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Scholastic Headquarters treated for bed bugs; update on Penguin

nobugsonme — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 05:40:12 +0000

The New York Observer reports that a second New York publishing company has been treated for bed bugs in one week.

Scholastic became the second New York publishing house in a week to suffer a bedbug scare this past Friday afternoon, as employees were told to put whatever belongings they needed over the weekend into plastic bags and asked to go home. As was widely reported at the time, a similar scene had taken place at Penguin’s offices in Hudson Square just days earlier.

The inspection happened after an employee reported having bed bugs at home.

A Scholastic spokesperson told the Observer that a bed bug sniffing dog was brought in (and barked, “which meant there was a possibility that bed bugs were in the building”). No actual evidence of bed bugs was found. They had a spray treatment for bed bugs anyway, and will retreat in 14 days.

What is the purpose of those plastic bags? I am always intrigued by these kinds of instructions. You can put infested items in plastic bags and seal them away. You can put uninfested items in plastic bags and seal them while in an infested environment.

But the purpose of placing your items from a possibly infested workplace into a plastic bag before taking them to a probably uninfested home (presumably only to open the bags up and use the items, since these are “belongings [employees] needed”) is — what, exactly?

Meanwhile, Penguin is playing down their recent bed bug scare. The Observer reports,

Marilyn Ducksworth, the corporate spokeswoman for Penguin, said today that the sweep carried out two weekends ago was “a preventative measure.”

“There was never an infestation,” she said. “Not one bug was found in either building.”

However, the memo staffers at Penguin received was said to have told staffers of an “insect issue in certain areas” on several floors (see the Galleycat post and the Observer’s report).

It would be interesting to hear more about what was discovered in each of these cases that led to the evacuation of staffers and pest control being called in.Similar Posts:

Bed bugs in two patient units of a Columbus, Ohio children’s hospital

nobugsonme — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 04:10:53 +0000

A Columbus hospital has recently had bed bugs in two patient units, according to the Columbus Dispatch. Misti Crane writes:

Bedbugs found in two patient units at Nationwide Children’s Hospital prompted aggressive cleaning and the relocation of patients, according to a statement issued by the hospital.

It said the problem, which has been eliminated, was not due to poor sanitation, nor was it a health threat.

The hospital has hired a pest-control expert and is using a specially trained dog that can detect the presence of bedbugs. The hospital has many units of varying sizes, but officials would not say which units or how many rooms were affected.

“We will continue to take whatever measures are necessary to address this issue, which has unfortunately become chronic in central Ohio,” the statement says.

It’s not the first hospital to become infested with bed bugs, and it won’t be the last.

Bed bugs are hitchhikers: they come into hospitals with people, and other people may then leave the hospital with bed bugs too.

It’s important for hospitals to have a plan for this eventuality, so they can immediately take the necessary steps to get rid of the problem.

via The Columbus Dispatch : Hospital takes action against bedbugs.Similar Posts:

Bakersfield family gets bed bug help from the Discovery Channel

nobugsonme — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 02:48:54 +0000

Remember Kay Hammer, in Bakersfield, who we told you about last November? She had tossed out most of the family’s furniture. The landlord would not deal with the problem, so she called Eyewitness News 29.

Iso Tech Pest Management’s Mike Masterson brought in a bed bug dog and did a thermal treatment. They also found bed bugs in several other units of the building and in her daughter’s home across town.

The story will air on the Discover Channel’s Verminators series, probably in the summer. You can view the Eyewitness News 29 segment below.

Similar Posts:

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Bed bug sniffing dogs abound

nobugsonme — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 06:51:24 +0000

Dog Nose

Originally uploaded by jason044

The dog’s nose is a potentially powerful tool in the fight against bed bugs. It’s a war where the enemy is notoriously stealthy. We need all the help we can get.

Bed bug canines are always popular in the news media. Like some other bed bug-related services (such as structural fumigation and thermal treatment), every region does not have easy access to canine bed bug detection teams, so the news stories both do companies the favor of spreading the word about their existence, but also help bed bug sufferers, who might not know this option is out there. Luckily for us, they are popping up in more and more geographic areas.

One recent bed bug sniffing dog business was started in the Cincinnati area by LeAnne Montgomery and her husband John. LeAnne is better known to longtime participants on our Bedbugger Forums as “bugbait” — she was an active Bedbugger who came to the site to get support in dealing with her own bed bugs, long before the couple went into the bed bug dog business and started Canine Bed Bug Finder.

