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Work in an Office? Read This!

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Many people say that working in an office is one of the most safe things that a person can choose for a career but new research is suggesting that there are a lot of aspects about working in an office that can really hurt your health. One of them, is the likelihood of bed bugs being in your office. You may think it’s impossible but even the nicest buildings have been known to be infested from time to time.

 “YOUR SOFTWARE’S BUGS ARE NOTHING COMPARED WITH THE REAL-LIFE CRITTERS LURKING.”
Modern office workers have much bigger problems than a bad boss – or should we say smaller? From Google’s corporate offices to the bureaus of the Internal Revenue Service, even the most secure workplaces have fallen prey to increasingly brazen trespassers: bedbugs. A survey by the National Pest Management Association and the University of Kentucky found that 38% of extermination companies treated bedbugs in office buildings in 2011, compared with only 18% in 2010. The office environment is the ideal habitat for not only bedbugs but also roaches and other insects who thrive in the climate-controlled digs, feed on workers’ crumbs (or their flesh) and stretch their legs at night when all the humans go home (allowing them to survive longer undetected), says Orkin’s Baumann.

Even bedbugs, which need human blood to survive and normally come out at night while their targets are sleeping, will alter their habits in offices and bite people during the daytime. The office safari doesn’t end there: Occupational safety consultants like Towles have seen a range of wildlife invade the workplace, including birds, rodents, small snakes and even venomous brown recluse spiders, lurking in office drawers and file storage areas. “That’s called a bad day,” Baumann says.
And employees have more than bug bites and diseases spread by pests to worry about – experts report seeing workers shunned by their colleagues after an infestation is found in their desk.

Read more on how to prevent bed bugs at work here: http://bit.ly/1m5aC0m

Why Are Bed Bugs Back in Such a Big Way?

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Although bed bugs have been around for quite some time, there is a huge resurgence of these pesky creatures and many are wondering why. The answer is very simple but there are a lot of factors that play into it. Since humans are traveling at much higher rates and are living closer together in metropolitan places, bed bugs are able to infest more places through luggage and human hosts and go from one shared living space to another with ease.

Brooke Borel was a young science reporter when her Brooklyn apartment became infested with bedbugs. Three times. The experience showed her how much bedbugs can turn people’s lives upside down, and how hard they are to get rid of.

For her new book, Infested: How the Bed Bug Infiltrated Our Bedrooms and Took Over the World, she set off on a journey of discovery to find out everything she could about this vicious little critter that has plagued humanity since before we even had beds.

Talking from her (de-infested) apartment in New York, she explains the origins of the bedbug in bat-infested caves and why they’re on the rise today, pulls the curtain back on bedbug sex, and offers practical advice for those unlucky enough to become infested.

Picture of the cover of Infested by Brooke Borel
COURTESY UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS 

Cimex lectularius, aka the bedbug, is one of the most repulsive critters on Earth. What attracted a nice girl like you to it?

Well, I had bedbugs in New York three times, starting in 2004. I’m a science reporter, and the second and third time, I became really interested in them and started writing short news articles about them. Reporting those, I realized there was an opportunity for a larger project because of the stories I was hearing from entomologists.

What attracts them to us?

They’re attracted to the CO2 in our breath and the heat of our bodies. Other blood feeders like the mosquito are attracted to some of the other hundreds of chemicals we emit, so it may be that they’re also detecting those. Bedbugs only eat blood, so they need us not to breed but to live.

These things are not just painful—they’re almost impossible to get rid of, aren’t they? Tell us about some of the extraordinary measures that people use.

If you’re following the instructions from a pest control operator, it still is a difficult process to go through. You have to take all of your laundry and bedding to the Laundromat and wash and dry it at high temperatures. You will also probably have to use insecticide sprays, although those are working less and less because the bedbugs have built resistance to many that we’re able to use in our bedrooms.

Bed Bugs 101

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bedddThere is a lot of mystery surrounding bed bugs in the public eye. Not everyone reacts to bites the same way, it is difficult to get rid of them and there is a lot of misinformation out there. It is important to understand what bed bugs look like, how to prevent infestations, how to recognize infestations and to know when to call a professional service.

Bedbugs are flat, round and reddish brown, around a quarter-inch (7 millimeters) in length. The ones that typically plague humans are the common bedbug Cimex lectularius and the tropical bedbug Cimex hemipterus.

