Guaranteed Bed Bug Elimination

Please consider that we have done thousands of successful bed bug treatments. Most of them were done backed with a 1 year warranty. Because we offer this warranty, we had to make sure we knew that the outcome of the service was completely successful, and that it offered the best experience to our customer that could be done. During these treatments we have learned a lot that has been put into practice, and changed some things that have improved the overall success of our bed bug services.

The problem with bed bugs is that an adult can live up to 6 months without food. Also, it is quite resistant to most common pesticide formulations. And they tend to live so close to the host (likely you) that there is very little treatable barrier area that would not expose you to unreasonable amounts of pesticide.

For these reasons, a single treatment for bed bugs can have a strong chance of failure.  If just a single adult female is not directly treated during a full initial treatment, it can reinfest the house later. This happens because as a bed bug infestation develops, some of them may end up in areas that are not treatable (even by heat treatments) such as under baseboards or inside cabinet kickboards.  A bed bug that is stuck, lost or trapped somewhere outside reach of the treatment can get loose and re-infest the house.

For this reason, we usually recommend a 3-treatment protocol. The first one (the initial), if done well with proper preparation, may be as good as 100% successful with that single treatment, but this is not always the case. There are so many factors involved that can cause persistence (or preservation) of some bed bugs that at least follow up inspection and retreatments is a standard for us.

What are some of the reasons bed bugs may not be treated during an initial service? Here is a list of what we sometimes see in the field of work:

• Baseboards – When beds are pushed against the wall or are on the floor, often bed bugs will crawl to the floor edge and force themselves into the baseboard crevices. This area is safe from a heat treatment (the concrete does not change temperature and preserves the bugs) and a common treatment process may be insufficient to kill those deep enough to avoid direct treatment and are thus preserved to emerge later.
• Stored Items – During the preparation process, removing items that cannot be treated and storing them (such as books, etc.) may transport and preserve live bugs that can be brought into the treated area to possibly reinfest the space.
• Kickboards and other crevices – There are places such as built-in cabinets, where if bed bugs infest, they may be out of the reach of the treatment.
• Some furniture items may make a reliable treatment more difficult, such as couches. Couches are often used at night, with the lights down, for leisure. This creates a perfect breeding area and can make control difficult. While there are ways around these problems, sometimes it may be better to remove items that make clearing difficult.

So how do we overcome these problems?

It starts with good judgement.  We have ample experience in knowing what will enhance the speed and effectiveness of a treatment verses what will make things difficult (or impossible).  Which environmental factors affect how easily bed bugs can be eliminated?   Here below are some things that make a big difference:

• Bed frames. Simple steel bed frames work extremely well in both making for speedy elimination of the infestation and help to make both prevention and detection much easier. Steel bed frames usually force bed bugs to hide on the fabric of the bed (and box spring, which are hopefully encased), making both discovery and removal very easy. Steel bed frames usually have small legs, which can be placed within interceptors to catch any remaining bed bugs and prevent them from getting back to the bed.  By comparison, wood bed frames create many problems. One is that it is much harder to treat and may require complete disassembly and reassembly which can take hours to do, and worse that there can be too many hiding spots to inspect and completely clear.
• Bed bugs like to hide in items that are dark and stationary, and close to the host (which is you). Thus if an item can offer this refuge, it is better to move it away from you.  Spacing is helpful, and if an item can harbor a bed bug, make that bug have to make a journey to find you. Within a treated house, this will help lead to its failure (and death).
• Bed bugs thrive in darkness. Thus it is better to use light as a weapon against them. If, for example, you occupy a couch, chair or recliner, have light around you to force them to “wait”. And when you leave the room, then turn out the light. The bug will come out to feed on someone that was there, and they do not know you have left.  This forces the bug to crawl over many treatment barriers and will lead to its death.
• Bed island. If you encase the mattress and box spring, and clean off a steel frame (they can be washed off outside), and reassemble with interceptors on the legs, and placed away from the wall, you create a bed “island” where no crawling insects (bed bugs and even scorpions) can find you. Doing this greatly enhances the pesticide treatment because it forces any live bugs in the room to continuously hunt for you (in vain) and thus they crawl over a lot more treatment and die off faster.