LeAnne and John did not have access to a bed bug k9 service when their home was infested. You can read a recent story here about the Montgomerys’ new bed bug sniffing dog Hershey, who was trained at Florida Canine Academy. Congratulations to LeAnne and John — I hope Hershey finds a lot of bed bugs!

There was also a recent story in the news about a new bed bug sniffing dog in Las Vegas.

Finally, Ontario’s Michael Goldman (of Purity Pest Control) and his bed bug sniffing dog Kody (who is said to have been the world’s first bed bug sniffing dog) were featured in a Discovery Channel story last week.

The segment on Kody starts about six minutes in (you can move the cursor past the iceberg story after the initial brief commercial). Click here to see the story.

It’s important to note that all bed bug sniffing dogs and handlers are not equally skilled. Dogs and handlers must constantly train in order to maintain the dog’s skills.

If you need help determining whether you have bed bugs, do your research, ask for k9 recommendations on the forums, or references from the handlers.

Are there any other specific questions readers should ask a bed bug dog handler, before hiring him/her? Please share your answers in the comments below.

Thanks to the anonymous tipster in the forums who pointed me to the segment on Kody!Similar Posts:

New bed bug dog in Vancouver; free bed bug k9 inspections!

nobugsonme — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 03:09:36 +0000

Orkin in Vancouver has just acquired a bed bug sniffing dog.

Vancouver, meet Frankie!

Frankie was rescued from a shelter and trained for 600 hours at Florida Canine Academy (run by Bill Whitstine).

An Orkin employee wrote to Bedbugger,

For a VERY limited time our company will be offering free inspections to those in the Vancouver area that fear they have bed bugs but professionals have not been able to turn up any evidence.

It is important to note that we will not be doing inspections for people that have not yet had any pest control professionals do an inspection first.

They will need to provide proof that the pest professionals are stating that they did not find evidence. We will also only be able to do this free of charge for a limited number of people.

Just to repeat, you must have already been told by a pest control operator that you do not have bed bugs, based on an inspection.

This will surely be a good offer for some in the area. Thanks to Orkin for sharing it with us.

If you’re in Vancouver and qualify, please call the Burnaby manager at (604) 434-6641 and tell them Bedbugger sent you.Similar Posts:

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Bed bugs bite in Edmonton sleep disorder clinic

nobugsonme — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 05:42:34 +0000

It’s a pretty unlucky scenario when patients who checked into the Edmonton General Hospital sleep disorder clinic in order to find the cause of their sleep disturbances are woken in the middle of the night and sent home due to bed bugs. This article from the Edmonton Journal describes just such a situation.

Sleep disorder clinic patient Dawn Blue was sent home in the middle of the night after another clinic patient saw bed bugs climbing up the wall of the next room.

The clinic had been closed after bed bugs were first discovered on December 17th:

When staff members first noticed bedbugs Dec. 17, they immediately closed the clinic, contacting both a public health inspector and a pest extermination company.

The mattresses and furniture were sprayed and the rooms were fumigated.

The clinic remained closed for its annual Christmas hiatus, from Dec. 19 to Jan. 5, during which time it was sprayed again.

The public health inspector and the exterminator returned before it reopened, and, following a thorough examination, gave the clinic a clean bill of health.

It resumed normal operations, until Monday, that is, when Blue was sent home and the clinic closed once more to allow for more fumigation.

The article states that Dawn Blue discovered the itchy effects of bed bug bites on various parts of her body the next morning.

The time-line is this: bed bugs were spotted 12/17, there were two spray treatments in less than three weeks, and the public health inspector and exterminator then declared the facility bed bug-free on 1/5. The next bed bugs were found two weeks later on 1/19.

It is not surprising that the clinic would become infested with bed bugs in the first place, since guests were allowed to bring their own pyjamas, pillows, and other items (on order to simulate a comfortable, home-like environment).

What is surprising, however, is that according to the article, the Alberta Health Services spokesperson Rob Stevenson appears to believe that the reappearance of bed bugs in January was “a terrible coincidence.”

He says,

“In the most unfortunate of coincidences and, despite the fact that every day all of the material in the clinic goes through a specific laundering process, between Jan. 5 and Jan. 19, one of the participants brought bedbugs in with their belongings,” Stevenson said.

He appears to be claiming that this is a new infestation, not the re-surfacing of an existing problem that was not 100% eliminated as they had thought. I am really not sure how someone can make this claim with any certainty, given the circumstances.

