Category Archives: Bed Bugs World

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Lilith News: Pesticides Vs Bed Bugs

Infestations of bed bugs have always been a problem. Bed bugs are enemies of a sound night's sleep and also leave a mark after they attack. Many solutions have been tested and tried; still, the bugs remain adamant and have been continuing in their ways. As it is seen from the name, these bugs inhabit the inner parts of beds where temperature is warm enough to keep them alive and comfortable.

Bed bugs lay their eggs in the holes and tears in the beds. Beds that are in a very poor condition and are heavily infested are to be disposed as nothing of value can be salvaged from them.

The bed bugs cannot be eradicated easily. It isn't advisable to just treat an infestation. Cleaning the surroundings using vacuum is the best way to remove the eggs. Adult bed bugs can live without food for a year and hence can also thrive in abandoned houses and property.

A pest issue

Bed bugs pose as a threat when they start their hunt for food, especially blood. They stay inside their homes if bed bugs are filled and not starving.

The bites of bedbugs look like big wheels in the skin. They turn into red colored marks and can stay for about two to three days, based on how well it is treated. They appear orderly in circular patterns, unlike the mosquito bites which do not have any pattern. Also, to avoid infection, the area should not be scratched even if irritation or itchiness persists.

Bed bugs target the parts of the body in which the blood flow is good. Hence, it will not be surprising if they bite sensitive areas.

Fighting bed bugs with rainbow vacuum cleaner

Cleaning a room constantly with brooms, cloths and dustpans is a way to keep bedbugs at bay. However, they won't suffice. The best way to banish bed bugs is to use a vacuum cleaner. Rexair LLC, which is one of the leaders in the whole world in vacuum technology, provides Rainbow Vacuum Cleaner, which is indeed very effective.

The Rainbow was based on bag less vacuum cleaners. Its fore runner was called separator, which was used, mainly for separating dust from air. This concept was developed by John W Newcombe. He and Leslie H Green worked as partners and invented the Newcombe Bag less.

The first Rainbow Vacuum that was official was released in 1955 and was an upgraded version of rainbow vacuum. It had a more powerful engine and a sleeker design. Its popularity increased after Rexair was acquired by Sanders and associates. From then onwards, rainbow vacuum had more popularity and had a lot of dealerships across America and resulted in a large increase in the company's income.

Now, Rexair is a brand that is globally renowned, with the facilities for production in Canada, Cuba and Mexico. The most recent product introduced by Rexair is e2 in the e series, which is supposed to have unmatched cleaning abilities.

After the Rainbow vacuum is used for sucking the bed bugs into the vacuum bags, the bag must be placed inside a larger bag of plastic and sealed to be airtight. An outdoor container must be used for discarding it so as to prevent bugs from returning to the dwellings. Replacing a mattress is easy, but it too will be infected if bed bugs still exist in the area.

Vacuum, will not solely solve infestations of bed bugs. However, it can reduce its population and therefore contribute to the treatment of the pests.

On curtains, behind the pictures, box springs, inside the interiors of furniture, in the seams of mattresses and anywhere the insects can dwell, a crevice attachment ought to be placed and must be vacuumed. Other parts like baseboards and carpets also should be vacuumed and the filter must be removed and discarded. It must not be used for anything else.

Rainbow vacuum cleaner is a thing that has been imitated always. However, its rivals never managed to duplicate it. Behind it is a product that has been in the production for nearly 70 years, being augmented and tested for ingenuity. It is also advisable that the Rainbow ought to be purchased only from an authorized distributor. The rainbow is there, so bed bugs beware.

VENTURA, CA -- The bed bug epidemic in North America continues to escalate, as does the national media coverage of the troublesome pests. ABC's Nightline* is scheduled to air a segment on controlling bed bugs this Thursday, April 29.

