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Vol. 09 Issue 1, Winter 2004

NYS Integrated Pest Management Program Bedbugs! Health! Pesticides?
The Ribbon 

Mary M. Woodsen

Editor’s note: The integrated pest management approach teaches us that in order to control a pest through least toxic methods we need to understand its habits and lifecycle. We asked the NYS IPM Program to tell readers about a current household pest problem and what they should know to safely and effectively control it.

Most of us have never seen a bedbug and wouldn’t know it if we did. They are nocturnal, shy, and easily overlooked. Indeed, these small bloodsuckers had all but disappeared in the US by the late 1940s, thanks to a powerful new appliance, changing fashions in home décor—and DDT.

Now bedbugs are back—big time.

During its heyday, DDT was the weapon of choice against cockroaches. Bedbugs were an incidental casualty. But DDT is out of the picture in the US. The new selective pesticides that have been developed for pests like cockroaches and termites don’t necessarily kill bedbugs.

And with global trade and travel increasing by leaps and bounds, the bedbugs’ other main deterrent—the vacuum cleaner, complemented by the straight, easy-to-clean lines of modern home furnishings—no longer suffices to keep bedbugs at bay.

Besides, the bedbug is a born survivor. Small—pinhead-sized when young, up to 1/4-inch long as an adult—and tenacious, it can cling to the folds of your bedroll or secret itself in the seams of your suitcase. The rough-and-tumble life of baggage going through customs is unlikely to dislodge it.

Bedbug eggs make even better travelers. A sticky secretion glues them firmly to the frame of your wheeled luggage, the binding of your souvenir book, even your cosmetic case—whatever’s handy when a female bedbug is ready to lay.

But it’s the bedbug’s appetite—or lack thereof—that really gives it an edge. So what if it’s living in a vacation cottage that’s unused eight months of the year? A bedbug can survive that long without feeding.

Of course, bedbugs aren’t ones to pass up a good meal, and will feed every night if they can. They lay 3 to 4 eggs a night and can, over their lifespan, lay upward of 200 eggs.

Bedbugs inject an anesthetic when they bite so as not to awaken sleepers. People vary widely in how they react to the bite. Some get red, itchy welts. Others feel nothing. Needless to say, someone who’s allergic to bedbugs is more likely to suspect that there’s a problem than someone who isn’t.

Actually, bedbugs don’t really rank in parasite-land. They don’t damage our bodies directly the way roundworms or blood flukes do, or pass along nasty diseases with their bites—malaria, for example, or Lyme disease or West Nile virus.

Pest-control companies in Florida, a state that welcomes nearly 20 percent of international travelers to the US, have had a 10-fold increase in bedbug calls since 1999. Infestations have been reported in major cities, including Atlanta, New York and San Francisco.

But they’re back in the heartland, too, in places like Elizabethtown, Kentucky (population 22,500), where bedbugs made local headlines in 2003. And Kansas State University’s diagnostic lab has gotten bedbug samples from 28 states in the past two years—where before they had almost none.

Hotels, motels, cruise liners, and hostels are the most likely places you’ll meet bedbugs, followed by dormitories and high-rise apartment buildings.

It pays to be cautious when you travel, for even the best hotels may occasionally suffer from an outbreak. Tips for travelers include looking for bloodstains on pillows or mattress liners, carefully checking the seams of mattresses, and peeking behind the headboard of the bed. If it’s possible, move the bed away from the wall. Tuck in the linens and keep blankets from touching the floor.

And when you return home, inspect your baggage carefully—in the laundry room, if you can. If you find bedbugs, unpack right into the washing machine, then dry on high heat for at least 15 minutes. Put those things that can’t be laundered into a deep freeze for a couple of days.

The vacuum cleaner is still a formidable pest management tool (and a steam cleaner may be even better for this pest), but you have to be sure to get into all the nooks and crannies and supplement it with a lot of old-fashioned elbow grease. You’ll need to seal cracks in floorboards and furniture, remove peeling wallpaper, and tighten loose light switch covers. That is, attend to a hundred and one little details to remove their daytime hiding places.

What about pesticides? If you’re tempted to go the conventional route, don’t willy-nilly bomb the room—it won’t work.

Pesticides like silica gel dusts, placed in wall voids or cracks and crevices, can help get at bedbugs in those inaccessible daytime hiding places. These dusts work by abrading the bedbug’s body until it dries out and dies.

Even so, all six silica gel formulations currently registered in New York State contain other pesticides: pyrethrins and piperonyl butoxide (and in one case, carbaryl) as well.

Considering that people vary in sensitivity to pesticides, and that infants and young children may be particularly sensitive, exposure can pose a problem no matter how low a pesticide’s toxicity is.

If you do choose to use a pesticide, be sure to use only those that are registered for use on furniture and carpets.

For more info about insecticides currently registered for bedbugs, contact your local Cooperative Extension office. In New York, call Cornell University’s Pesticide Management Education Program at 607-255-1866 or http://pmep.cce.cornell.edu.

For a fact sheet on bedbugs, check out:
http://www.nysipm.cornell.edu/publications/bed_bug.pdf

Always read the label before applying any pesticide.

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Last Update 02.20.04