On the website of the Ohio Pest Control Association (OPCA) I found this brief article by Scott Steckel and Andrew Christman about the October 29 Franklin County Bed Bug Summit. (We’ve followed the Franklin County bed bug task force story previously here and here.)
OPCA President Scott Steckel and Treasurer Andrew Christman attended and they describe the kind of meeting we can only dream about in New York City:
The audience included registered sanitarians, multi-family home property owners and managers, representatives from Columbus Apartment Association (and it’s lawyer), Ohio Department of Health, Franklin County Board of Health, Columbus Department of Health, and many suburban city health departments, ODA’s Matt Beal, OSU’s Dr Susan Jones, Columbus Metro Housing Authority (CMHA – low income housing), many fire chiefs from cities around Columbus.
The professional pest management industry was well represented by many PCO’s (both OPCA members and non-members) totaling around 15 -20 people.
On the challenges and costs:
Most of the speakers drove the point of their discussion toward difficulty of treating, time frame to get control, and overall costs. An example was given that one apartment complex pays roughly $1,200 per month for roach work which equals $14,400 annually and has paid $275,000 so far this year for bedbug work. They all made it clear that the high costs associated with bedbug work is now well known and the only problem lies with the apartment companies not having a financial model to support that cost increase.
On the Ohio Department of Agriculture view:
Matt Beal from ODA stated that his view is that our industry has adapted positively to the rapid changes and our only shortcoming is that there are no materials on the market today that he feels can support efforts to control the long term growth of the bedbug population. He mentioned that he wanted US EPA to revisit the use of previously removed products.
Emphasis added.
Once, a fluke I think, I had the opportunity to tell someone at EPA of our concerns about bed bugs. But who am I? EPA should be hearing from state agencies and from the pest control industry. Every day.