When a pesticide treatment is considered, there may be some concerns regarding pesticide exposure. Such exposure can be minimized (or even eliminated) by using the strategies mentioned above, such as the bed island effect, which allows the bed to be controlled without the use of pesticides if desired.  Another tactic we employ is to use the bio-pesticide  “Aprehend”, which is a natural insect specific fungus treatment. This product (and the process we employ) works very well but has some limitations. For example, if there is a significant infestation to kill off, we prefer to use a faster product (such as Crossfire Bed Bug Concentrate) to kill off the large numbers fast. We almost always us the bio-pesticide for follow up treatments due to its terrific efficacy.   Unlike most pesticide treatments, when a bed bug crawls over the active fungus spores, even once,  they will die.

Questions and Answers based on our field experience.

Question: What is the drawback to using Aprehend (the biopesticide). Answer is the time it takes for it to kill off the insect.  When a bed bug crawls over the bio pesticide treatment, it is not affected for about 12 hours meaning it will be able to bite and return and this can be an intolerable initial experience. Furthermore once the fungus spore enters the infect, it causes distress and the once hidden bug becomes very active until it dies, creating a negative visual impact until they are dead. Thus we mostly use the bio pesticide on minor infestations and as a follow up treatment to help us insure long term success.

Question: Can a bed bug service be successful without preparation? Answer:  With minimal preparation (like washing bed linen, the short answer is yes.  There is a strategy (the industry calls the Zero Prep Method) that works great but requires a combination of several strategies and the right product. The strategy is very simple. Treat the house and take away the food source. You can make the bugs kill themselves by simply denying them access (bed set up as an island) and an effective barrier treatment.  This strategy can take time to be completely successful (because of trapped bugs) but most bugs die very quickly as they become active, and the bed island effect keeps you from getting bit. It does take following strategies, diligence, patience, and time enough to make sure any trapped bugs die (ideally 6 months).

Question: Do bed bugs leave a mark? Answer is not really. Their attempt to take blood is better than a doctor’s syringe.  The “marks” they leave on some people is an alergtic reaction to the tiny bit of saliva on the beak of the bug that is antiseptic and helps slip this sharp beak into the skin. Also people often see many “bites” in a row and sometimes call it breakfast, lunch and dinner. But they are not grazing.  Instead those many marks are indicative of failure to obtain blood.  Thus its is more like failure, failure and success.

Question: What is the drawback to using Aprehend (the biopesticide). Answer is the time it takes for it to kill off the insect.  When a bed bug crawls over the bio pesticide treatment, it is not affected for about 12 hours meaning it will be able to bite and return and this can be an intolerable initial experience. Furthermore once the fungus spore enters the infect, it causes distress and the once hidden bug becomes very active until it dies, creating a negative visual impact until they are dead. Thus we mostly use the bio pesticide on minor infestations and as a follow up treatment to help us insure long term success.

Question: Can a bed bug service be successful without preparation? Answer:  With minimal preparation (like washing bed linen, the short answer is yes.  There is a strategy (the industry calls the Zero Prep Method) that works great but requires a combination of several strategies and the right product. The strategy is very simple. Treat the house and take away the food source. You can make the bugs kill themselves by simply denying them access (bed set up as an island) and an effective barrier treatment.  This strategy can take time to be completely successful (because of trapped bugs) but most bugs die very quickly as they become active, and the bed island effect keeps you from getting bit. It does take following strategies, diligence, patience, and time enough to make sure any trapped bugs die (ideally 6 months).

Question: Can bed bugs fly, jump or hop onto a host. Answer is no, but if they are on your skin and you begin moving, they will try to let go and fall.  As cave dwelling insects that cannot survive outside, they instinctively fall off to avoid being carried out of the cave.

Question: Do bed bugs leave a mark? Answer is not really. Their attempt to take blood is better than a doctor’s syringe.  The “marks” they leave on some people is an alergtic reaction to the tiny bit of saliva on the beak of the bug that is antiseptic and helps slip this sharp beak into the skin. Also people often see many “bites” in a row and sometimes call it breakfast, lunch and dinner. But they are not grazing.  Instead those many marks are indicative of failure to obtain blood.  Thus its is more like failure, failure and success.