MSNBC did a report on Friday about the problem of bed bugs on college campuses, warning students and their parents about bed bugs going back to school (or, for that matter, coming home from school).

Don’t be put off by the fact that Matt Lauer opens the segment by dropping the nursery rhyme bomb.

Watch the video below, and pay special attention to the system senior pest control technician Wayne Walker is using at the University of Florida: baking bed bug-infested items in a “makeshift styrofoam oven” constructed inside the room. Of course, the room itself also needs thorough treatment.

Please do not try this at home. But let’s all hear it for imaginative and creative professional bed bug killers!

Wayne Walker also stresses the need to educate students on how to avoid bed bugs.

We also hear that The University of California at Berkeley is using heat, cold, and pesticides to fight bed bugs.

Matt Lauer talks to Rick Cooper, who brings in a sample “mattress” with fecal stains, and talks about mattress encasements, how students bring bed bugs into their homes (and parents’ homes), and the difficulties of bed bug treatment.

(Bonus: watch Matt Lauer giggle in embarrassment at the phrase “fecal stains”!)

Along with other segments appearing in the print and tv news in the last week or so, I’d say this year marks the most back-to-college bed bug coverage we’ve seen yet.

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