Category Archives: Bed Bugs Ohio

Bed bugs make excellent hitchhikers, so check baggage before returning home from a trip. (Courtesy Erie.gov)

WASHINGTON - Yet again, D.C. ranks high among cities that leave its visitors with a souvenir they'd rather forget.

A new Terminix survey lists D.C. as the sixth-most bed bug-infested city in America. This marks a decline from a previous commercial study that put the District at No. 8.

The City of Brotherly Love took top honors, with Cincinnati and the Big Apple right behind.

The list was created using information from 300 Terminix branches throughout the country. The extermination company then ranked cities based on calls from customers and confirmed reports by their exterminators, according to PRNewswire.

Check out the top 10:

1. Philadelphia 2. Cincinnati 3. New York City 4. Chicago 5. Detroit 6. Washington, D.C. 7. Columbus, Ohio 8. San Francisco 9. Denver 10. New Haven, Conn.

These standings show bed bugs continue their reign as scourge of the American public, with five new cities in the top 15 this year: Cleveland, Houston, Indianapolis, Miami and New Haven, Conn.

D.C. was among five other cities that have seen a growing population of the bloodsuckers, along with Columbus, Dallas, Philadelphia and San Francisco. the District was ranked seventh in 2011.

The prevalence of bed bugs has increased as much as 500 percent in the last decade, according to a study from Ohio State University, whose home state has three cities with the worst incidence of the problem pests.

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Study: D.C. bedbug problem increasingly worse

A study released by researchers at The Ohio State University showed foggers that claim to target bed bugs may be useless, 10TV News reported on Thursday.

The study released in the Journal of Economic Entomology said that researchers tested three major foggers available at hardware stores.

The foggers were Hot Shot, which claimed on the label to kill bedbugs, along with Spectracide and Eliminator brands.

Associate Professor of Entomology Susan Jones said that researchers found the bed bugs were not dying even when directly exposed to the chemicals.

Jones said that the foggers were shown to make the bed bug problem even worse by irritating the bug and causing them to scatter.

"So, they will get into adjacent apartments rather than stay in that one apartment. Or, rather than being in the bedroom they will move to the bathroom, the kitchen and makes the problem much worse," Jones said.

Jones said the best advice if you have a bed bug problem is to hire a licensed pest management professional.

Stay with 10TV and refresh 10TV.com for updates on this story.

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Study Finds Bed Bug Foggers Worsen Problem

A new study finds that bug bombs or foggers, which have been sold for decades as a way to fight common household insects, may be ineffective against bedbugs.

This latest research, published in the Journal of Economic Entomology, is the first to recommend against using foggers for bedbug infestations based on scientific evidence.

"There has always been this perception and feedback from the pest-management industry that over-the-counter foggers are not effective against bed bugs and might make matters worse," Susan Jones, an urban entomologist at Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center (OARDC), said in a statement. "But up until now there has been no published data regarding the efficacy of foggers against bedbugs."

Jones and colleagues tested three different fogger brands on five different bedbug populations. After three foggers, there were little if any adverse effects on the bedbugs.

The researchers speculated this is likely because bedbugs spend most of their time hiding under sheets and mattresses, or in cracks or crevices, so it is unlikely theyd be exposed to the insecticide mist from foggers. In addition, many populations of bedbugs have some resistance to insecticides.

"These foggers don't penetrate in cracks and crevices where most bed bugs are hiding, so most of them will survive," Jones said. "If you use these products, you will not get the infestation under control, you will waste your money, and you will delay effective treatment of your infestation. Bed bugs are among the most difficult and expensive urban pests to control. It typically takes a professional to do it right. Also, the ineffective use of these products can lead to further resistance in insects."

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Insecticide bombs ineffective against bedbugs

(CBS News) Got a bedbug infestation?Many people turn to do-it-yourself "bug bombs" or "foggers" to rid the creepy crawlers from their bedrooms, but a new study shows the products that have been sold for decades might not even work.

