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A company from Lincoln believes it has found a unique solution to the problem of bed bugs and said it was expecting a boom in business thanks to the Olympics. Gelder Group originally bought heat exchangers to dry out flooded rooms but discovered they made the areas hot enough to kill the pests. Bed bugs hitch-hike on clothes around the world and "the year's worth of tourism within two weeks" during the Olympics will lead to a rise in the problem, the company said. The firm said theirs was a chemical-free treatment as bed bugs became more resilient to pesticides. Source: www.bbc.co.uk  19 February 2012

KEY POINTS: Canine scent detection can be an effective inspection method Dogs, just like humans, are not perfect and thus are not 100% reliable Many factors need to be considered when evaluating the effectiveness of a canine scent detection service for bed bugs Dogs have been used very effectively for the detection of a wide variety of things which include but are not limited to drugs, bombs, fugitives, cadavers, mold, and termites. So why not bed bugs? There would seem to be no reason, and canine scent detection for bed bugs is already available. A number of scent detection companies have emerged offering canine scent detection of bed bugs. While we are advocates of canine scent detection, it is also our opinion that the current scent detection offerings have limitations. If you are considering a scent detection company you should consider the following: How frequently do the dogs have false positive alerts (this means that the dog alerts to the presence of bedbugs in situations where bedbugs are not present). How often (what percent of time) do dogs fail to find bed bugs? You will want to carefully look at the claims of the company you are considering and determine what type of research has been

I exchanged some emails with Penelope Green when she was writing the story, and I think she did a good job overall.  I figured this was a good time to add a FAQ to our repertoire about bed bug sniffing dogs and what you need to know if you’re thinking of hiring one. (My comments below are about bed bug sniffing dog teams generally, and are not specifically in reference to the firm or dog team referenced in the article.) The most important thing for customers to know is that bed bug sniffing dog alerts need to  be visually verified — by this, I mean the dog handler looks carefully in the vicinity where the dog alerted, to find evidence of bed bugs. As I said to Penelope Green in an email last week, Dogs that are trained [well] can be effective in sniffing out bed bugs.  However, it’s important that when a dog alerts to bed bugs, its handler follows up by visually confirming the presence of bed bugs.  Without a visual confirmation, the customer has no way of knowing if this is a false alert, and false alerts do happen. False alerts have led to customers spending thousands of dollars on treatments.    And in

By ANDREA CANNING (@andreacanGMA) , SUZAN CLARKE and MARY PFLUM Aug. 31, 2010   Bedbugs are a growing problem. People can unwittingly get them at work, or at the movies, or in retail stores. Added to the aggravation, irritation of the bites and social stigma of having a bedbug infestation in one's home is the cost of treatment. Traditional methods of bedbug treatments cost thousands of dollars and there's no guarantee the maddening pests won't return. But one chemical-free method of treatment is giving people new hope. The process is called thermal remediation, which uses intense heat to kills the blood-sucking bugs in one treatment.   Process Preserves Homeowners' Belongings So far, it seems to have worked for Allison South of Long Island in New York. Click HERE to learn how to avoid bedbug-infested hotels and to learn how to handle an infestation in your home. South's nightmare began about three weeks ago - it's left her frustrated, stressed and embarrassed. South has no idea where she picked up her unwanted guests. "It's come to the point where I feel like something is itching, I just go crazy at this point because I think it's a bedbug. I'm waking up every night with bites the size of a dime

  Bed bugs are an incredibly difficult pest to control because they are so good at hiding in tiny cracks and crevices. Also, modern bed bug populations are highly resistant to the insecticides used for their control. Because bed bugs are difficult to access, and our insecticides do not work as well as we would like, home owners and pest management professionals have been searching for novel ways to kill bed bugs inside a structure. Heat is known to be a very effective bed bug killer and it can be used in many different ways to treat infestations. For instance, heat in the form of steam can be used to treat bed bugs in carpets, behind base boards and on upholstered furniture. Hot dryers and portable heat chambers can be used to kill bed bugs in infested household items. Larger heat chambers can be used to treat furniture, while professional heating systems can be used to treat entire rooms and structures. Heat treatment offers certain advantages when it comes to bed bug management. Heat is non-toxic, and can kill all bed bug life stages including bed bug eggs. However, heat treatment of any kind (except your home clothes dryer) is still relatively expensive and has no residual (long lasting) activity. The lack of residual

