Check out the new “Bed Bug Supplement” in August’s PCT: Bed Bugs: A Market Opportunity, Pest Control Technology Magazine – August 2009.

I know: the title grates on us.

It’s hard to think of your itchy, costly nightmare with a blood-sucking parasite as someone else’s “market opportunity,” but it is to our advantage as bed bug sufferers if pest control companies take their work seriously, and become as educated as they can about bed bugs.

Inside the supplement, “Bed Bugs: Vectors of Human Disease?” by Jerome Goddard, “Bed Bug Business Concerns,” (an excerpt from the Bed Bug Handbook by Lawrence Pinto, Richard Cooper, and Sandra Kraft), and some new product information under “Bed Bug BYTES” (including a free “Bed Bugs: a Public Health Pest” poster by Bayer, in Spanish and English).

By far the most interesting item to our readers (and the most helpful to PCOs, in my opinion) will be Jerome Goddard’s article, with its tables showing bed bug bite reactions, the potential for disease transmission, and treatments for bed bug bites, all as noted by various researchers.

The section entitled “Bite Reactions” (54) is particularly important for pest professionals to read; you’d be surprised how many PCOs still think that everyone reacts to bed bug bites.  And yet, as Goddard notes,

It seems that the usual response to a bed bug bite appears to be no reaction with a barely visible punctum at the location of the bite.

(Emphasis mine.)

Many pest control techs assume only the room in which a person complaining of bed bug bites sleeps is infested.  These under-informed types probably also don’t read PCT, but hopefully their employers do.

Keeping in mind that this is all aimed at the PCO market, it is good to see well-researched information being conveyed about bed bugs, reactions to bed bug bites, and the potential of bed bugs as a disease vector.Similar Posts:

• What percentage of people react to bed bug bites?
• New York Times Health article on bed bugs: bed bugs bite
• Bed Bugs and Public Health
• North Carolina shelter with bed bugs: outlook grim
• Don’t Let the Bed Bugs Bite Act of 2009: new and improved

Last summer’s PCT Bed Bug Seminars featured Christian Hardigree, a University of Nevada – Las Vegas law professor who is an expert on beg bug legal issues.  Brad Harbison interviewed her for PCT Online, and I highly recommend you give it a listen (click the play button below).

Hardigree discusses some of the grounds on which people have sued over bed bugs:

• overexposure to pesticides (when a property was being treated by two entities at once, for example)
• rentals of a home or hotel room when the owner or property manager knew of an infestation and did not try to protect the customer
• landlords have sued tenants who stopped paying rent due to bed bugs (and tenants have been awarded a partial credit based on the “uninhabitable portion” of the home)

The legal theories under which people could be held liable include:

• severe emotional distress
• battery
• gross negligence
• warranty (which can be created, Hardigree says, when employees make claims such as “this is a bed bug-free property”)

Hardigree makes recommendations that business owners:

• know the law relating to bed bugs
• have an action plan (she describes how hotels should know what to do when a guest complains of bed bug bites)
• train employees to detect bed bugs (and reward them for doing so; some hotels give cash payments for room attendants who report evidence of bed bugs)
• know how bed bugs work (for example, bite marks may appear after hotel guests return home; hotels need to know this can be legitimate)

Hardigree says most people sue because their complaints are not taken seriously, because “nobody validated their concerns or their fears.”  This comes up often if you read accounts of people who sued over bed bugs (see these articles for examples). It is an intuitive point, but I suspect many business owners and managers miss it completely.

It’s a brief interview, and there are some things missing which seem important to me.  First, while Hardigree describes steps hotel owners should take (as part of their action plan) to contain an infestation once reported, she does not go into the issue of people who don’t just get bitten by bed bugs in a hotel, but take them home.  This does not happen every time, but it happens a lot.

Moreover, Hardigree does not discuss the fact that many people simply do not react to bed bug bites.  Jerome Goddard has said the percentage who do not react to bed bug bites may be as high as 70%.  This is an important fact for business owners to recognize, since they may have complaints from people who do not ever show bite reactions, but who may nevertheless bring bed bugs home.

One thing I was concerned about:  Hardigree rightly notes that hotel managers need to be aware that guests may call to complain about bed bugs “three to four days” after returning home.  (Actually, some of the literature claims bed bug bites can appear as much as nine days later.)  And yet later, she says that when hotel managers have a bed bug complaint, one of the things they should do is photograph the guests’ bed bug bite marks.  Not just to see which areas of the body have bite marks, but also to see where they do not have bites, because later the guest may claim to have had bed bug bites from head to toe.

There’s an inconsistency there.  Bed bug bites can appear later, if they appear at all.  If someone is bitten in a hotel room it is quite possible for them to show some evidence of bites sustained during the visit, and to have additional bites appear later, because of the possibility of delayed reactions Hardigree describes.  So photographic proof of the bites which are present when the complaint is made does not constitute proof of the extent of the reaction the person may suffer from the bites.

All in all, the nine and a half minute interview is very interesting listening, for consumers and business owners alike.  I recommend you take the time to listen in full (click here).

You can read accounts of bed bug lawsuits (completed or in progress) here.

Thanks to Renee for the tip!Similar Posts:

• Into every hotel, a little bed bug will creep
• Bed bugs and lawsuits; also how to find a lawyer
• Woman notifies hotel desk about bed bugs in room, is evicted from hotel
• Farmington Days Inn treats for bed bugs; New Mexico’s laws still need attention
• Saskatoon professional development conference apparently bedbugged

The following podcast from PCT features an interview with Dr. Michael Potter. Potter discusses the the increased awareness about bed bugs (a good thing), the discomfort and stress experienced by bed bug sufferers, the need for Pest Control Operators to “do bed bugs” well.

He also discusses the upcoming PCT bed bug seminars where he will talk about the history of bed bug management (did you know that in the 1600s, people were talking about bed bug prevention?), new research about bed bugs, and innovations in bed bug management.

Gabcast! PCT Podcasts #53 – An Update on Bed Bugs from Dr. Mike Potter
Click the play button below to listen.

Similar Posts:

• New Yorkers: Lou Sorkin on the radio Tuesday at 10:40 am
• Footage from the recent New York Pest Expo: Bed Bug Edition
• Latest research on bed bug kdr pyrethroid resistance in U.S.
• The NYTimes is back on the bed bugs story
• bed bugs and books