In my mind, the appearance of bed bugs one month after their first discovery, and after two spray treatments, does not necessarily mean the facility was “coincidentally” infested a second time by a new patient, as Stevenson seems to think, even if inspectors were able to find no signs of bed bugs in a visual inspection.

Many cases of bed bugs take more than two treatments. There is no way of being sure the facility did not harbor some bed bugs after being pronounced “clear.” We’re told even very experienced professionals cannot be 100% sure a space is bed bug-free. Human visual inspections are imperfect, and even well-trained bed bug sniffing dogs — which have a much better success record — are not 100% effective in detecting bed bugs.

Although a new patient can certainly bring in bed bugs at any time (and many Edmonton residents are, sadly, well-acquainted with Mr. Cimex Lectularius), it seems like the odds are also good that some bed bugs and/or eggs remained after the second treatment and simply were not spotted by the inspectors.

Anyway, the good news is that patients will no longer be able to bring items from home into their beds.

Other hospitals take note: we’ve heard complaints from people who believed they brought bed bugs home from maternity wards and sleep disorder clinics.

Steps need to be taken to reduce the spread of bed bugs, and as much as people need to be comforted while in the hospital, it is of the utmost importance that they do not suffer from bed bug bites there; it’s even more important they don’t bring bed bugs home.

You can read the full article here.Similar Posts:

Seattle Housing Authority, you are smart about bed bugs

nobugsonme — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 06:45:23 +0000

The Seattle Housing Authority (SHA) is buying a bed bug dog to sniff out public housing buildings for bed bugs. NWCN reports:

In Seattle Housing Authority low-income buildings over the past three months the problem has exploded. The critters are becoming resistant to insecticides.

Now the SHA is spending $35,000 to take control.

Smart thinking — because we’re told many (if not most) people do not react to bed bug bites.

If you don’t react, and you don’t see bed bugs, you do not complain. And so your apartment stays infested with no one the wiser.

A pro-active inspection program is a great idea for any apartment building. No, bed bug dogs are not 100% effective in sniffing out bed bugs, but they do a lot better than most humans, I’d venture.

Done properly — with a well-trained bed bug k9 and a knowledgeable trainer — this detection method can be effective. And less time-consuming than having an experienced PCO search (which, many tell us, takes more than an hour to do properly, in a not-very-big apartment).

The SHA is also investing in thermal remediation technology (ThermaPure Heat). And the SHA will be educating residents on how to spot bed bugs.

But one of the best things they can do is keep that bed bug k9 “Bugsy” circulating around and around the units of SHA buildings, before anyone complains about a single bite or sighting.

Combining an effective and pro-active detection method with an effective bed bug remediation method?

Smart, Seattle Housing Authority. Smart.

Go to NWCN.com to see the video.Similar Posts:

KillerQueen speaks! Over at New York vs. Bed Bugs…

nobugsonme — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 02:37:25 +0000

The NYC Pest Control Operator known as KillerQueen on our Bedbugger Forums is, in fact, John Furman, who runs Boot-a-Pest.

The hardest working bed bug activist and blogger, Renee Corea, did a nice in-depth interview with him over on New York vs. Bed Bugs.

Furman’s magic secret may be his belief in careful, detailed inspections:

The inspection for bed bugs takes time. Not 10 or 15 minutes either. My inspections for low level infestations take an hour and a half or more. I don’t do free inspections and if you have a problem, I will usually find it. I turn furniture upside down, I remove the batting on your box spring, and I spend a half hour just looking at your bed. I check behind pictures, pull the edges of carpeting up, etc. This type of inspection and service I can’t do for free.

But the importance of a thorough inspection is paramount. I have done inspections for people suffering from fleas, carpet beetles, etc. they insisted they had bed bugs but no evidence proved there suspicions. They were confident in my findings and moved on to resolve the true problem at hand.

Many PCOs will search for bed bugs, but readers regularly report their inspections lasted for fifteen minutes or less. Some people watch as a PCO pokes around for ten minutes before declaring them “bed bug free.”

Some people, of course, don’t have bed bugs. But the industry really needs to face the fact that cursory “inspections” won’t do.

The next step for many who have such a cursory inspection, but who cannot determine any other reason for their skin problems, is to bring a bed bug k9 team in to inspect. And dogs can be a real help in many cases.

Here’s the problem: if your dog alerts to bed bugs, but the PCO who subsequently comes in to treat still does not inspect carefully, won’t it be difficult to make sure all harborages are detected and treated?

