Bed Bugs Treatment Guide

Archive for the ‘Detection Methods’ Category

You’re a realtor about to close on a home when a last minute snag appears: the cautious buyer canvassed the neighborhood and someone told him his prospective new home was “commonly known on the block to have bedbugs.”

You go into the house with a flashlight and a vacuum cleaner but nothing turns up. You checked behind the electrical switch plates, the floorboards, the edges of the carpet, around doors and window casings, under loose wallpaper, cracks in plaster, then around the plumbing…but nothing.

The buyer still isn’t satisfied. The local horror story has them spooked. They went on-line and read somewhere that even professional bedbug inspectors only have a 30% accuracy rate on average. Their dream home looks nightmarish and the deal hangs by a thread.

What do you do?

Call in the dogs!

Humans have knowledge, but a trained bedbug dog has The Nose.

What the buyer wants is peace of mind. A trained bedbug dog can provide that far more readily than any human bedbug inspector. So don’t call on Mr. Exterminator until The Nose says so. If The Nose doesn’t find any bedbugs, your buyer can enjoy greater certainty that their new home is safe from these tiny terrorists.

Bedbug detection dogs and handlers are trained by one of two main guys in the field: Bill Whitstine of the Florida Canine Academy, Safety Harbor, Fla., and Pepe Peruyero of J&K Canine of High Springs, Fla. It costs around $9000 for training packages that cover both the dog and its owner to hunt down bedbugs. These are world renowned trainers who also train dogs to sniff mold, drugs, explosives, and aid in arson investigations.

From a single drop of urine or dropping, the sniffing dog learns the target animal’s sex, diet, health, emotional state, whether submissive or dominant, friend or foe. Critters leave a biochemical trail of dead skin cells, sweat, odor molecules, and gasses. For dogs, the scent is like a three-dimensional “odor image,” but contains more information for the dog than a photograph would for a human. Dogs can follow this scent through snow, air mud, water, ash…and so the common bedbug in your home is a piece of cake for the trained canine!

Always make sure the dog you’re hiring is certified, and if you call someone and they don’t identify either Whitstine or Peruyero as their dog’s trainer — call someone else.

Bedbug bites look like many other common bites from ants, spiders, mosquitoes, and chiggers. Several hours after an attack a small, raised patch of red, exposed skin will appear. The bug pumps an anesthetic into the skin as it draws blood, so the victim won’t notice that its dinner time. When the anesthetic wears off in a couple of hours, the red patch of skin will itch like crazy!

Don’t scratch it!

Scratching can make the rash worse and may lead to infection. Some reports warn of allergic reactions occurring after bedbug attacks, and anaphylaxis (anaphylactic shock) is an on-going concern with any kind of allergic reaction.

The first thing you should do after a bedbug attack is wash the rash with an anti-bacteriological soap, and then cut back your fingernails so that inadvertent scratching while asleep won’t make it worse (sorry, ladies!)

Cut your fingernails!

Treating the rash is far easier than getting rid of the pests. There are over-the-counter steroid topical creams and lotions, like 0.5% and 1% hydrocortisone. 2% hydrocortisone is available with a prescription. Non-steroid calamine lotion is another popular over-the-counter anti-itch medication. If your rash has become infected, some doctors recommend oral antihistamines, such as Benadryl (over-the-counter) or Atarax (prescription).

If you have an unexplained rash, you may suspect bedbugs for the following reasons:

*You or someone in your family has traveled recently. Bedbugs can invade your luggage
or crawl onto your clothing in an infested hotel/motel room. Always keep your luggage and your clothes off the floor when you’re staying at a hotel/motel.

*You recently bought a used mattress or other used furniture. Mattresses and bed frames are
the bedbug’s main habitat, but they’ll settle for other hiding places 10 – 15 feet from your bed.
Mattresses and box springs can be encased in vinyl, but an entire couch is another story.

*You live in an apartment building or college dorm where bedbugs could have infested another apartment/dorm-room and have moved over into yours. You should alert the building management immediately, and usually they’ll take measures to eradicate the pests.

*You or someone in your family finds new bites each night that can’t be explained by other
circumstances, such as having a dog with fleas, or living in an area at high risk for mosquitoes.

Don’t worry about a bedbug communicating disease — the little beasts are harmless in that way.