Is there any pest that strikes more fear into homeowners than bed bugs?
Think about it. While nobody likes the thought of mice tunneling through their walls or termites nibbling on their foundation, it’s the small, almost invisible bed bug that inspires the most dread. In fact, when people think they have bed bugs, they quickly scour the internet to find solutions. We are here to tell you that we have the absolute best way to not only detect bed bugs, but also how to get rid of bed bugs fast!
We put live bed bugs in our bed, to prove we can get rid of them in 24 hours!
Small Pest, Big Problem
For such a small pest, bed bugs have a way of becoming a huge problem. Once they get into an apartment, hotel, bedroom or college dorm, bed bugs tend to make themselves at home – and they multiply quickly! Each female bed bug can lay between 5-7 eggs per week. Those eggs can become an adult in as little at 3-5 weeks!
Bed Bug Infestations Multiply Quickly
| Days | Eggs | Juveniles | Adults |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 | 0 | 1 |
| 7 | 21 | 0 | 1 |
| 14 | 49 | 18 | 1 |
| 30 | 77 | 66 | 1 |
| 180 | 69,000 | 121,000 | 7,800 |
* Numbers are averages based on active feeding
The Best Way to Find Bed Bugs?
One of the most effective ways to determine if you have a bed bug problem is to bring in a trained bed bug dog. For decades, dogs have been used to find bombs, drugs, people and yes, bed bugs; all because of their keen sense of smell.
There are several main reasons to use a trained K9 to inspect your home.
- They can detect odors 10,000 times better than humans
- They’re trained for live bed bugs only, meaning no false alerts
- They can inspect an entire room in minutes, without disrupting the anything
- Bed bug dogs go through the same training regime as bomb sniffing dogs.
Meet Curly, the Official Bed Bug K9 at Erdye’s Pest Control
Curly is a Airdale mix breed dog. She went through the extensive bed bug dog training program from Azex K9 Solutions. Azex has a meticulous dog selection process to insure their K9s have long and productive careers in bed bug detection. Often times, only one or two dogs out of 100 will make it through the training program.
Speaking of training, Curly was trained at a 3,000 square foot bed bug education and training facility located in Prescott, AZ. The facility is specifically designed and furnished to replicate real world inspections. There are separate rooms set up to simulate hotel and commercial settings, college dormitories, and apartment complexes. Curly was taught bed bug odor recognition, passive alert behavior, search patterns, problem solving, detraction avoidance, and basic obedience.
Bed Bug Dogs are Best for Hotels, Apartments, Dormitories, and Homes
While bed bug dogs are great at inspecting personal homes for bed bugs, their true benefit is for hotels, motels, apartment complexes and dormitories. Using a bed bug dog to inspect rooms often leads to greater benefits for these places.
A bed bug dog helps in several ways:
- Early detection in well populated areas
- Prevents negative publicity by catching a small problem before it’s a huge problem
- Prevent loss of revenue from room cancelations and tenant vacancy
- Protects management properties from litigation
- Provides peace of mind knowing there’s no bed bugs
- Allows for a continual proactive approach
Research supports that if a bed bug dog alerts, there is a high statistical probability that bed bugs are present. The accuracy of a human technician finding a bed bug infestation is approximately 30%. That means there’s a 70% chance that a room has bed bugs even though the technician didn’t see any signs of bed bugs. A bed bug dog has a 90% plus accuracy. Meaning, if there’s bed bugs, the dog will find them.
The Single Best Way to Get Rid of Bed Bugs Fast!
There is probably one important thing to remember when it comes to finding the best bed bug treatment – that you need to kill them, not chase them away. Chances are a chemical spray or pesticide will only chase the bed bugs you see back into hiding, and they’ll be back soon after the poison loses its effectiveness over time.
For that reason, the best bed bug treatment is heat. A professional heat treatment addresses and undermines all of the advantages that bed bugs have against other treatment methods by:
- Getting into all of the hiding spots that bed bugs love so much
- Reaching out to every area of the home to attack bed bugs no matter where they choose to roam
- Eliminating bed bugs completely – bed bugs may be able to withstand insecticide, but they can’t survive extreme heat
In addition, not only is a bed bug heat treatment the fastest possible method – you can usually be rid of bed bugs in about a day – but you don’t have to worry about spreading potentially harmful chemicals throughout your living area.