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"There has always been this perception and feedback from the pest-management industry that over-the-counter foggers are not effective against bed bugs and might make matters worse but up until now there has been no published data regarding the efficacy of foggers against bedbugs," said study author Susan Jones, an urban entomologist with the Ohio State University's Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center, said in a news release. "If you use these products, you will not get the infestation under control, you will waste your money, and you will delay effective treatment of your infestation."

Ohio State University researchers tested three commercially sold foggers, Hot Shot, Spectracide, and Eliminator for the study, published in the June 3 issue of the Journal of Economic Entomology. After testing the brands on five different groups of live bedbugs for two hours, the scientists saw the foggers had little if any effect on the insects.

Jone said bedbugs hide in cracks and crevices such as under sheets and mattresses, or deep in carpets where foggers won't reach. Bugs that do come in contact with the mist may be resistant to the pesticide and can survive, she said.

The bottom line? You might be wise to leave it to the pros.

"Bed bugs are among the most difficult and expensive urban pests to control. It typically takes a professional to do it right," Jones said. "Also, the ineffective use of these products can lead to further resistance in insects."

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also says to steer clear of bug bombs or foggers, saying they can make the problem worse by scattering bedbugs throughout your home.

Bedbugs feed off blood and survive for months without a meal, according to WebMD. Infestations often occur in hotels, nursing homes, hospitals and cruise ships where lots of people sleep. People can be allergic t o the bites, experiencing itching or in rare cases life-threatening anaphlyaxis.

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Foggers, "bug bombs" are no match for bedbugs, scientists say

Bedbug infestations can be maddening. So readily available bug bombs that fill the house with a pesticide fog are understandably tempting. But research shows they're not likely to work.

Writing in the Journal of Economic Entomology, researchers from Ohio State University say they tested three popular bug bomb products on five different populations of bed bugs, collected "in the wild" from homes around Ohio. All three products failed miserably.

A bug bomb is basically an aerosol can that fills a room with insecticides called pyrethrins. They didn't exactly have a stellar reputation before, either. There are anecdotal reports that the products stir up the bugs, causing them to leave their hiding places and potentially scatter to new locations. And as NPR's Jon Hamilton reported last year, many bedbugs are becoming resistant to pyrethrins.

"If [bug bombs] don't work in the first place, that's what people need to know," lead author and entymology professor Susan Jones tells Shots. So she tested three products, including two general-purpose bug bombs, Spectracide Bug Stop Indoor Fogger and Eliminator Indoor Fogger, and one marketed specifically for bedbugs, Hot Shot Bedbug and Flea Fogger. All three are manufactured by Spectrum Brands.

The bombs were detonated while bugs were either exposed in open containers, or hidden under strips of paper or cloth that simulated, in a minimal way, the fabrics, mattresses and pillows in which they normally hide. That should have made the foggers' job easy. "This is like giving them the most favorable conditions in the world" for killing bed bugs, Jones says. But even when the bugs were denied shelter, nearly all of them survived, the tests found.

Charlie Duckworth, who does research and development for Spectrum Brands, says only the Hot Shot product is designed specifically for bedbugs. "That one has data that it does kill bedbugs," he says, citing information the Environmental Protection Agency reviews before approving insecticides.

Duckworth says EPA will soon require products not proved effective on bed bugs to carry a label saying as much. EPA didn't confirm that assertions. But in an email, an agency spokeswoman said that pesticide resistance, available hiding spots, and other factors can make it hard to treat bedbugs successfully. "Foggers and bug bombs should not be used as the only method to attempt to control bed bugs," the EPA website says.

The Federal Trade Commission's website goes even further. "Steer clear of bug bombs or foggers," it warns, citing the scattering effect.

Jones says there are other reasons to avoid the insecticides, which are flammable, can be toxic and, when overused, contribute to increased resistance among the bugs.

"The $10 that you spent on an over-the-counter fogger would be much more effectively spent at a laundromat," Jones says. The heat of a drier can kill bedbugs and their eggs. But she says that's just one of many steps to ridding yourself of a bedbug infestation. Still, she advises leaving the insecticides to the professionals.

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Beset With Bedbugs? Don't Bother With Bug Bombs