Top 10 Myths about Bedbugs

Bedbugs are back in a big way. After being knocked back in the 40s and 50s by rapidly

improving pesticides and hygiene standards, the irritating pests have adapted and are now

infesting more hotels and homes.

Bedbugs are often misunderstood by the public, resulting in ineffective treatment measures.

Arrow Environmental Services has heard all the myths and knows the true facts concerning

bedbugs. Check out 10 of the most commonly held myths about bedbugs and their debunking:

1. Bedbugs are an indication of poor housekeeping – Bedbugs can infest even the most

immaculately kept homes. Unclean or cluttered homes do give them more of an

opportunity to hide from treatment efforts, however.

2. Bedbugs breed like rabbits – Actually, compared to other insects, bedbugs have a slow

reproductive cycle. Females only produce an egg per day, and each egg takes about 10

days to hatch and more than a month for the bedbug to grow into an adult.

3. Bedbugs transmit diseases – Although bedbug bites can be painful and discomforting,

there is no record of a bedbug bite transmitting a disease, although bedbugs are carriers of

human pathogens.

4. Spray pesticide will eliminate bedbugs – Bedbugs have developed a resistance to

pesticide, and it alone is not sufficient to deal with a pesticide infestation. Professional

pest control companies use a combination of treatments to successfully eliminate bedbug

infestations.

5. Bedbugs are only active at night – Bedbugs are largely nocturnal, but, if food is there,

they’ll go for it, feeding off hosts even during daytime hours.

6. Bedbugs can fly – Bedbugs do not have wings and cannot fly. They crawl at a rate of

about one meter per minute.

7. Bedbugs can live for up to a year without a meal – Bedbugs are capable of slowing

their metabolism down and can go for about two to three months without a meal under

normal circumstances. In some very cold climates, they can slow their metabolism and

survive without feeding for many months, but these conditions are rare.

8. Bedbug sniffing dogs are the best detection tool – In recent years, specially trained

bedbug sniffing dogs have been advertised as the best means of detecting the presence of

bedbugs. A recent Rutgers University study debunked claims that bedbug sniffing dogs

had a 90 percent success rate. Researchers at the university used bedbug sniffing dogs in

apartment buildings and discovered that their true accuracy rate was around 43 percent.

9. Heating up your home will kill off bedbugs – High heat will kill bedbugs, but you can’t

kill them by merely turning up the thermostat in your home. To kill bedbugs via heat, the

home must be heated to 120ºF for more than an hour, and the heat must be applied evenly

to your home. Professional heat treatments using multiple heat sources can do this safely.

Your HVAC system alone won’t get the job done, and using propane heaters or other

heat sources in addition to your HVAC to kill bedbugs is dangerous, as it increases fire

and carbon monoxide poisoning risk.

10. Turning the heat off in winter will kill bedbugs – To successfully kill off bedbugs,

your home would need to reach below freezing temperatures for about a month. Even

that’s no guarantee, as the bugs may go into diapause – a form of hibernation – until

warmth is restored.

Property owners who know the facts about bedbugs know that the most effective means of

dealing with bedbugs is turning to professional pest control companies such as Arrow

Environmental Services. Arrow pest control has the qualified staff and proper equipment to

analyze a bedbug infestation and take the steps appropriate to the individual case to resolve the

problem.