Programs that house the “hard to house” have been having problems with bed bugs for a very long time. In response to the constant infestations many housing coordinators have been soliciting donations to replace the beds and furniture with all steel units. The thinking is that if the dressers and box springs are constantly being […]

I collected more than 100 bed bugs from a mattress in the alley and decided it was time to test some non-glueboard bed bug traps. I had four ordinary traps and two were modified slightly to see if they would perform better. The traps were set in a diagonal pattern to elicit fairness. The top […]

A google search for dryer temperatures typically brings up temperatures of 180f on hot, 160f on medium, and 140f on low. All of these temperatures are adequate as all stages of bed bugs die at 122f in one minute. But I have noted that in field use dryers often have very different temperatures. For example […]

We learned earlier with Richard Naylor’s observations that bed bugs move further away from the host when harbourage near the bed is restricted. We have seen this in practice in the field many many times. For example, if a tenant is sleeping on a mattress directly on the floor the mattress ribbing is covered with […]

In 2006 I noted an apartment block beside my building had numerous suites with bed bugs which were successfully treated with a single course of Permethrin. Each suite required about 10 minutes of work. Impressive!!   In 2007 when i began my own bed bug work I noted similar patterns. Some cases of bed bugs […]

Richard Naylor’s PHD dissertation entitled “ecology and the dispersal of the bed bug” documented an experiment involving a very narrow but nine foot long experimental apparatus with lines of harbourage (like a really long mattress rib) extending the length of the apparatus. Bed bugs were placed at one end of the apparatus with a feeding […]

Bed bugs can lay eggs for a maximum of 13 days without a blood meal. Thereafter the bugs can not lay eggs. When a bed bug egg hatches, the new hatchling is highly vulnerable to desiccation and will die within 5.68 days to 26.3 days depending on humidity (Usinger page 14). Therefore if we continue […]

I was introduced to Tyco Brahe’s work in university many years ago. Brahe (born AD 1546), was famous for meticulously documenting the movement of the planets across the heavens. Kepler took these observations and found that a heliocentric world (posited by Copernicus earlier) fit Tycos observations perfectly when elliptical orbits were assumed. Later Galileo’s refinement […]

New landlords have a very steep learning curve when it comes to tenant selection and all landlords have a few horror stories to tell. There are many terrible tenants out there looking for a new home because they were evicted out of their last one. These potential tenants know that they can lie and commit […]