Nevertheless, there are opportunities to notice things about bed bugs everywhere really. I first played this video without sound, and perhaps that is the best way to view it. It reminded me of the observations of Aboul-Nasr and Erakey (Mssrs?): “The process of cleaning the antennae and proboscis with the fore legs may then follow.”
So it’s not that they don’t groom themselves, they don’t groom themselves with their mouth parts.
One further observation, Usinger quoting Hase:
“The bug secures itself with its claws on the skin, with the forelegs reaching quite far forward, in order to have leverage when introducing the stylets. In starved bugs there may be an intense vibrating movement before piercing. First the beak is touched vertically to the surface and the skin is tested repeatedly with its tip… The antennae are no longer pointed forward, but rather backward on a line level with the eyes. At this point—while the insect makes rather energetic pushing movements with the head and the entire body may be brought into sway with the abdomen moving up and down—the introduction of the stylets begins.”
Emphasis added. From Hase, A. 1917. Die Bettwanze (Cimex lectularius L.): ihr Leben und ihre Bekämpfung quoted in Usinger, Monograph of Cimicidae, 1966, p. 23. (Their life history and control eradication? Hase had plenty interesting things to say; unfortunately for us, if we don’t have German, we can only get at them second-hand.)
Council estates are becoming more popular with rats, cockroaches, and bedbugs, reports “Roof,” SHELTER’s housing magazine (14 July 1980). This is apparently due to early occupation by the vermin, which move in while the estates are under construction; and once established they travel far and wide through vents and ducts. The report claims that a “serious social stigma” is attached to admitting that a flat is crawling with bedbugs or cockroaches, calls for higher standards of estate maintenance, and concludes (rather snidely) that the Government must face the fact that cockroaches don’t go away because a flat becomes owner-occupied.
A reference to an anecdote (joke?) told by Ian Burgess of the Medical Entomology Centre, in a review of pest control workshops in the UK in April 1990:
Referring to bed bugs he said that they were far more common than people were aware. Certainly in urban environments there are a large number of infestations, many of which go undetected for a long time, simply because people do not know what they are. He recalled the story of an Environmental Health Officer who gave a radio interview during which he said how low the number of reported cases of bed bugs were in his district. He then described what they looked like. He and the radio station were subsequently bombarded with reports of the bugs and the following year a very embarrassed EHO had to report a 10-fold increase in infestations.
Source: (1990, September/October) Allergies Emphasised at Pest Control ’90. International Pest Control, 32(5), 116-19 — accession number: 151233 at the AFPMB library.
I’m not sure but I think Dr. Burgess was the first to cite “car boot” sales as a possible source, very early in the game1, in a BBC News article in 1998, for example, and New Scientist in 2002, where he noted the increase in local council reports:
In the UK, the number of cases reported to local councils has more than quadrupled each year for the past five years, says Ian Burgess, director of Insect Research & Development LTD in Cambridge.
Of course, the old default explanation we’ve come to know was not far behind:
The reason for bedbugs’ return is thought to be the massive increase in travel and tourism to countries where the bugs still lurk. “We found that reports started going up at the end of the cold war at the beginning of the 1990s,” says Burgess.
Funny he didn’t tell his EHO story again.
Allow me to recommend one of the earliest ‘resurgence’ articles in the UK—it’s almost innocent. [↩]
A credible bed bug protocol for people who cannot afford professional pest control is a critical need. It should be a truly high-priority need but it has always seemed unlikely that anyone in any institution would to try to come up with one.
This appears to be a tentative step in that direction.
I hope that Dr. Wang can elaborate on these steps in the future to make them really useful to those who must consider them. And perhaps others would collaborate on such a project.
This is difficult, obviously, and complicates the conduct of bed bug management in multi-unit buildings, but it is absolutely necessary. People are doing reckless things—reckless things that will not solve their bed bug problem. Instructing them on how to do the right things would be an act of generosity.
