1) Some people do not get bit, or do not have reactions. It is a small number. Yes when there is a choice of two hosts often only one is bitten. Women do not have higher body temperatures (at least not significant enough). We do give off pheromones and we know that bed bugs can detect pheromones. Whether they can detect human pheromones is undetermined. Men and women produce different pheromones and perhaps that has something to do with it. There is also evidence that they can detect ammonia (component in sweat).

2) It is legal to treat areas of “impending pest pressures” in many states/provinces. So if a unit adjoined to an infested unit had no immediate evidence it could still be sprayed. The entire area would not need to be done, just the adjoining wall, outlets, sockets, etc.

Sean
Entomologist / Pest Professional
http://www.thebedbugresource.com

We’ve read that one theory is that higher body temperatures make women more attractive targets. It is extremely common for a woman to be bitten extensively and a man who lives with her to notice nothing.

I know many people in this situation, right now. And I know many people who don’t react–or whose itching is so subtle and unaccompanied by any welts or bite marks–to the point where they assume it is something else (”dry skin”).

In Canada evidence needs to be of an active infestation. Shed skins may be left over from a previous population. Although that one is a grey area and I am sure no one from the authorities would bust someone for applying pesticides as a result of seeing cast skins.

That number (70%) is not entirely accurate the way that you have stated it. Up to 70% of people have no reaction the first time they are bit. However, after being fed upon multiple times most people will show a reaction. It is in fact rare for people to have no reaction at all after successive feedings.

That’s the law in the US too .

Do you have to see a live bedbug, or will you use shed skins or feces as evidence?

I think it is hard to treat a multi-unit building partly because as many as 70% of people do not feel or see bedbugs or aren’t bitten. (This statistic was from the recent bedbugs conference in Virginia.) So say my neighbors in the building gave them to me, but they have no idea they have them. If I am treated, they aren’t, the problem returns.

Any ideas about how to prevent that?

So we can only treat the units where the bed bugs are found.

We have the tools to do the job right and yet we still struggler to get people to use them properly

Funny, though, that online citations are so much more correct.