Cooper Pest evaluates ozone treatments for bed bugs, finds current methods ineffective

Lots of people would rather avoid traditional treatment methods if possible, for a variety of reasons.  Many folks don’t like the idea of pesticide sprays.   Some may have medical reasons for avoiding them.  And everyone would like their bed bugs eradicated as soon as possible.

So it’s no surprise that methods like Vikane gas and thermal treatment appeal to many.  Ozone has been mentioned in the past as one of several possibilities for treating bed bugs, but up until now, except for one reader’s informal experiments, we hadn’t seen any actual data about its effectiveness in eradicating bed bugs.

Cooper Pest has now run several tests using ozone treatments of a bed bug-infested single family home and a bed bug-infested office space.

According a post on Bed Bug Central (Cooper Pest’s blog) on 3/27,

None of the treatments were effective (no mortality was observed). Based upon our observations we have significant concerns regarding the ability to generate, and hold high enough concentrations of ozone, to achieve mortality within a structure. There are additional concerns regarding the ability of ozone to effectively penetrate all of the environments used as harborages by bed bugs. At the current time we do not view ozone as a viable alternative for treatment of structures infested with bed bugs.

Although it does not sound like ozone is a good option right now, Bed Bug Central noted that it may show itself to be useful in containerized treatments, for example. More research is in order.

It’s great to finally have some data on ozone’s effectiveness. Thanks, Cooper Pest!