21 November 2023 Blog a1 Pest Management

Bed Bug Infestation

• How can we identify a bed bug infestation?
Bed bugs are wingless insects, reddish brown, with flat oval bodies and six legs. An unfed adult size is 5-6mm, similar to an apple seed, and 10mm when fully blood engorged. The nymph is 1-4mm, translucent and cream in colour. They prefer wood, paper, and fabric surfaces, spend the majority of their lives hiding in harbourages (such as cracks and crevices of mattresses, cushions, bed frames, wall/floor junction, and carpets), and can survive for up to six months without feeding.
Bed bugs inflict painless bites on exposed areas of skin at night and are rarely seen by the victim.
Other common biting arthropods include ticks, mites, flies, lice, fleas, wasps, bees, and ants. However, multiple bites from bed bugs often appear in lines along the limbs and across the shoulders.

• What are indications of bed bug infestation?
1- Identifying live or dead bed bugs.
2- Their poo spotting. This is digested blood defaecated by the bed bugs, initially observed on the sheets, along the mattress seams, and other places where they hide.
3- Red blood-coloured spots on the sheets (typically grouped). It can be due to bed bugs passing sera while blood feeding or being squashed by movement of the sleeping host.
4- Eggs, 1mm in size and cream in colour, tend to be laid in dark areas (usually in crevices).

• How much the client cooperation is important with bed bugs identification and treatment?
Without this cooperation, the treatment is likely to fail.
The cooperation may include preparing the room for inspection and treatment, to possible room closure for extended periods.

• What is the realistic expectations of the treatment?
The cryptic nature of bed bugs and the presence of insecticide resistant insects means that eradication with a single treatment is unlikely, especially in heavy infestation. Follow up inspections are always required, and repeated treatments are usually necessary. Both non-chemical & chemical means of control should be integrated. The aim is to control active infestations and minimise the risk of recurrence.
Although non-chemical options, such as physical removal (by using a vacuum machine with a disposable dust bag and then destroyed by incineration), steam, or freezing heat sensitive materials can be utilised to reduce the overall bed bug population, complete elimination of an infestation needs insecticides use.

• How to prepare for inspection and treatment?
1- Do not remove any item from the room before an inspection is undertaken.
2- Be ready to remove bed linen, curtains, and clothing from the infested areas, and handle all such items as infectious. They must be bagged and sealed, and then be washed in the hottest water possible (>55 degree C) and dried in a hot drier for at least 30 minutes. Delicate items can be placed into a freezer after bagging. Likewise, all wardrobes, drawers and cupboards must be emptied, and the contents treated as above.
3- The bed frame, bed head, bedside furniture, drawers in table, and cupboards should be removed and examined thoroughly.
4- Other inspection sites include any appliances, books, behind switch plates, underneath carpet edges, skirting boards, under floorboards, loose wallpaper and paint, architraves, window casings, wall hangings or mirrors, picture frames, cracks in the ceiling, smoke detectors, and light fittings.
5- In any infestation, adjoining rooms should be inspected as well.
6- prior to treatment, any fish tanks must be covered up, or removed from the room after inspection, and all occupants and pets must vacate the room. It is recommended that the room must be kept unoccupied until the infestation is eradicated (declared in the follow up visit).
7- Do not re-enter the treated area until after the chemical has completely dried (refer to labelled insecticide instructions)
8- Do not vacuum floors and furniture for at least two weeks after final treatment.
8- To avoid future confusion, all past signs of infestation should be removed.

• What to do after eradication?
1- Cracks and crevices should be sealed.
2- Loose wallpaper should be re-glued.
3- A sealant should be placed around the wiring into the walls.
4- Carpeted floors may be replaced by ceramic tiles.
5- Metal frame beds can limit (but not prevent) the impact of bed bugs.
6- Bed should not be placed against the wall.
7- Hygiene should be maintained continuously.
8- Infested mattress or furniture must be sealed in plastic, labelled as bed bug infested, and sent to land fill, not to a recycling facility.