A few decades ago, bedbugs were somewhat of a novelty in developed countries. But since the early 2000s, infestations have become more common in places like the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Europe, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). A 2013 study in the journal Nature Scientific Reports suggested that bedbugs have evolved ways to resist insecticides.

The creatures don’t have wings and they can’t fly or jump. But their narrow body shape and ability to live for months without food make them ready stowaways and squatters. Bedbugs can easily hide in the seams and folds of luggage, bags and clothes. They also take shelter behind wallpaper and inside bedding, box springs and furniture. The ones that feed on people can crawl more than 100 feet (30 meters) in a night, but typically creep to within 8 feet (2.4 m) of the spot its human hosts sleep, according to the CDC.

Bedbugs reproduce by a gruesome strategy appropriately named “traumatic insemination,” in which the male stabs the female’s abdomen and injects sperm into the wound. During their life cycle, females can lay more than 200 eggs, which hatch and go through five immature “nymph” stages before reaching their adult form, molting after each phase. [Infographic: Bedbugs: The Life of a Mini-Monster]

Read more at: http://bit.ly/1KpJLp1

Why Killing Bed Bugs With Heat is Effective

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As we have talked about in previous posts, bed bugs are extremely hard to get rid of. There are many different tactics that companies use to eliminate bed bugs but heat is proven to be one of the most effective and is where we get the name Arizona Heat Pest.

Do not let these parasites ruin your life. Do not let them invade your home. If they are already there, you need to take all of the steps that you can to dislodge them from this position and kill them all. Killing them with heat is simple and effective, making it one of the best tactics that you can choose.

The entire process will be broken down below, including what you need to do, how much it costs, and when you should use heat instead of a different method to eradicate them from your home. If they are making it so that your home is not the clean, relaxing place that it should be for you and your family, keep reading to learn how to get rid of them forever.

Killing them with heat simply entails getting the interior of your home up to a level of heat that they cannot survive. If you have ever been in a sauna, you know just how intense it can be. You know how it reaches every corner of the building, allowing no escape unless you exit the building altogether.

Since you cannot see all of the bugs or all of their eggs, you need this sort of a treatment since heat can hunt them down for you. There will be no need to locate their nests when your entire home has been heated up until it is a death trap for these bugs.

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Bed Bug Horror Stories

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In the business of bed bug removal, there isn’t really ever a dull day. There are constantly new places where they are popping up and new people that need to be helped but sometimes we get there after the problem has been going on for a while and there are some horrifying things that bed bugs are capable of doing if we let them run amuck. Check out an interview with a bed bug exterminator from Brooklyn and a few of his horror stories from working the job for many years.

In the past few years, have you gotten more calls about bed bugs or fewer calls? More. But the one thing I do see is that people are starting to raise their level of acceptance with these bugs. I’m finding them all over.

What does that mean, “raise their level of acceptance?” Well, when these were first starting, it was like alarms were going off. People were, “AAGH, I’ve got bed bugs!” Now it’s like, “Eh, I’ve got a couple of bed bugs.” It seems like they’re becoming a little more nonchalant, like an occasional roach or something.

So what’s the difference, in terms of threat level, between the occasional roach and a couple of bed bugs? Well, the occasional roach would be in your kitchen by a water source, eating your food and things like that. The few bed bugs would be eating YOU. They’re parasites. They feed off human blood.

How concerned should people be? If you just have a few, is it worth paying an exterminator hundreds of dollars? Why can’t you kill them yourself? When people try to self-exterminate, they’re not taught how to find cracks and crevices. It’s very small details you’ve gotta pay attention to when you spray. You tend to make them spread.

How is that? Because once a pesticide is close to a bug, they will cross it, and they’ll scatter away from it. If they leave you and they can’t go back there, they end up going for your outlets or a hole in your ceiling where a light fixture is or something, and they’ll spread to other apartments. Or if you had them in the master bedroom, they’ll end up spreading to one of the smaller bedrooms.

What’s the worst job you’ve gone on? Ok, for me, I’ve come across a lot of different ones, but probably the one that was most shocking to me was when I was going to a single-room-occupancy to do a general treatment, for roaches and things like that. When I walked in, the gentleman was sitting on his couch, and his wall looked like it was covered in spots. And I’m staring at it, because it looked unusual to me, and I’m wondering why these spots looked like they were moving.

And when I got a little bit closer, there were hundreds and hundreds of bedbugs covering his wall behind his couch. I looked at the guy; he was chewed up, there wasn’t a spot on his face that didn’t have a bite on it. I said, “Sir. Look behind you.” He said, “They’re cockroaches.” I said, “They’re not cockroaches, they’re bedbugs, and they’re eating you.”

