My family and I, armed with degrees in International Development and Conflict Resolution, moved to the inner city 13 year ago with the intent of making a difference in the community. Perhaps we would never make a large difference but we would do our part. My university training suggested that poverty and social problems were […]

  Bed bugs are a gregarious bunch and often prefer to stay together in a group. But if a harbourage becomes too full the bugs start moving elsewhere. The typical pattern is the bugs move to an entirely new area nearby. And if the infestation is established enough most of the bugs abandon the earlier […]

Over the years I have recorded bed bug bed bug behaviour on various substrates and apparatuses many times. One thing I always noted was that the foraging behaviour was always quite sedate when I inspected the experiment in the morning but would quickly ramp up with my presence. Therefore I concluded that I was not […]

In my line of work I often use a 10x hand held magnifier to identify newly hatched bed bugs. I don’t often bother magnifying the adult bugs as they are very easy to identify but on one particular occasion I was looking at an adult bed bug stuck to the edge of a glue board. […]

My usual advice is do not visit people who have bed bugs. Rather invite your friend for coffee in a public place. But there are times when you can not avoid going to an infested apartment. What do you do with your jacket, shoes, purse, laptop, etc.? When visiting a home with bed bugs always […]

We know that bed bugs move further away from a host when suitable harbourage near the host is restricted. And if bed bugs are forced to locate harbourage far away from the host some get lost and will either disperse elsewhere or stay and wait for host cues to arrive. Sometimes the bugs will wait […]

It has been noted by others that black climb up interceptors catch more bed bugs than white ones in an experimental tank. I suspected that environmental conditions were responsible for those results so I decided to test this theory in my experimental tank. I put four identical white interceptors in my experimental tank and covered […]

When addressing multi family apartments it is imperative that all suites surrounding an infested suite are, at minimum, inspected for bed bugs. Most exterminators will suggest treating all surrounding suites as a precaution. Some exterminators will only treat the baseboards if a suite is adjacent to an infested suite but shows no evidence of bed […]

Getting rid of bed bugs in multi family settings requires a landlord willing to spend some money, an experienced exterminator determined to do a good job, and a tenant who follows through on the considerable amount of work required to prepare and take preventative actions in the future. If any one of these is missing […]