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1. What are bed bugs? What does a bed bug look like? Can I see bed bugs? Do bed bugs fly, jump or burrow into skin? What other names do bed bugs have? If you ever heard that nursery rhyme Good night, sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite,” you know these critters bite in the night. But most of us never heard of them in real life until now. What do bed bugs look like? Briefly: 1/4” long, oval, flat, 6 legs, and reddish-brown. Some fast facts… Life Stages: Eggs hatch into nymphs. Newly hatched nymphs are tiny—about 1/16th of an inch. Nymphs—which look like small adults—become adults in 5 weeks. They go through 5 molts to reach adult size—meaning they shed their old, smaller skin 5 times. They must feed before each molt. Females can produce 5-7 eggs per week, laying up to 500 in a lifetime. Bed bugs grow fastest and lay most eggs at about 80°F. They feed only on blood. They feed when people are sleeping or sitting quietly, often when it’s dark. They seek shelter in cracks and crevices when not feeding. They poop out “blood spots.” Spots look like dots made by a fine felt-tipped marker. You’d see them near where they fed and near their hideouts. Adults can live over a year without a meal. Adults, nymphs and eggs can survive sustained heat and cold if given time to adjust. Can be found in the cleanest of clean places. But clutter makes them harder to get rid of. They have no “grooming behavior”—meaning that insecticides meant to be swallowed by roaches and flies won’t work on bed bugs. A little more… Anatomy: A bed bug has 6 legs. Its antennae point forward and are about half as long as the body—not longer. Its head is broadly attached to its body and it has no wings. Eight legs indicate a tick or mite. Six legs and long antennae with two spikes coming off the back (cerci) might be a roach nymph. Carpet beetle larvae have hairs all over their bodies. Carpet beetle adults have two hard wings. Color: A “drop of blood with legs” is probably a recently fed bed bug....

Q.        What’s the Best Way to Kill Bed Bugs? A.         Hire a Bed Bug Specialist whom only uses HEAT!  Someone only doing Bed Bug Exterminating and only uses HEAT.  That’s all they do and they do it better than the others. The Best Exterminators offer You a Guarantee/Warranty. Q.        Why Heat??? A.         Heat is the safest, fastest and most effective.  Bed Bugs have developed a very high resistant’s to pesticides but have no Resistance to HEAT. If done properly a Heat Treatment is 100% effective. Also, it is Fast, Safe and Highly Effective for you and your whole family Q.        Does any Bed Bug Treatment work every time?? A.         NO. Bed bugs are hardy and the hardest pest to kill. Bed Bugs’ high resistance to pesticide, their secretive nature and the ability of these pests to live for several months without a blood meal; makes them the hardest pest to kill. (EVER) This means they can linger in furniture, bags and suitcases for a long periods of time, and live up to 18 months without food; YOUR BLOOD. In addition, bed bugs can survive temperatures of below freezing to 122 degrees. Because of this, bed bugs are not a pest that can be treated with DIY measures. Most Professional pest control companies claim Insecticides alone probably won’t work: The EPA Experts (Environmental Protection Agency) states Insecticides alone are unlikely to defeat bedbugs, and recommend Heat as the most effective way to treat an infestation.   Q.        What is the Number #1 cause of a Bed Bug Treatment FAILURE? A.         Using a Pesticide Treatment for Exterminating Bed Bugs!  WHY?  Bed Bugs have become Highly Resistant to Pesticides, require over 1,000 times more pesticides today to kill a single bed bug than it did 30 years ago.  Even Worst, the over the counter pesticides, the DIY chemical treatments, are not strong enough to kill most Bed Bugs.  Recent surveys have shown Chemicals spray treatments have around a 50% success rate after 3 treatments.  The U of M Minneapolis Campus Dr. Stephen Kills and the EPA Experts (Environmental Protection Agency) states Insecticides alone are unlikely to defeat bedbugs, and recommend Heat as the most effective way to treat an infestation. Q.        What...

Bug-bomb foggers are no match for bed bugs New research shows foggers are ineffective against bed bugs Consumer products known as “bug bombs” or “foggers” have been sold for decades for use against many common household insects. However, recent research published in the Journal of Economic Entomology (JEE) shows these products to be ineffective against bed bugs. In “Ineffectiveness of Over-the-Counter Total-Release Foggers Against the Bed Bug (Heteroptera: Cimicidae),” an article appearing in the June issue of JEE, authors Susan C. Jones and Joshua L. Bryant provide the first scientific evidence that these products should not be recommended for control of this increasingly worrisome urban pest. “There has always been this perception and feedback from the pest-management industry that over-the-counter foggers are not effective against bed bugs and might make matters worse,” said Susan Jones, an urban entomologist with the university’s Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center (OARDC) and a household and structural pest specialist with OSU Extension. “But up until now there has been no published data regarding the efficacy of foggers against bedbugs.” Jones and research associate Joshua Bryant evaluated three different fogger brands obtained from a nationwide retailer, and experiments were conducted on five different bedbug populations. Following application of the three foggers, Jones and Bryant found little, if any, adverse effects on the bed bugs. Because a majority of bed bugs spend most of the time hiding in protected sites (under sheets and mattresses, in cracks and crevices, deep inside carpets, etc.), Jones said it is very unlikely that they will be exposed to the insecticide mist from foggers. And even if they do come into contact with the mist, she added, many bed bug populations have varying degrees of resistance to the insecticides, so they will most likely survive the application. “These foggers don’t penetrate in cracks and crevices where most bed bugs are hiding, so most of them will survive,” Jones said. “If you use these products, you will not get the infestation under control, you will waste your money, and you will delay effective treatment of your infestation. Bed bugs are among the most difficult and expensive urban pests to control. It typically takes a professional to do it right. Also, the ineffective use...