Included in the segment will be what is considered by many as the most effective technology available: ThermaPureHeat®. ThermaPureHeat is a patented**, green, non-pesticide pest control technology. It utilizes clean, dry, odorless heat instead of chemicals to kill bed bugs, termites, mold and bacteria while improving the indoor air quality of a structure.

ThermaPureHeat, which is also a registered technology with the California Environmental Protection Agency (Department of Pesticide Regulation) has proven highly effective for localized or area treatments, such as infestations confined to a single structure, a multi-family unit or apartment complex, or in single or multiple hotel rooms.

"ThermaPureHeat is fast becoming the Integrated Pest Management method of choice, and the only method that has been university and field tested and proven to be effective in killing bed bugs and their eggs nearly always in a single treatment," says Dr. Michael Linford, one of the world's top experts on bed bug control.

There are currently more than 40 ThermaPure licensees in the United States and Canada who have performed many thousands of jobs to kill bed bugs with heat. Individuals wanting to obtain additional information or to find a local ThermaPure licensee can log onto http://www.thermapure.com.

"We have spent many years and millions of dollars refining this important green technology, which has been awarded a number of U.S. patents1 including the use of heat for the eradication of bed bugs," says David Hedman, CEO of ThermaPure.

* The Nightline segment on bed bugs is scheduled for April 29, but is subject to being pre-empted in the event of breaking major news coverage.

** For the patented aspects of the ThermaPureHeat® process, see the following US Patents.

Issued Patents:
(1) US 6,892,491 B2 - System and Method for Removing Harmful Biological and Organic Substances from an Enclosure - May 17, 2005, Hedman
(2) US 6,327,812 B1 - Method of Killing Organisms and Removal of Toxins in Enclosures - December 11, 2001 - Hedman, et al
(3) US 7,690,148 - Method of Treating for Pests - April 6, 2010, Hedman

The ThermaPureHeat process also utilizes trade secrets.

For Additional Information:

News Media Contact:    
Alan Elias    
ThermaPure
(925) 785-2650    
aelias ( @ ) thermapure dot com    

To Become a ThermaPure Licensee:    
Marty Venturini
(800) 375-7786
ThermaPure
CCSMV ( @ ) aol dot com

Source:
http://www.1888pressrelease.com/bed-bug/thermapure/thermapureheat-to-be-featured-thursday-4-29-on-abc-nightli-pr-205108.html

There is a Bed Bug crisis spreading through the hotel industry. Despite the fact that sanitation has little or nothing to do with Bed Bugs, lawsuits are being filed and reputations are being tarnished in the media and on popular websites. It isn't fair. But there are simplsteps a facility can take to protect their guests, their liability, and their reputations.

According to an attorney, who has defended several national hotel chains in Bed Bug lawsuits, he makes the following recommendations to hotel owners and managers to pro-actively prepare a defense against potential litigation:

Get a pest management professional to train your housekeepers to recognize early Bed Bug signs as they do their daily cleaning.
Have a written plan in effect to expeditiously deal with a suspected Bed Bug event.

Immediately isolate a room suspected of infestation.
Do not move affected guests to an adjoining room. Bed Bugs may travel up to 100 feet to find a meal.
Do not vacuum or remove anything from the room.
Do not lower the thermostat, as this may cause them to migrate to a warmer room.
Have a pest management firm in place.
Equip each room with a metal luggage rack, as Bed Bugs have a natural aversion to metal.
Equip each housekeeping cart with a checklist for inspecting beds for Bed Bug evidence in daily cleaning.

Because Bed Bugs suck the blood of their hosts while they're sleeping, there is a stigma in the minds of the general public that exceeds that of cockroaches, mice, and even rats. Attracted by the warmth of a sleeping person and the carbon dioxide they exhale, Bed Bugs may take 3 to 15 minutes to gorge themselves on a blood meal, swelling to up to 6 times their body weight. The host is not awakened by the bite because the parasite's saliva is equipped with a topical anesthetic. Therefore, people may experience scores of bites in the course of one night's sleep.

