Cooties (AKA: Fighting the bite)

The first full week of June is designated as “Bed Bug Awareness Week”. Are you excited?!?! Since the re-emergence of bed bugs in the US in the early 2000’s, there has been a great deal of research. This gives us better information on how to prevent them, detect their presence early, and treat them more effectively.

Here is a round-up of some fun facts and new research:

Do you know where they came from? Brand new results!

Bed bugs are estimated to be over 6,000 years old. There are references to them in ancient Egyptian writings. That is a huge amount of time to become very proficient at living off humans. While cultural practices (like regularly airing out bedding) and treatments (like arsenic and sulfur) were applied, it wasn’t until the introduction of DDT in 1938 that humans finally took a bite out of bed bugs instead of the other way around. If only the story ended there. However, we know that the bed bugs bit back. With an increase in international travel, the removal of environmentally hazardous pesticides, and people forgetting about them, bed bugs came back and are likely here to stay.

Test time!

True or false: Bed bugs reproduce quickly?

Depends on your definition of quickly! Compared to a fruit fly that can lay hundreds of eggs in a matter of days, bed bugs lose the race. They will lay up to twelve eggs per day and about 200 over their adult lifespan. It will take around twelve weeks for them to go from the egg to the adult stage. Compared to an American cockroach that can take a year to develop, that’s pretty quick.

True or false: Bed bugs are found in unsanitary situations?

Sure, they are in conditions that are dirty and cluttered and unclean. They are also in perfectly clean, neat, uncluttered rooms. It is much easier to find them during inspections when you have less clutter and easier access so they are often found quicker and treated sooner in locations that are “clean”.

True or false: Bed bugs travel on our bodies?

It’s true that once bed bugs feed, they drop off and go find a nice cozy place to hide, off the host. However, anyone who’s been in an infested area knows to check their clothes, their shoes, and their pockets to check for hitchhikers. Those people spending lots of time in one place are prone to having bed bugs literally on them, even when they are not feeding. So in most cases, bed bugs won’t live on our bodies, but in some cases, they can and they can be transported that way.

What’s new? (and what it means to you!)

Resistance exists, and it's spreading. A few active ingredients are showing different levels of resistance, and researchers are still collecting "wild" populations to keep testing. Make sure to rotate pesticides! If control methods seem to be failing, it could mean a change in products is necessary.

New pesticides are still being tested for efficacy. Which is great, especially when they are a new active ingredient that hasn't been used before. This is not an approved product yet and data is mostly based on lab trials. It's still good news.

Bed bugs can rat you out? Like mosquitoes, bed bugs feed on blood. That blood isn't instantaneously digested so scientists tested to see if they could find human DNA. They did. Forensic research is looking into how that can help in crime scene investigations.

It's not just the biting and blood feeding: bed bugs cause allergies. To make this even worse, those histamines stick around even when no live bed bugs are present. They found "aging histamine at room temperature, over the course of 9 mo, showed no significant changes in the level of this biogenic amine." It's a great reminder to clean after treatments.

How are you celebrating this week? Are you looking at how you can prevent, detect, and respond to issues? We can help!

Lagniappe – "The bedbug (Cimex lectularius and C hemipterus) was used to treat epilepsy, piles, alopecia, headache, arthritis, hair loss, and snake bites."