Click here to read more.

Click here to get rid of your bed bugs in Arizona

Why is it so hard to get rid of bed bugs?

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Do you have a bed bug problem but it just won’t go away? Have you tried home remedies or maybe even other extermination companies but still have bugs? Are you left wondering, why is it so hard to get rid of bed bugs? Well, here is what makes it hard to remove them. Bed bugs are the perfect storm of characteristics that make them difficult to remove from somewhere once they have infested it.

First of all, bed bugs are small, flat, and adept at squeezing themselves into tiny spaces. They can hide in places we’d never think of looking for them, like behind loose wallpaper or under electrical switch plates.

To successfully eliminate an infestation, you’ve got to find and kill every viable bed bug, which is not an easy task.

Second, bed bugs multiply quickly. A single female can lay 500 eggs during her life, and within a few months her offspring can reproduce as well. A few individuals introduced to a new environment can increase exponentially. Depending on conditions, bed bugs can produce 3 or 4 generations in one year. Additionally, bed bugs reproduce most quickly in temperatures between 70*deg; and 82*deg; F, right in the range where most people keep their thermostats.

Bed bugs can go a remarkably long time without feeding, should no host be present to provide them with needed blood meals. Scientists have documented adult bed bugsliving up to 550 days without eating, and nymphs may last for months. So simply leaving an infested dwelling unoccupied for a few months in hopes of starving them out will do nothing to discourage the little freeloaders.

Just to make their extermination more difficult, bed bugs can sense chemical odors, and may avoid areas where cleaning agents or even pesticides have been applied.

Click here to learn more about bed bugs. 

Click HERE to get rid of them for good!

How to Spot a Bed Bug Infestation

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Bed bugs are tiny bugs that like to hide to as best they can during the day. They come out at night to feed on their favorite food, blood. Being that these bugs are very sneaky it makes it very difficult even to the trained eye to correctly identify a Bed Bug infestation. This is why it is very important to not jump to conclusions as soon as you receive a bite during the night. Also, more importantly, why it is very important to remember that just because you don’t see any bedbugs upon investigation, does not necessarily mean you DO NOT have bed bugs.

This is exactly why you should have a professional Bed Bug inspection done by the best in Arizona. AZ Heat Pest Services is here to help you get control of your home again.

LifeCycleThe only way to know for sure if you have bed bugs is to produce an actual sample of the bug itself (methods for doing this are discussed below). Do not automatically assume that any bite-like mark is a bed bug bite. Also it is important to realize that medical professionals cannot give a positive diagnosis simply by examining bite symptoms, they can only suggest some possible explanations for what may have caused the bites/symptoms to occur.

If you are experiencing bites but have not seen any bugs, you should consider the circumstances in which the bites are occurring. For example, there is a very good chance that you have bed bugs if you  waking up each morning with bite symptoms on your body that were not present when you went to sleep. A situation like this would be a good reason to investigate the possibility that bed bugs are present. in the car, at work, etc. are much less likely to be caused by bed bugs. It is also important to realize that just because you have looked for bed bugs and could not find them, does not mean that they are not there. These insects lead a very cryptic and secretive lifestyle and will often go undetected. It is best to have a highly trained professional conduct the inspection for you.

Occasionally you may see evidence of a bed bug infestation without actually seeing any bed bugs. Bed bugs leave fecal stains in the areas they inhabit. These stains are actually partially digested blood but remember that it will not be red unless you crush a bed bug that has just recently fed. As the blood is digested it turns black and therefore the bed bug droppings usually consist of several black spots in one area. The fecal spots will not flake off if rubbed and will smear if wiped with a wet rag.

Remember the key to knowing if you have an active bed bug infestation is to produce a live sample of a bed bug and there are several ways that you can easily do this including:

  1. Visual inspection of sleeping and resting areas such as beds and upholstered furniture.Carefully examine the areas beneath fitted sheets, along the edges of mattress piping, if no bugs or evidence of bugs are found, remove the mattress and continue with inspection of the box spring paying close attention to the four corners under the plastic corner guards and the on the underside  of the box spring where the dust cover is stapled into the frame. Keep in mind that bed bugs can easily be missed during a visual inspection so using one or more of the other methods below is recommended if no bugs are found during a visual inspection.

Read More Here: http://www.bedbugcentral.com/bedbugs101/how-do-i-know-i-have-bed-bugs