Bed Bugs usually hitchhike in luggage and not on people, so having a metal luggage rack open in a room may keep them from leaving the suitcase at all. Anything to keep guests from placing their luggage on the bed! Because of their aversion to metal, using metal bed frames and headboards is also recommended. A female, once impregnated by a male is pregnant for life and lays 2 or 3 eggs per day. So one pregnant female leaving a suitcase and making her home in a bed is just the beginning. Hatchlings in the first of five instars to adulthood are roughly the size of a spec of dust and will leave a bite like an adult. Mature Bed Bugs will usually feed every 2 weeks, but have been known to live over a year without another blood meal.

Because of the stigma and the sensationalism accompanying Bed Bug stories, the local media tend to jump on any reported encounter in a hotel, and play it up to their audience. Just one reported Bed Bug encounter in any of the popular on-line hotel review websites could mean the loss of hundreds of potential guests in a season, and could plague one's reputation for years. So the risk is great.

A facility is at even higher risk for Bed Bugs if they frequently entertain guests from outside the U.S.,especially those from Eastern Europe or Canada.

"Bed Bugs Invade America!" screamed the headline on a supermarket tabloid. "Tiny, Evil and Everywhere" shrieked the Washington Post. "Bloodthirsty Bedbugs Stage Comeback" thundered National Geographic News.

Read the headlines and you get the impression that bed bugs have invaded our shores in force and are chomping their way down Main Street USA. Until five years ago bed bug reports were virtually non-existent in the U.S. Then the blood-sucking insects started cropping up in homes, apartments, hotels and college dorms across the country fueling a media frenzy. Chastising fellow journalists, David Segal of the Washington Post pointed out in a February article, "more than 400 articles have wriggled into print, all making roughly the same point: The bloodsucking critters are back, and in numbers that amount to a scourge." Segal claims that "the scale of this ‘swarm' has been overstated, maybe wildly so. … ‘The bugs are back' is so perfect a trend story that it seems hand-forged by the trend-story gods. It's what happens when you combine a creepy villain, primal fear and squishy statistics."

In the March issue of Pest Management Professional, editorial director Frank Andorka made this rebuttal to Segal's story: "Of course, many reporters are rooting for the bed bug: It's great copy – a cryptic, bloodsucking insect that feeds on people when they are sleeping and is difficult to control. What could possibly be a better story than that? But just because it's good copy doesn't mean the stories aren't true."

So what's the real story? Are bed bugs a genuine threat or is this so much media hype. Some argue that journalists are feeding the frenzied paranoia of a panicked citizenry. Others point to very real statistics that show a 70% increase in reported bed bug infestations in the U.S. in the past five years. In a national survey conducted for Pest Management Professional, University of Kentucky entomologist Michael Potter found, "A whopping 91% of respondents reported their organizations had encountered bed bug infestations in the past two years. Only 37% said they encountered bed bugs more than five years ago." Pest control companies that for decades had received no calls about bed bugs are suddenly receiving dozens. In large urban areas it's not uncommon for companies to field 100 to 150 bed bug complaints a week, according to a National Pest Management Association survey.

After near eradication by DDT-based pesticides in the 1950s, bed bugs (Cimex lectularius) are on the rise. A worldwide scourge throughout human history, bed bugs, fleas and lice used to be regular nightly bedmates. Your grandmother's bedtime mantra -- "Sleep tight; don't let the bed bugs bite!" – was rooted in the reality of pre-World War II life when bed bugs were commonly found in beds across the U.S. In the 1930s, people wallpapered their bedrooms with arsenic-laced wallpaper to kill bed bugs. Metal bed frames, considered less likely to harbor bed bugs, were the rage. Twice a year bedsteads were completely dismantled and scrubbed to keep bed bugs at bay. Until the insect-killing properties of DDT were discovered during World War II, no effective pesticide existed to eradicate bed bugs. Development of DDT-based insecticides after the war allowed America and most industrialized countries to stamp out bed bugs.

