Most exterminator instruction sheets include a line about frequently vacuuming the home with emphasis on using the crevice tool. While I fully support a clean home to maximize the residual pesticide’s efficacy I wonder about the effectiveness of the vacuum as a bug removal tool. Bed bugs can be effectively removed from the mattress and […]

My chemical wholesale supplier showed me a new commercial bed bug trap a while ago. Apparently you put a concoction that creates Co2 into the trap and put it against the wall in the bedroom and the bugs fall in. It looks quite handsome. But does it work? Starting about a month ago I began […]

Any experienced exterminator can walk onto a new bed bug job site and guess pretty accurately where most of the bugs will be hiding. The bugs have very specific likes and dislikes for harbourage substrates and prefer to be close to a sleeping host. If the exterminator understands this it is relatively easy to find […]

When my wife and I were married 20 odd years ago we decided that we would purchase a new king size bed. It was very awkward to move and weighed a ton. But as long as it was sitting in it’s place it worked very nicely. But in the last few years I took it […]

When wrapping bug infested furniture the standard answer is to use plastic bags. In some cases large garbage bags are excellent solutions. But when wrapping larger furniture the mattress and sofa bags may not be very helpful. I purchased two cases of mattress and sofa bags 5 years ago and I detest using them – […]

When moving infested furniture it is always good practice to wrap the items in plastic to ensure the bugs do not fall off in other locations. But sometimes even I cheat a bit and remove items from a suite with great care not to bump/scrape/drag the item in the building. For example I would be […]

I have been involved in heat sterilizing numerous families as they moved to new homes. To date I have had no one come back to me and state the process was unsuccessful. Of course I can not take a lack of negative feed back as proof that we succeeded – perhaps some families just went […]

As an exterminator I have noted more than a few egregious examples of people using moving vans for hauling infested belongings because they did not want to infest their own vehicles. The next person to use these vans is at great risk for contracting bed bugs. As such I refuse to use these vans. The […]

When treating multi family apartments with non cooperative tenants the exterminator is often limited in his/her ability to do a good job. Poor results are inevitable. Therefore the exterminator has little motivation to go the extra mile in these settings. If poor results are inevitable why should the exterminator do a diligent time consuming job? […]