New research could end the battle against bed bugs. According to a team of entomologists at Penn State University, the parasites have met their match in a fungus called Beauveria bassiana, which grows naturally in soils and causes disease in insects. As part of the study, published in the Journal of Invertebrate Pathology, researchers took paper and cotton jersey, commonly used in bed sheets. On one set they sprayed fungal spores and on the other blank oil. After the surfaces were dry, bed bugs were added for one hour. All the bugs exposed to the biopesticide died within five days. But more important, the infected bugs carried the fungal spores back to their hiding places, infecting nearly all the other bugs. This is key because they tend to live in hard-to-reach places, such as electrical plates, under loose wallpaper and behind baseboards. “They don’t even need to be directly exposed, and that’s something chemicals cannot do,” said researcher Nina Jenkins in a media statement. “If you have bedbugs in your house … what you really want to know is if they’ve all gone at the end of the treatment, and I think that’s something that this technology could offer.” Researchers must test exposure times and do more field work before this biopesticide hits the market. But the timing is ripe because, according to the study, there’s been a resurgence in bed bug infestations, linked to international travel, changes in pest management practices and insecticide resistance. In Toronto, it’s difficult to get a handle on how widespread the problem is and if it’s growing because different departments and agencies deal with bed bugs. Plus, not all infestations get...

The good news  about Bed Bugs is that they do not transmit any human diseases, but have been known to carry up to 32 diseases, with SARS being the newest and most dangerous Bed Bug Scare.  Bedbugs are known to crawl quite a distance at nighttime in search of food, but they do not fly. According to the CDC, they can travel more than 100 feet in a night looking for food, following Heat and CO2 from humans.  But they tend to live within 6- 8 feet of their food source, where people sleep  .Bed Bugs are in Hiding their whole life,  unless Breeding or feeding.  In some instance they are sick and dieing that is why you see them during day light.  Their favorite places to hide are usually mattress seams, headboards, inside box springs, couches, wooden bed frames, furniture (nightstands, dressers, chairs), and photo frames are common hiding areas for bedbugs during the day time. But they can also hide under electrical plates, TV’s, baseboards, around door and window casings, stereo speakers, curtain folds, and so on.  Bed Bugs love all electrical devices because it provides the optimal temperatures and hiding spots.  Electrical devices can not be treated with pesticides because of damage that will be caused, making Heat the Best way to treat all electrical devices. This makes it very difficult to control bedbugs. Most common telltale signs of bedbugs found around the hiding areas include its molted skin castings, live eggs, rusty blood colored spots, black waste spots, and the presence of a sweet musty odor. The Bed Bug Guys Your Solution to Bed Bug Problems CALL 612-267-0335...

Bed bugs affect people in a number of ways, but perhaps the most important are various skin reactions and allergic reactions. True allergic reactions are rare from bed bug bites, and anaphylactic shock is even rarer; however, people often claim that severe bite reactions are allergic (but sometimes this is not the case). The presence of itchy, red bumps, and even blood blisters, are more common. This brief article attempts to classify in laymen’s terms the various reactions resulting from bed bug bites. Actually, the most common response to a bed bug bite appears to be no skin reaction at all, with a barely visible tiny hole (punctum) at the location of the bite. Research studies have shown that anywhere from 30 to 60 percent of people bitten by bed bugs have no reaction whatsoever. Common skin reactions for which medical attention is sought are usually 2- to 5-mm itchy red spots at bed bug feeding sites, one per insect. These usually itch, and if not abraded, resolve within a week or so. The size and itchiness associated with these common reactions may increase in some individuals who experience repeated bites. I have known several people who said bed bug bite reactions are extremely itchy. Complex Skin Reactions. Some patients may experience complex skin reactions. Reports of these have included itchy wheals (local urticarial or hives) around a central punctum, itchy small red bumps, or diffuse hives at bite sites usually noted or arising in the morning. Blister-like rashes may occur upon new biting events days later. In some cases, these reactions evolve into itchy papules or nodules (hard bumps) that when scratched may become infected (impetiginous) and persist for weeks. These “secondary infections” from scratching bed bug bites can become quite serious and require medical care. The timing of cutaneous reactions to bed bugs may change with multiple exposures. This appears to reflect host immunological responses to the proteins in bed bug saliva. In other words, the person is becoming more sensitized to the bites each time. One of the original bed bug researchers, Robert Usinger, fed a colony of bed bugs on himself weekly for seven years and noted that his reactions progressed from delayed to immediate,...