the source of the problem and eliminating it, meaning eliminating the presence of the animals that have brought these fleas in the first place. Actually, I suppose the program should begin with ensuring they actually have fleas, as the tenants may have made this decision based on one or some of them feeling they were being “bitten”. I never pays to take the word of the customer as to what pest they have or where it is occurring, and if YOU yourself have not yet inspected this complex, visually seen the fleas, and determined that the basement is the source, then you should take this step.

Once you know for certain that the basement is the epicenter then you need to determine what warm blooded animal(s) are coming in there and bringing in the flea eggs that began this problem. And, if nothing is done to prevent these animals from continuing to inhabit this area then anything you do today will not stop the problem from continuing to occur in the future. Exclusion must be performed to ensure no more animals can get into the basement, and of course you must decide what animals these are. Do the tenants themselves have cats or dogs that go there, in which case these animals need to be treated for fleas and preferably kept out of the basement in the future. Is it feral cats that need to be dealt with in the proper manner, or wildlife like opossum or raccoons that might be trapped and dealt with accordingly. But, somehow something is entering, and this should be stopped by closing off all possible entry points. If the tenants or the manager are unwilling to cooperate in this then your hands are tied and they need to understand the future implications.

If you are certain the real source of the fleas is the basement and not one of the apartments then all you need to do in the apartments would be to apply a contact product like pyrethrum to kill any adult fleas present. Without pets there should be no egg production and no blood-fecal pellets for the larvae to eat. However, it would be prudent to make certain this is the case, as one or more of the tenants could very well have pets that are infested with fleas, and these apartments could be the actual production. I sure must sound suspicious, but I have no problem believing that a tenant wants to pass the blame onto something else when he might really know his pet is a flea factory. Again, don’t take their word for all of this but insist that you be allowed to inspect the units and place glue traps there to monitor for the presence of fleas. There could be some surprises.

But, back again to the IF the source is the basement then you could treat this with the usual lineup – an IGR to affect existing eggs and larvae, a residual insecticide to kill adult fleas now and in the next week or two, and perhaps a pyrethrum added in to give the quick knockdown of adult fleas. There are so darned many products labeled for fleas that I hate to start naming names, but you can view the entire and very long list on PestWeb in the Product Documents resource – go to the tab Products by Target Pest. If you treat the soil areas still ensure no one goes back in until the soil and surfaces are dry. If this is a big issue with the tenants you might go with one of the aerosol products like Precor 2000 or Ultracide. These contain both residual and IGR, and Ultracide also tosses in pyrethrin while Precor has synergized phenothrin, so with either you get knockdown, residual, and IGR as well as almost instant drying.

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QUESTION:

What is the best insecticide to use and the treatment procedure for mosquito control around homes with lots of landscaping shrubs?

ANSWER:

At a recent NPMA convention the topic of “barrier” treating for mosquitoes by our industry was addressed, and the speaker had participated in some field studies to determine just how effective this kind of pesticide application really is in reducing adult mosquito presence in landscapes. The conclusion was that it could be VERY effective, even providing several weeks of relief from biting adult mosquitoes, although never getting 100% control, so that should not be promised. The customer needs to be told what the realistic outcome will be. Some of the products used in this study were permethrin, bifenthrin, and lambda-cyhalothrin – common trade names of the first products out with these a.i.’s are Dragnet, Talstar, and Demand.

All of these active ingredients performed fairly equally and many other pyrethroids probably could give similar results. The treatment had to be made in the location where the adult mosquitoes rested though, so identifying the mosquito species of concern was important. As they stated, Culex mosquitoes tended to rest higher up in trees, while Aedes mosquitoes were more likely to be resting closer to the ground in shrubbery. If you sprayed the bushes and the mosquitoes there were Culex you would get very disappointing results. So, take the time to capture some adult mosquitoes and use a pictorial key and good magnification to determine which kind you have. Even with mosquitoes proper ID is important.

There are hundreds of products specifically labeled for Mosquito Adults, and you can view the entire listing on PestWeb in our resource found in the Product Documents section – select the “Products by Target Pest” tab, then “Flies………Mosquitoes”, then “Mosquito Adults”. Note that many of these products are pyrethrum, and of course pyrethrum kills adult flies quickly. It just offers no residual protection, so if your chore is to quickly drop the population of biting mosquitoes for, say, a lawn party that evening, then a light misting with pyrethrum will be helpful. Combine this with the other steps of treating resting sites with a residual, eliminating or treating larval aquatic breeding sites, and using a mosquito trap to monitor for the populations or the species. There also are Misting systems that can be permanently installed that emit a light pyrethrum mist on timed intervals, although some states are looking at these with an eye to regulating their use.

