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 […]

As chemical treatments become less effective in killing bed bugs the concept of heating the bugs to death will gain traction. To date there are two heat source options – electric heaters and external fuel fed boilers. The electric heaters are limited to a maximum output of 145f by UL rules. The average temperature in […]

Social service workers are often working with clients with mental health or addictions issues. These issues put the clients at great risk of contracting bed bugs (because they visit other infested areas) and also prevent their amelioration because they do not cooperate with bed bug eradication protocols. In other words these folks are very likely […]

Subsidized housing invariably attracts tenants with mental health and addictions issues that makes cooperating with exterminator protocols problematic. And without cooperation the exterminator is given an impossible task of getting rid of the bugs. How is the exterminator to address bed bugs when the tenant refuses to launder infested clothing or declutter a hell hole? […]

A google search for killing bed bugs with freezing results in suggestions that are all over the map. Even the University sites differ one from the other.   I treated a severely infested suite in the middle of a Winnipeg winter a few years ago and we removed all the baseboards, door frames, etc to […]

  I was asked to confirm the presence of bed bugs in a 100 year old 2 story home before a full gutting and renovation. I did note the presence of bed bug excrement in several places along baseboards which were mostly the 100 year old oak boards about 10 inches tall but there was […]