Discovery of DDT's cancer risk to humans and lethal threat to wildlife led to its banning in the early 1970s. By the mid-1990s, reports of bed bug infestations began to surface in the U.S., Canada, Australia and Western Europe. With no lethally effective pesticide available, bed bugs have multiplied and spread. "Since the mid-1990s, numbers of reported infestations have almost doubled annually," said Clive Boase, author of a bed bug study published by the Institute of Biology in London. Bed bug infestations in London have risen tenfold since 1996, Boase reported. According to National Geographic News, bed bug complaints to pest control companies increased 700% in Australia between 2000 and 2004 and 500% in the U.S. While these figures seem astonishing, keep in mind that if a pest controller received two bed bugs calls in 2000, an increase of 500% would equal 10 calls in 2004, not quite the "invasion" trumpeted in news reports. Still, last year bed bug infestations were reported in every state in the U.S., and reports are increasing exponentially each year. "This is a serious issue," Potter recently told the New York Times. "This will be the pest of the 21st century."

Scientists haven't pinned down a single cause for the bed bug proliferation, but cite a combination of factors, including the increased ease of international travel, lack of potent insecticides, and discovery of pesticide-resistant bed bugs. The size of an apple seed, these wingless insects are nocturnal, hiding in tiny cracks and crevices on mattresses and near beds, and coming out at night to feed on human blood. Females typically lay 500 eggs during their six- to 12-month lifespan. Eggs hatch in four to 12 days, and larva begin to feed, reaching adult status in about a month. Three or more generations can be produced in a year. A few bed bugs can lead to a major infestation in just a short time. Easily transported, bed bugs often enter a home on luggage, clothing or used or rental furniture. They spread through multi-unit properties like apartments and hotels through air ducts, electrical and plumbing conduits and wall voids. New York City recently launched an education campaign when serious bed bug infestations in the immigrant community were linked to the sale of infested secondhand mattresses.

Not all bed bug complaints turn out to be bed bugs. "I get samples every day," said Harvard University entomologist Richard Pollack, who noted that "fewer than half" turn out to be bed bugs. Carpet beetles, lice, fleas, ticks, chiggers, mites, even lint are often mistaken for bed bugs. False alarms are part of the territory, said New York City housing authority spokesman Howard Marder. "Experience shows that residents may have heard rumors about bedbugs, so if they wake up with a rash or an itch, they think they've got them. … If you make people aware of a problem, reports about it are likely to go up."

Sometimes the power of suggestion results in delusory parasitosis, or Ekbom's Syndrome, in which real environmental elements such as static electricity or dry skin cause severe itching that is incorrectly perceived to be caused by insects. Scratching can cause bleeding welts that only serve to "validate" victims' claims of an insect infestation. Most incidents are related to seasonal changes in humidity triggered by the start up of heating or air conditioning systems.

For those who actually do have bed bugs, the experience can be traumatic. Bites leave red, itchy welts that can bedevil bed bug victims. While scientists assure us that bed bugs are merely a nuisance pest and do not transmit diseases, the thought of being nibbled on while they sleep is enough to send many victims screaming from their beds. "It's horrible. They're feeding on your family, your skin; their main meal is a human body," a horrified Atlantic Beach bed bug victim told NBC 12 First Coast News in Jacksonville, Florida. She said her two-year-old would wake up crying from the bites. Shannon (who refused to give her last name) spent hours shuttling her welt-covered children to different doctors before an entomologist correctly diagnosed the problem as bed bugs. In a typical reaction, Shannon threw out mattresses, beds, sofas and linens. She moved her family out and hired a pest control company to "tent" and fumigate their house. New technologies like Cryonite which freezes and kills bugs and eggs using non-toxic carbon dioxide vapor can be applied without going to such extremes. But when bed bugs bite, most people panic. They don't care whether there's a bed bug invasion sweeping America or not. One bug in their bed is one too many.