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Back to school: news media focuses on bed bugs in college dorms

nobugsonme — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 04:56:24 +0000

This USA Today article from Wednesday gives a rundown on recent bed bug battles in a number of US colleges and universities, such as Ohio State, and the University of Florida.

This is an issue that administrators are increasingly thinking about in advance of a crisis arising (as evidenced by recent sessions on bed bugs at a conference for college administrators), and this is a good thing.

USA Today gives a lot of attention to Texas A&M, where an administrator says of bed bugs:

“They’re taking off right now,” says Dan Mizer, associate director of residence life at Texas A&M University.

It sounds like Mizer is being proactive and has an aggressive plan in place to deal with bed bugs:

Texas A&M has spent $37,000 in the past year to fly in bedbug-sniffing dogs. This fall, Mizer plans to call in a Minnesota outfit called Temp-Air, whose eradicator heats the room overnight to 130 degrees, killing the bedbugs but leaving students’ belongings unharmed. His other secret weapon: eternal vigilance. “When we get a report, we get the pest-control staff, and we respond. These bugs can take over quickly.”

The school is being proactive about finding bed bugs, and has plans to deal with them efficiently. Perhaps they’re being advised by the world class bed bug researchers in TAMU’s own Center for Urban and Structural Entomology, like James Austin.

Local news outlets picked up the “bed bugs in college dorms” idea after USA Today’s article was published, and UPI distributed a short version of the story.

WFMY News 2 interviewed North Carolina public health officials as well as Wake Forest University students about whether they’re concerned about bed bugs:

(The video was much more interesting than the accompanying article.)

WLWT in Cincinnati goes further, giving students tips on how to search dorm rooms for bed bugs:

They should be inspecting the mattress, the box spring and areas around the mattress and box springs,” Scherzinger Pest Control technical director Patrick Boland said.

Boland also said that students should check the headboard and the bed frame itself. Students should also check their home before they leave as well.

Experts said that people should look in the folds and seems of their mattresses. Bedbugs can also be spotted by the black fecal material they leave behind.

Not just mattresses, though! The whole room should be inspected for bed bugs of every size and color (from translucent unfed 1 mm nymphs, to rust-colored, bulging just-fed 6 mm adults), fecal stains, cast skins, and bed bug eggs. These photos may help.

And college students need to know that you may never react to bed bug bites, and may still be the nightly meal for bed bugs.

Also see this video from NBC 10 in Providence, R.I.

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.

University of Florida tests bed bug dogs

nobugsonme — Tue, 15 May 2007 09:00:37 +0000

The University of Florida News reports on tests being run by U of F researchers on bed bug dogs:

Nine-pound Nudie’s feet skitter across the concrete floor as she speeds by, keeping her tiny nose to the ground. She scurries around the perimeter of a bed, then hops on top.

“Find your B’s, find your B’s,” handler Jose “Pepe” Peruyero commands. Within seconds, she’s pawing furiously at a spot on the bed as if trying to dig through it.

She’s found her “B’s” — meaning bedbugs. She gets a handful of kibble, a hearty “Good girl!” from Peruyero and a kiss on her scruffy head.

Nudie is a bedbug-detecting Chinese crested terrier mix trained by Peruyero’s J&K Canine Academy in High Springs, part of a 3½-year collaboration with University of Florida entomologists.

They’ve worked together to gauge the accuracy of more than 17 termite-detecting dogs since 1998, but early next month will be the first time they’ve added bedbug-sniffing dogs like Nudie to the mix.

About 20 dogs will be tested for their termite- and bedbug-detecting accuracy during the Southeast Pest Management Conference May 6-9 on the UF campus. UF entomology graduate students run the tests.

Though the bed bug dogs are not a “silver bullet” for finding bed bugs, they can often find them where humans can’t easily do so:

“We’ve been working to try to make sure that there are quality dogs out there to detect termites, and now bedbugs,” said Phil Koehler, an entomology professor with UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. “Both those pests are very difficult to detect in structures.”For instance, he said, researchers have found as many as 15 bedbug nymphs in the slot of a drywall screw.

That’s the sort of stealth that makes bed bugs so hard to find. Humans need all the help we can get, so bring on the trained bed bug dogs, and bring on the tests of their efficacy.

Thanks to lmk for the tip!