And, I would be remiss if I did not also mention the role of Source Management in mosquito control, meaning identifying all possible breeding sites on or near a property and dealing with the problem at that level. If you can eliminate the aquatic sites the mosquito larvae must live in or treat that water if you cannot eliminate it, you can prevent the development of all those biting adult mosquitoes, and it is only the adults that bother people. Around a home most of the water resources will be small and can be drained, such as empty containers or old tires on the property, rain gutters full of water, tarps that have captured water, low areas in the soil that could be drained or filled. Nearby sources may be local ponds, irrigation or drainage ditches, or catch basins, and these may be treated with a larvicide in many cases. Be careful treating off of your customer’s property though, and you may need to get approval for this from the local public works or other property owners. For larviciding you can use products such as bacteria (Mosquito Dunks) or an IGR (Altosid pellets).

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QUESTION:

I wanted to know if mixing these products is a
violation. I recently witnessed a tech mixing the
following products into a Patriot machine – Pyrocide 100, Exciter, Gentrol, Evercide. I use Gentrol and Exciter but I’m not familiar with the others because I don’t use those.

ANSWER:

I think we can distinguish between what is “legal” and what is “logical”, and in this case the other person seems to be within the law with his mixtures. The rule of thumb is that you CAN mix products together as long as none of the labels prohibits that mixing, or limits the mixing to some other specific products only. In this case none of these products’ labels prohibits mixing, so putting them together in one tank would be legal. Another rule of thumb I once learned was that once you get past 3 different products in the same tank mix you may be asking for trouble, and we could refer to it as a witch’s brew. Another consideration is whether or not you begin to exceed to legal concentration of any of the active ingredients by mixing several products together, and in this case both Pyrocide and Exciter are pyrethrums, so by adding the label amount of each to a single tank actually doubles the concentration of the pyrethrum in that tank, and this could be skirting the law.

My initial thought on this is that this person may believe that if one is good then two must be twice as good, and you can kill that bug deader with twice the ingredient. Particularly in this time of serious shortages of natural pyrethrum, to mix two different pyrethrum products in the same tank would seem to be an overuse of the active ingredient. The use of the proper amount of either one is going to achieve what you want from the pyrethrum – flushing or knockdown – and to use excessive amounts could actually create a repellency in the treated area that works against you. You WANT the pest insect to rest on the treated surface to absorb the residual material (the permethrin in the Evercide), but too much pyrethrum could just chase the pest insects away from that area.

Another question is whether or not all of these products can legally be used in a “deep void” injector such as the Patriot, and this seems to be okay. All of them are labeled for use as space sprays, even though they do not specify use in a deep void or wall injector, which is what the Patriot and other such foggers are designed for. I would say that the use of a pyrethrum product to get flushing or knockdown, a residual for the longer control, and an IGR for its purposes is a good combination. In fact, for bed bug control many PMP’s have found that pyrethrum added to the spray mix seems to enhance the control effort, and whether it is because of the pyrethrum itself or the synergists in nearly all pyrethrum products is not something I know. In this case the Pyrocide has dual synergists and the Exciter has only PBO, although at a whopping 60% in the concentrate material. Because of the high percentages of pyrethrum and PBO in the Exciter I would be very concerned about mixing this one at the proper label dosage.

So, in my opinion there does not seem to be anything illegal about what this person is doing, but definitely the use of two different pyrethrum products is illogical and perhaps skirts the law because it probably bumps the total amount of that active ingredient above what was really intended for use in a spray mixture.

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QUESTION:

What would make spots in a lawn a different color green, such as a bright green?

ANSWER:

My temptation is to go with one very likely cause, and that is one called Canis lupis familiaris – our common dog. Urine is high in nitrogen, and while it may cause a burned spot in that lawn initially it then provides a high nitrogen source for the turf, which begins to grow much more rapidly and healthier at the spot where the dog decided to do its business. Even a pile of poop, cleaned up and removed, may have been the source of nutrients that leached into the soil and were used by the turf for healthier growth. Where female dogs routinely use the lawn as their bathroom you will get these darker green spots all over the turf.

