Condo Media - December 2013 - 44

PESTS

How Are Bed
Bugs Detected?

Sometimes you can see them. Also,
you can be bitten by them. However, that being said, it is not easy to
determine if a bite is from a bed bug
bite or another insect. Moreover, fecal
spots (small, dark sand-like droppings) may appear often under seams
of mattresses or you may see blood
smears on sheets. Occasionally, their
empty covering may be visible when
they grow and discard it. It may sound
simple to spot bed bugs, but it is actually very difficult.
Generally, you should have either
a trained pest control technician or a
specially trained canine look for them.
Bed bug detection dogs have a higher
accuracy rate than pest control technicians, and these specially trained dogs
can spot bed bugs in minutes, while a
technician could spend an hour looking for the signs mentioned above.
Dogs are more expensive than using a

Follow a few simple
rules when dealing
with bed bugs:
* Treat bed bugs as soon as possible.
* Use a professional to treat bed bugs and do not self-treat them.
* Follow pre-treatment preparation instructions as closely as possible.
* Assuming that the association is doing its part in treating the bed bugs and residents are
doing their part in preparing for the treatments, remember that everyone is a victim and
no one should be blamed.

technician and you may need to wait
a number of weeks to get an appointment with a dog.

Where Do Bed Bugs Reside?

Bed bugs reside close to their hosts
and common places are near beds or
couches. They can also reside in luggage, in furniture, among bedside clut-

ter, behind baseboards, and in cracks
and crevices. It is also not uncommon
to find them in electrical sockets, TVs,
and computers.

How Do Bed Bugs Travel?

One common way bed bugs travel is
when new residents move into a unit
and they bring furniture that has bed
bugs with them. Another way is if
people bring home an old mattress on
the sidewalk that appears to be in good
condition, but it's actually infested with
bed bugs. Other ways include a person's
luggage or clothing and pets and even
wild animals such as birds or bats. Bed
bugs will also travel from one unit to an
adjacent unit through small openings in
a wall, ceiling, or ﬂoor.

How Are Bed Bugs Treated?

The two most common methods are
heat treatment and chemical treatment.
When a heat treatment is done, it is
usually followed up with a chemical
treatment to create a residual defense
against reoccurrence. In other words,
heat only kills whatever is there at the
moment, but if it misses a few bugs,
they can reproduce and the problem
will reoccur. While each company does
chemical treatments slightly differently,
in general, there are three treatments
about a month apart.
In both types of treatments (heat
and chemical), it is important to treat
not just the infested units but all the
adjacent units, including those that
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Condo Media * December 2013

Condo Media - December 2013

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