Posts Tagged ‘bed bugs’

How To Get Rid Of Bed Bugs

As you are visiting this site it is likely that you fall into one of several categories.

The Bed Bug

Possibly you may have bed bugs (Cimex lectularius) already and want to get rid of them. Maybe you suspect you may have bed bugs and want information, maybe you may be worried about getting a bed bug infestation and want to know how to prevent this, or possibly you are just curious about bed bugs.

Whatever the case this site has the answer for you.

What are bed bugs?

There are a lot of fallacies and misconceptions about bed bugs, one of the biggest urban myths is that every bed has them.

This is simply not true!

Every bed has dust mites which feed on human skin, these are not bed bugs!

Bed bugs are visible to the naked eye and are surprisingly large, especially after a meal of blood! Adult bed bugs are about the size and shape of an apple pip and can move quite quickly when disturbed.

Where did bed bugs come from?

Bed Bug Life Cycle

They evolved from bugs which feed on bats (Cimex pipistrella etc) and probably evolved around the times when human beings started living in caves.

Bats would only live in the caves for half the year round whereas human beings would inhabit the caves all year round, thus providing a better opportunity for a regular meal.

However, because the bugs historically had to endure long periods without feeding, modern day bed bugs can survive

for extended periods without a meal, up to a year or more in fact.

SARATOGA SPRINGS — The city’s public housing director on Friday pledged to change the way the Saratoga Springs Housing Authority operates, and hire a licensed pest control expert to kill all bedbugs in Stonequist Apartments.

Coming off more than a month of mounting criticism from tenants and city officials, Housing Authority Director Ed Spychalski said he would hire a professional exterminator to implement “an accelerated, comprehensive” management plan for bedbugs in the 176-unit federal housing tower. He also said he would make adjustments to the agency’s business practices.

The bedbug announcement delighted Teresa Grocki, the first of several residents who made emotional pleas for help in removing the insects from Stonequist, a nine-story tower located just outside the city’s downtown area.

“We are on the way to having an ongoing program, which, hopefully, will help us stave off the bugs and go back to as normal a life as possible,” said Grocki, who received Spychalski’s letter Friday morning under her door. She achieved her goal — funding for bedbug treatment, Grocki added.

Spychalski comments came in letters to Mayor Scott Johnson and all Stonequist tenants. They were released Friday by a public relations firm that the authority’s Board of Directors hired.

Spychalski’s call for “corrective action throughout the entire building” marked a departure because authority officials had insisted the bedbugs were confined to less than 20 rooms. Since the summer, he and the authority’s Board of Directors had relied on informational videos, steamers, mattress covers, and most recently, non-toxic powder, to control the tiny, fast-migrating insects.

The housing authority will select a pest control specialist on Monday, and inform tenants of upcoming inspection and treatment times, Dennis Brunelle, chairman of the authority’s board, said in a statement. The new approach calls for pest inspections of all apartments to start as early as late next week, insect identifications, the application of two or more control methods and follow up evaluations, Spychalski said.

How To Get Rid Of Bed Bugs

As you are visiting this site it is likely that you fall into one of several categories.

The Bed Bug

Possibly you may have bed bugs (Cimex lectularius) already and want to get rid of them. Maybe you suspect you may have bed bugs and want information, maybe you may be worried about getting a bed bug infestation and want to know how to prevent this, or possibly you are just curious about bed bugs.

Whatever the case this site has the answer for you.

What are bed bugs?

There are a lot of fallacies and misconceptions about bed bugs, one of the biggest urban myths is that every bed has them.

This is simply not true!

Every bed has dust mites which feed on human skin, these are not bed bugs!

Bed bugs are visible to the naked eye and are surprisingly large, especially after a meal of blood! Adult bed bugs are about the size and shape of an apple pip and can move quite quickly when disturbed.

Where did bed bugs come from?

Bed Bug Life Cycle

They evolved from bugs which feed on bats (Cimex pipistrella etc) and probably evolved around the times when human beings started living in caves.

Bats would only live in the caves for half the year round whereas human beings would inhabit the caves all year round, thus providing a better opportunity for a regular meal.

However, because the bugs historically had to endure long periods without feeding, modern day bed bugs can survive

for extended periods without a meal, up to a year or more in fact.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) – Officials at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln said Wednesday they will search every dorm room on
campus for bedbugs after an infestation was discovered earlier this
month.

University officials said they’ve spent $20,000 since Jan. 9 on
services and equipment to get rid of the reddish-brown, wingless
pests, and could end up paying $100,000 for a bug-killing effort
expected to last at least a month.

Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Juan Franco said 25 student
rooms so far have tested positive in three residence halls: Abel,
Selleck Quadrangle and the Village. A sweep through the residence
halls has located the bugs on couches, in closets and in residence
hall lobby areas, but university officials said the infestation was
relatively small.

“We are telling students if there’s any suspicion at all of bugs
in the rooms or in their belongings, to let us know – whether it’s
a bite or they actually see one, or they just suspect,” Franco
said.

The university is using a rat terrier named Spots to detect the
bugs, and may bring in other dogs from Minneapolis that are capable
of locating bedbugs. Work crews will likely scour the rooms again
after students leave in May to ensure the bugs are gone.

Brian Shanks, the university’s associate director for residence
life, said the university was exploring a ban on used furniture or
carpet that might carry bedbugs. But he acknowledged that such a
policy would be difficult to enforce.

Glenn Schumann, the associate director for facilities, said
roughly 10 percent of the items found in student rooms so far could
qualify as havens for bedbugs.

Bed Bugs in Manchester, Trafford,

Cheshire, Liverpool and Wirral

0161 930 8814 / 0151 471 8660

Bed Bugs in Manchester, Trafford, Cheshire, Liverpool and Wirral – One of the most reviled and misunderstood pests known to man is the bed bug (Cimex lectularius). How many of us gone off to sleep at night as children with the words of our parents in our ears ‘sleep tight and don’t let the bed bugs bite’?

The Bed Bug

Bed bugs probably started to feed on man at about the time we moved into caves, the ‘bat bugs’ Cimex pilosellus and Cimex pipistrella primarily feed on bats and it is probable that bat feeding species of bug evolved to feed on human blood when our ancestors started dwelling in bat infested caves.

Until the arrival of DDT in the early 20th century bed bugs were common non-paying guests in much low quality homes, bed bug bites would be commonplace.

The later part of the 20th century experienced pest control companies dealing with very few bed bug calls indeed, their presence being largely confined to inexpensive holiday camps and student accommodation etc.

Many people mistake dust mites, which are not visible to the unaided eye, with bed bugs which very definitely are.

Adult bedbugs are reddy-brown, about a quarter of an inch in size and decidedly swollen after a meal of our blood.

They grow by an incomplete metamorphosis which means that the nymphs are just smaller copies of the adult, they do not have a pupal stage like fleas or a fly.

Bed bugs regularly feed on human blood every 7 – 10 days, emerging in the hours before dawn and finding their target by detecting the exhaled CO2 from human breath and when close in on their target, infra red body heat.