As pesky parasites whose purpose is to overcome their hosts, bed bugs are pros at overcoming control efforts themselves. Harry Katz, an icon in our industry, has recalled stripping beds and candling each bedspring to control these pests in the 1920s. With the availability of DDT in the 1940s, bed bugs became rare. By the 1960s, DDT wasn’t working as well and oil-based diazinon was the new knock-out punch, and bed bugs disappeared again – almost.
Bed bug populations have bounced back over the past few decades, so we have had to find supplemental ways to successfully control them. We are better today than we once were, but that doesn’t mean we still don’t have to learn control techniques the hard way.
Here are some reasons we might have failed to control bed bugs:
- Technicians weren’t trained properly. Throwing an ant or cockroach technician into a bed bug job without training is like telling a pediatrician to perform brain surgery – acquiring the right skill set is crucial to success.
- Management scheduled too many jobs in one day without realizing the extra time it takes to properly prepare and perform a bed bug treatment.
- Preparation was inadequate. This can mean the apartment building managers failed to tell tenants what to do, or customers were elderly, unable to practice prevention or were ignorant or ashamed of their situation.
- You missed a pocket or two during treatment. Common missed areas include:
- Behind baseboards with carpeting (you have to remove the baseboard)
- Hollow arms on couches and chairs
- Curtain rods
- Pets (customers will have to take care of these treatments separately
- You relied on the customer to call you back if additional treatments were needed – and they didn’t.
- The real problem was a different pest, like carpet beetles.
- The bed bug population was resistant to the pesticide you selected.
- New bed bugs were being brought into the account. If this was the case, plan ongoing monitoring or a quarterly program with bed bug dogs to determine how the pests are entering the premises.
- You didn’t set up a program for identifying tenant move-ins and move-outs.
- Communication was poor. This could mean salespeople promised too much, there was a language barrier or you used vague terms like “empty all drawers” without providing more specific instructions.
- Domestic help or other outside visitors transported bed bugs onto the premises.
- You did eliminate the bed bugs and no new ones entered, but the customer was concerned you failed. As it turns out, some bites disappear but reappear a month or two later. Do not retreat the premises without evidence of live bed bugs.
- After treatment, some individuals removed infested personal items (such as a wheelchair or pocket book) and came back in with them after you allowed re-entry.
Time and experience allow us to review the major reasons we are not always successful at defeating bed bugs. Nobody said it would be easy, but the tough get going when the going gets tough.
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