Update July 28: There have been objections—to the idea and form of DIY protocols—voiced privately. I hope that the discussion of the merits and potential of a DIY bed bug protocol and what would constitute a responsible and useful protocol, in view of the desperate reality that so many people are living, can be conducted in public and so I encourage anyone who has thoughts, an opinion, or advice to benefit us all by sharing.
The pyrethroid class of insecticides has been particularly effective in controlling bedbug infestations, but resistance problems are mounting (see below). Additionally, pyrethroids can produce a flushing effect that allows a faster analysis of treatment efficacy (4,7,18,29). The downside of using a flushing agent is that this may cause them to scatter to other locations. Other effective insecticides include dichlorvos and malathion (4).
The last time malathion was around for indoor use in the United States, Gulf War I was ending, so was the Warsaw Pact, the web had just been invented, people were beguiled by Dr. Lecter, and Mama Said Knock You Out was a hit.
You will notice upon comparison an important change, as the Michigan document specifically tells landlords to:
Work with resident to form a workable pest management plan that involves prep by resident, treatment by PMP, education and response from landlord
Inspect, caulk crevices around room, inspect neighboring units to identify and contain further infestations
This is great. Multiple unit housing can absolutely be made free of bed bugs, I firmly believe, and need not be declared a lost cause.
However, I propose that we should identify just what is to be done to “contain further infestations.” I am not a pest management professional, but I can play one on TV, and I say that inspecting is not enough. I think you can still be conservative about treating areas that are not currently infested (but we all know might become infested after the first round of treatment in those areas that are infested is completed) by treating structural voids.
In a recent PMP article (link is to the digital magazine edition), Richard Diggs of Alexandria Pest Services, describes their bed bug treatment protocol in some detail; it includes, aside from a battery of other tools and strategies, dusting of wall cavities above baseboards. It’s worth a read. Whenever pest management professionals describe their bed bug work and success rate, I am intrigued by their tone and the implied assessments of what everyone else is doing, and I wonder why we are in the situation we are in, after all. I also always want to ask, yeah, but does this scale? But you can read for yourself.
You can also read about “built-in pest control” in this article, Managing Insecticide Resistance in Urban Insects (PDF, 1996 ICUP) by Michael Rust. I only know about it from reading Boase. Actually, we’ll revisit the Boase article, given recent developments.
So, in my considered TV PMP view, because there is no reported resistance to dusts, and because we are in a very deep hole, I submit that inspecting is not enough and you have to treat potential harborage sites and dispersion routes as well. The most conservative thing you can do is dust.
We can’t avoid multi unit housing as some would have us do. I think the bed bugs can be dispatched even in multi unit housing.
Directly as a result of the EPA National Bed Bug Summit, PCT, July 15:
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is considering granting a Section 18 label exemption to older chemistries for bed bug control. Under Section 18 of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) EPA is authorized to allow an unregistered use of a pesticide for a limited time if EPA determines that an emergency condition exists.
The problem:
[NPMA Senior Vice President Bob] Rosenberg said that the current challenge facing the industry is that even though both states and EPA agree on the need, there is no manufacturer at this point that has committed to produce such products. “It could be any number of reasons from economic issues to concerns about liability,” Rosenberg said.
A couple of months ago we looked at just such doubts from PCT columnist Richard Kramer.
Public health exemption, looks like, but would it be a crisis exemption? See EPA’s crisis process flow chart. Ah, so many questions, so little information.
How can the public, I wonder, advocate for these solutions?
Is anyone in a position to tell us more?
We’re going to have to research and think about just what the realistic options among those ‘older chemistries’ are. The Australians still have OPs and carbamates, see the Code of Practice. By the way, there is one organophosphate that is “back”—dichlorvos, see this March 2008 PCT article (PDF)—and there are several products registered in New York State according to the Cornell NYS pesticide database but apparently none labeled for bed bugs.
when I lay down at night, I wonder how can a poor man sleep / when I lay down at night, I wonder how can a poor man sleep / when one holding your hand while the other one in your feet — Furry Lewis, “Mean Old Bed Bug Blues”
