LEWISTON, Maine — A surgical unit at the Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston was expected to reopen after exterminators treated the area for bedbugs.
The bedbugs were discovered more than a week ago, and their discovery is part of the increased presence and heightened awareness of the critters. Earlier this month, the Sabattus Primary School closed briefly because bedbugs were discovered in two classrooms.
What do you do if you find bedbugs in your own home?
Tom Green, founder of the IPM Institute of North America, says there’s no need to panic. An expert in IPM, or integrated pest management, which seeks to reduce unneeded pesticide use, Green says the best solution is to keep calm and carry on. There are safe options to keep the bedbugs from biting.
Q: Bedbugs have been painted as an implacable pest for which the usual chemical remedies, such as Raid, don’t work. How accurate is this picture?
A: First of all, although dealing with bedbugs can be anxiety-provoking and expensive, they don’t carry disease — that’s an important point to make. Mosquitoes are a more important public health threat than bed bugs, but they haven’t caused this kind of hysteria because we’re familiar with how to treat them. We all know what mosquitoes look like and how to deal with them, and we just need to get to that point with bed bugs. In agriculture new pests are introduced on an unfortunately regular basis, so this is certainly something that entomologists are used to dealing with.
Some of the chemical measures that used to work for bedbugs don’t work as well anymore because the bugs have built up a resistance. But there are still a lot of effective options. I don’t believe there’s a reason to bring back any of the more toxic products that the EPA has eliminated for use within residential structures. We have enough options already.
Q: How quickly can bedbugs move from one apartment to the next, and what should city dwellers look for to avoid an infestation?
A: Apartment dwellers should contact their landlords immediately if they have a problem. A paper published by Rutgers entomologist Changlu Wang shows that whenever bedbugs infest an apartment, there’s a 50 percent chance that the adjoining apartment will also be infested. Bedbugs practice traumatic insemination — the male punctures the female’s abdomen because there’s no orifice there, and some of the females die. So once a female has mated, they have a big incentive to avoid males and not get speared again. As a result, they move quickly and spread.
Bedbugs only feed on human blood; their bite is usually painless, may leave no mark and happens at night when you’re asleep, so if you’re not aware of the other signs, you may not realize you’re infested. Knowing what they look like so that you recognize them is very important. When bedbugs feed, a high percentage of the time they’ll also excrete dark, blood-colored, fecal spots. Look for those on sheets and mattresses. Also, the majority of bedbugs will be pretty close to the bed. So you can inspect behind the headboard and look along the seams in the sheets and mattress wherever you have a stitch line. It’s a good idea for people just to check these things when they’re changing the sheets. That way you don’t end up with a large infestation before you realize you’ve got a problem.
New York has produced a really good guide to bedbugs, and tenants in the city can contact 311 if the landlord doesn’t respond to complaints about pests.
Q: If you do have a problem, how do you get rid of them?
A: Because they hide in crevices and other hard-to-reach places, it’s best to hire a certified IPM professional, who will use a number of techniques to remove the immediate problem and reduce the likelihood of infestation. Heat treatment, for example, can be very effective, followed up by sealing points of entry from adjacent apartments.
You can start, however, by vacuuming up those bedbugs revealed by your inspection — seal the vacuum bag in a plastic bag and dispose when done. Check the vacuum hose to make sure it’s clear and that there are no bedbugs trapped on clumps of dust that they may crawl away from when the vacuum is turned off.
Once you’ve vacuumed the mattress, wrapping it in a bug-proof mattress encasement is really a great idea: They have minimal seams, so they prevent bedbugs from gathering, and have tight-sealing zippers, which bedbugs can’t get in and out of. As result, your bed can’t be re-infested and any remaining eggs inside won’t pose a threat since the bedbugs will be trapped and die after hatching. So there’s no need to spray the mattress if you’re going to use the encasement.
As soft-bodied insects, bedbugs aren’t that hard to kill. If you disturb the wax on their bodies, they dry out pretty quickly and die. A number of effective pesticides use this approach. For example, some plant oil-based products dissolve the waxy cuticle. They act quickly but you have to get it on the bed bug while it’s wet. There are other chemical products, like the pyrethroids, that will work when they’re dry.
Diatomaceous earth is the active ingredient in several pesticides often available at hardware stores that abrades the waxy cuticle on bedbugs and causes them to die. It’s not quick-acting and may take up to 10 days, but it can be placed in wall voids — away from people and animals — where it will work for a long time against bed bugs.
Q: What treatments should be avoided?
A: Foggers — such as “bug bombs” — are not effective against bedbugs and create a huge potential for exposing your family to toxic pesticides. And they can cause explosions and fire if you don’t follow the instructions properly — including turning off pilot lights. Bombing doesn’t work — the pesticide does not reach where many of the bugs are hiding.
Your exterminator may arrive with a canister of liquid pesticide and a spray wand to squirt the pesticide on the surfaces of baseboards, tiles and wherever bugs congregate. That’s also not as effective a treatment for bedbugs and leaves a residue on surfaces that people may come into contact with, especially kids who tend crawl around and put their fingers in their mouths.
A better option is to apply the pesticide directly into the cracks and crevices where bedbugs hang out, using a spray can with a straw or dust applicator that minimizes the amount of pesticide left on an exposed surface. Again, certified IPM professionals will have the right products, tools and equipment to make any applications properly.
If you’re going to use a pesticide, the ideal is limiting applications to wall voids and cracks and crevices, while the next worse for creating potential for human exposure to the pesticide is using the wand to spray surfaces and the absolute “No” is the fogger.