Be sure and read the rest of Renee’s discussion with John Furman, here.Similar Posts:

Bed bug sniffing dog and handler to be featured on Animal Planet

nobugsonme — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 21:19:05 +0000

According to SunCoast Today, Animal Planet will feature bed bug k9 handler Mike Tache and his dog Tracer on “Dogs 101″ this Saturday (11/1/2008):

Tracer and his owner, Mike Tache, will demonstrate how dogs can be trained to sniff out bedbugs on a show called “Dogs 101.”

Mr. Tache operates his own business known as American K9 Private Investigators with his dogs, Tracer and Ace, a Siberian husky-beagle mix. Both dogs were rescued from an animal shelter in Kentucky and were trained to sniff out bedbugs in hotels, college dorms, private homes, schools and businesses. Their services have become much in demand.

According to the article, the team is based in New Bedford, Mass. and does a lot of work in Boston and Cape Cod.

Note: the Dogs 101 program guide does not indicate that Tracer will feature in this episode.Similar Posts:

Results of University of Florida tests on bed bug dog effectiveness are out

nobugsonme — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 17:01:38 +0000

The long-awaited University of Florida study of bed bug dogs that we mentioned last year has now been published:

Ability of Bed Bug-Detecting Canines to Locate Live Bed Bugs and Viable Bed Bug Eggs

MARGIE PFIESTER, PHILIP G. KOEHLER, AND ROBERTO M. PEREIRA
Department of Entomology, Building 970 Natural Area Drive,
University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611-0620
J. Econ. Entomol. 101(4): 1389-1396 (2008)

Here’s the abstract in full:

ABSTRACT The bed bug, Cimex lectularius L., like other bed bug species, is difficult to visually locate because it is cryptic. Detector dogs are useful for locating bed bugs because they use olfaction rather than vision. Dogs were trained to detect the bed bug (as few as one adult male or female) and viable bed bug eggs (five, collected 5-6 d after feeding) by using a modified food and verbal reward system. Their efficacy was tested with bed bugs and viable bed bug eggs placed in vented polyvinyl chloride containers. Dogs were able to discriminate bed bugs from Camponotus floridanus Buckley, Blattella germanica (L.), and Reticulitermes flavipes (Kollar), with a 97.5% positive indication rate (correct indication of bed bugs when present) and 0% false positives (incorrect indication of bed bugs when not present). Dogs also were able to discriminate live bed bugs and viable bed bug eggs from dead bed bugs, cast skins, and feces, with a 95% positive indication rate and a 3% false positive rate on bed bug feces. In a controlled experiment in hotel rooms, dogs were 98% accurate in locating live bed bugs. A pseudoscent prepared from pentane extraction of bed bugs was recognized by trained dogs as bed bug scent (100% indication). The pseudoscent could be used to facilitate detector dog training and quality assurance programs. If trained properly, dogs can be used effectively to locate live bed bugs and viable bed bug eggs.

You can easily access it on the Armed Forces Literature Retrieval System, using the title above.

The study used dogs trained by Pepe Peruyero.

The results are impressive: “Dogs trained to locate live bed bugs and viable
bed bug eggs had an overall accuracy of 97%, which is similar to previous studies on insect detector dogs” (1394).

But there was also a 10% no-indication rate on viable bed bug eggs (10% of the time, dogs did not alert to viable eggs being present). The study suggests this can be attributed to a low concentration of the target odor. These false negatives (as well as false positives) can also be attributed to the handler’s “misreading dog behavior” (1394).

Ultimately, the study concludes that

Dogs can be trained to locate cryptic insects that are difficult to uncover visually as long as dogs are trained in a similar manner to the method we used, training is maintained regularly, an experienced handler is used, and nontarget odors are separated from target odors (1395).

This comes as no surprise, but cannot be emphasized enough. We know that bed bug dogs can detect bed bugs. We also know that it doesn’t always work.

Bed bug dogs have to be properly trained, the training needs to be ongoing once they’re with the handler, and the handler has to know what they’re doing and do it well.

Everyone is not cut out to be a dog handler. This is a booming industry and a lot of people are trying to get in on it. People with no experience handling dogs are among them and some of these may not be cut out for it.

The potential is there for people to obtain bed bug dogs from the trainers but to handle them improperly, or not maintain training. So even if your bed bug dog handler got his or her dog from the same source, depending on how the handler is working with the dog now, your results may not be as impressive.

Consumers considering a bed bug dog need to remember that anyone can hang out a shingle and advertise their “bed bug dog;” there’s no government agency certifying their effectiveness. So get references and recommendations and choose wisely.Similar Posts: