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Could D.E. Cause Canine to Make False Positive ID?

1. 

   sinsea
   

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   Joined: Jun '12
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   Posted 10 months ago
   Tue Jun 26 2012 22:08:29
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   Hi There,

   First time poster here at her wits end.

   In early May I found a single bug crawling on my wall. I killed it and bagged it for a positive ID. My apartment manager came the next day and provided a positive ID and arranged for an exterminator to come.

   The exterminator came two days later and treated the apartment - he drilled holes in the exterior walls every 2 feet or so and injected the treatment into the walls. He also inspected the apartment briefly and found no bugs (alive or dead).

   My husband and I followed up by using Diatomeceous earth on and around the bed, around the baseboards in the bedroom and behind the couch. We also have encasements on the bed and box spring.

   My husband and I have never been bitten. It has now been about 49 days since the treatment. We have also not seen a bug since the first one. Today the apartment manager brought in a bed-bug sniffing canine. The canine apparently picked up bedbug scent in the bed and in the couch.

   I have just finished tearing the bed apart. I found nothing, same with the couch. I haven't been bitten, neither has my husband. The apartment manager is proposing bringing in another canine and possibly doing heat treatments (which will be invasive and expensive). I'm frustrated and concerned. Is it possible that we have bedbugs that we can't see (phantom bedbugs!!)? Is it possible that the D.E., which is in and around the bed and behind the couch, could cause the bedbug to falsely identify bedbugs.

   Does anyone have advice on what to do next?

2. 

   DougSummersMS
   

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   Joined: May '07
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   Posted 10 months ago
   Wed Jun 27 2012 3:22:50
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   DE will not cause a false positive alert... K9 alerts need to be confirmed to be valid.

   I would suggest placing bed bug monitors in the identified locations to see if you can capture a specimen... At this point...we need to confirm the K9 alerts with evidence of live activity.

   You might have live bugs trapped inside of the encasements on the bed which would still be detected by the K9... Some couches contain inaccessible areas that can't be visualized easily.

   The K9 may have alerted on dead bugs, feces or shed exoskeletons... given that we initially had a positive ID on a live bed bug.

   It is also possible that you and your husband don't react to BB bites... But the lack of bite marks is a concern... I would continue to to look for visual evidence and utilize monitors to see if we can collect a specimen.

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