The District is just now waking up to a bunch of little problems under the sheets. Don Wilder remembers the night he found his own blood on his sheets. Itchy red welts had been appearing on his arms and legs for six months. His doctor, dermatologist, plastic surgeon, and psychiatrist all had different theories—so he tried prescriptions and rubbed Bactine and lidocaine lotion on his skin. But the red marks only spread. “Literally hundreds” of them dotted his legs that night in October 2005, he says, when he lifted his sheet to find blood “all over.” The next morning Wilder scoured his apartment. When he pulled his bed away from the wall, he found an empty cardboard box on the floor. It held a nest with a layer of eggs so thick it looked like wax in a beehive. Hundreds of bedbugs crawled around inside, active and robust from feeding on Wilder’s body. “They’re like little blood sacks running around,” he says. Wilder, a hairdresser, is one of many tenants in the Norwood apartment building at 14th and N Streets NW, near Logan Circle, who are reluctant bedbug experts after years of battling infestations. Wilder says his seventh-floor apartment and the plush sofa that once

In the months after the Civil War, the New York Times sent several writers to the South. Between covering horse theft in Richmond and pondering whether one could tell a “yank” from a “reb” based on physiognomy, the reporters grumbled about an odious feature of their hotels: bedbugs. One wrote that he had come “from frequent experience” to view bedbugs as a Southern institution no less entrenched than slavery. Another begged readersfor the name of a decent North Carolina inn, complaining that the “natives” there allowed bedbugs “full sway” such that “they now rule the State during the hours usually devoted to slumber without opposition.” He said he had tried to adopt the local custom of thinking “them’s only chinch-bugs” but failed. “[A]nd now at 8 o’clock in the morning of the 13th day of March, 1866, I am seated at my table, having been driven out of bed four times already … writing to soothe my rage and drown the blasphemy which wells up from my heart on account of ‘them chinch-bugs.’” Not to doubt the yank reporters, but it is not clear chinch conditions were really less blasphemous to the North; one 1865 article said it was common to see bedbugs “crawling about

    I was sent from the future on a deadly mission, to help defeat bed bugs before they take over the world. In the future bed bugs have won. Humans are on the decline and the odds of victory seem insurmountable. In a last attempt by the humans to win the war, they devised a plan to send their best weapon against the bed bugs, me, back in time. It is now up to me and my team at Superior Bed Bug Solutions to end the war before it begins. These horrid creatures must be stopped before their conquest for world domination becomes realized!    

I braced myself for a break-up when I found out that I had bed bugs. I had been dating my then-boyfriend for about six months when I lifted my mattress and found the horrific infestation. His reaction, I decided, would indicate his level of commitment. We hadn't been together long enough for me to expect him to stay. I don't remember where I was when I told him or whether it was over the phone or in person, but I do remember the silence that expanded in the air after I forced the news out of my mouth. His pause gave me enough time to nervously imagine a series of possible reactions. I was prepared for him to tell me he wouldn't come over anymore, that I couldn't visit him either, that perhaps we shouldn't see each other until my situation was taken care of or worse, that our time was up. He didn't say any of those things, but talk did quickly turn to the sort of conversation couples might have with each other if someone brings home an STD. "Do you know how you got them?" he asked. "I have no idea! I can't believe I have them, I'm such a clean person,"

WASHINGTON - Juvenile bedbugs have invaded a federal government building. The pests were discovered in a single office in the US Agency for International Development office tower at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center. A spokesperson for the USAID wasn't able to say immediately how the bedbugs got into the building, but says there is no evidence they are present in other locations. The news is troubling to many, including people heading to a restaurant at the Reagan Building. "I don't want go in," said Debbie Hogue-Downing, who is visiting D.C. from Oklahoma. "It makes me a little leery about doing that." "I think it confirms my fear that this is getting to be an epidemic, and that it's a problem that could happen anywhere,¿ said Linda Hampton. USAID employees were notified of the problem in an e-mail, and given educational materials to help prevent the spread of bedbugs. Source:  October 02, 2010 FoxNews.com