Bed bug treatment has become one of the most challenging subjects facing the pest control industry today. In a recent survey of pest control companies bed bugs were identified as the pest they find hardest to eradicate.
Bed bug treatment is most successful when following an integrated pest management (IPM) approach. This involves employing multiple tactics in the bed bug treatment programme, such as physical removal of bed bug colonies, targeted application of desiccant dusts and the application of chemical control measures in locations where this is safe.
The Bed bug control system designed for each infestation must take into account a wide variety of contributing factors. The size and condition of the infested structure, the use of the infested area. All aspects of the individual infestation will affect the bed bug treatment strategy we will employ to eradicate the infestation.
In all settings the aim of a bed bug treatment is the complete eradication of all bed bugs in that area. However different settings have different pressures placed upon them and not all techniques are suitable for all environments, so the process to achieve eradication will differ.
In commercial or hotel bed bug treatment strategies, the onus is on returning the infested rooms to service as soon after treatment as possible. However exposing clients to undue risk of bed bug bites is unacceptable. In these situations the bed bug treatment protocol needs to ensure the eradication of all bed bugs within the treatment area at the time of treatment. Physical control techniques can play a part in bed bug treatment systems and is effective in achieving a fast knock down of the population. It reduces the overall biomass of the population and should remove most of the biting stages in a single treatment. These techniques are most efficient in commercial settings due to the bare nature of a vacant room.
In domestic bed bug treatment strategies the emphasis is on the eradication of more dispersed colonies often harbouring in personal possessions or confined structures. Domestic infestations are usually more advanced than commercial infestations, as the population swells, local harbourages are filled and populations disperse, some bugs may be commuting considerable distances to feed at night.
Bed bug treatment in a domestic setting throws up numerous issues that may complicate a treatment. These include the levels of personal possessions in a room and how to treat these articles, offsite populations such as infestations at friends or family homes our clients visit, or local exposure to infestation such as migrating populations from neighbouring properties.
All of these aspects need to be taken into account when we plan a bed bug treatment for you.
The bed bug control industry has seen massive change in the past 10 years. Gone are the days of prescriptive treatment strategies in favour of a protocol based approach allowing individual technicians the latitude to assess and act on their observations. This change in thinking has resulted in bed bug control emerging as a specialist industry within the pest control sector.