I recall one incident where a homeowner was blaming a pest control technician and his insecticides for “burning” plants in the garden surrounding a lawn. As we inspected these plants the front door screen was suddenly shoved open by the homeowner’s dog, and the dog immediately ran across the lawn and lifted his leg on those plants, confirming my suspicion that the burned foliage had nothing to do with pest control chemicals. In your case it could even be neighboring dogs that are let out to relieve themselves at night, and choose this lawn as the best bathroom in town. Dog urine is not going to harm the lawn overall, but will cause brown spots and then these dark green spots, disrupting the otherwise smooth look to the lawn.

Other than urine, improper fertilizing can result in spotty coloring on turf, although this usually is seen as long rows of darker and lighter green areas and streaks of dead areas where excessive fertilizer may have been dumped. Nitrogen is usually the reason for the green of plants, and while it is a necessary ingredient it also can be applied too heavily, resulting in this burning of the foliage. There also can be discoloration caused by fungus problems in lawns, and the “fairy ring” effect where a fungus problem moves outward from its original spot shows as a darker ring surrounded by the lighter ring or dying turf. However, these generally are not spots as you describe, and what you see would seem much more to be the result of some nitrogen source ending up on the lawn in widespread places, much more typical of dog urine.

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QUESTION:

What might you suggest for a Bed Bug prevention plan?

ANSWER:

Maybe we can look at this question in a couple of ways. First would be how can your customers (hotels, homes) prevent the occurrence of bed bugs in their living places, and second how can the pest control technician prevent bringing bed bugs home himself. Neither one is a slam dunk, and the hotel/motel industry would seem to have the tougher job. We can accept that bed bugs are hitchhikers and anyone who stays at a hotel could, potentially, be carrying the bugs in their luggage. The hotel management has no way at this time to screen that luggage before it gets to the room, so in theory there is no possible way for the hotel to “prevent” the importation of bed bugs. Interesting thought though, isn’t it? Perhaps in the near future new tools will come along that allow you quickly to scan items like suitcases and backpacks to detect any presence of bed bugs or their eggs. Having a bug-snifffing dog on staff would be prohibitive for hotels, but a small portable device that detects them in some manner would be interesting, and most guests of hotels should accept that it also protects THEM from getting someone else’s bugs.

Hotels should have a plan in place specifically for bed bugs, and it involves good training of the housekeeping staff to perform a basic inspection after each guest leaves and the bedding is changed, looking for the obvious signs of the bugs. They should plan on routine inspections by a qualified, trained pest control technician and have a contingency plan in place for when bed bugs are discovered in a room. This might include immediately quarantining not only that room but all adjacent rooms until all are positively known to be free and clear of bugs. The liability to the hotel is too great not to have this in place. They also can place the various kinds of bed bugs traps in each room – glue traps, pitfall traps, active monitors where suspicion is highest. I noticed that in a hotel I stayed in recently the head board has been removed from the wall, eliminating one likely and difficult-to-treat bug harborage area. Hotel housekeeping staff also should be instructed NOT to wear home the clothing they wore while managing the rooms, but to change out of that clothing and into clean clothing, and to place all clothing worn in the rooms into sealed plastic bags for laundering.

These same steps might be appropriate for the PMP who treats bedbug infestations. First you can wear light colored coveralls over your work clothing to facilitate seeing any bugs on the outside, and the coveralls then can be removed and either disposed of or laundered before wearing them again. They should be placed within a sealed plastic bag and then immediately transferred to a hot wash and hot dryer. This is a good rule for any other clothing you might wear in a bed bug infested home – do not go back into your own home while wearing this clothing, but remove it, seal it, wash and dry it, and perhaps even hit the showers yourself before settling into your private life for the evening. If any bugs have managed to fall into or crawl onto your clothing, and even worse if they deposited some eggs on the clothing, your need is to kill them before they have the ability to move from clothing into your home or into some other home that you work in following a bed bug job.

This is the one problem with bed bugs. The only way they can be in a room is to have been brought in by someone else, and the search then will be on for who that culprit is. You notice that people with bed bug problems are labeled (by lawyers) as “victims”, and of course victims are always encouraged to sue whoever it was that victimized them. Even in your own home it would be prudent to take the basic steps – install mattress and boxspring encasements, install pitfall traps under bed framing, place glue traps along walls, and do the basic inspection of bedding and nearby furniture for blood spots and shed exoskeletons.

On PestWeb you will find a great many articles and resources in our “Bed Bug Info” section, and here there will be forms you might use for your own company plan as well as material that would be beneficial to provide to your customers.

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