Excerpt from the Washington Post Express November 9, 2012

It’s important to catch the bugs early. If you’re moving into a rental unit that’s been freshly painted and cleaned, there’s little chance you’ll know they’re there. Ask around: Former residents and neighbors might give you some history. Online resources such as Bedbugregistry.com — which lists buildings that have had recent infestations — could help.
If you think you’ve got bedbugs, undertake a serious inspection of your bed and the area surrounding it. Check the sheets and mattress for blood marks, black fecal matter or the bugs themselves, which as adults are about the size of an apple seed. Lift your mattress, look under box springs and bring a flashlight to check crevices. These guys are good at hiding. “I’ve read that they can fit into a crack as flat as a credit card,” Henry says.
If you only find a few bugs, the problem can probably be managed without professional help — “but there’s a lot of work involved,” says Gerard Brown, the D.C. Department of Health’s program manager for rodent and vector control.
Kill every bug you can find, then wash all of your clothes and bedding in hot water. Invest in a tight cover for your mattress and box spring, available at big-box stores that sell household goods.
If your searches regularly turn up five bugs or more, it’s time for outside help.
Capital K9 offers a range of options, from the increasingly popular dog inspections to sniff out the bugs, to chemical treatments or an intense heating process that warms the entire house to more than 120 degrees. Other firms use nontoxic products — although David Hersh, president of pest-control company A Healthy Home (240-351-6604), says that when it comes to bedbugs, “even people committed to the green lifestyle will go with the thermonuclear option.”

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The more effective a treatment is the more it usually costs. Filling a house with hot air does the best job of killing the vermin — and costs thousands of dollars.
If the bugs were there when you moved in, or if other units in your building are infested, your landlord may be legally required to pay for treatment. Some landlords just decide it’s better business to pay for eradication than acquire a bad reputation.
That’s how it worked for a man whose Northwest D.C. group house developed a problem last month.
“Our landlord had someone come and check, and they confirmed it,” he says. After the subsequent heat treatment, the bugs seem to be gone. “The landlord paid for everything, and it was definitely more than $3,000.”
That renter, who also chose to remain anonymous, is remarkably philosophical about the bugs. “I’m not so freaked out,” he says. “I just sort of assume this is the price you pay for living in an urban area.”

BEST WAY TO NOT BRING HOME BED BUGS FROM HOTELS

It doesn't matter if you're staying in a low-budget hostel or the fanciest hotel in the world. Bedbugs are everywhere. As soon as you arrive in your room, drop your belongings in a safe place like the bathroom—where it's hard for bedbugs to hide on tile surfaces. Avoid the bed and luggage rack where the bugs can stay after coming in on another traveler's bag.

Next, inspect the bed. Start by pulling off all of the bedding until you get to the bare mattress. Use the flashlight app on your smartphone to get a better view as you check around the seams of all four corners. Be sure to check the box spring, wall art above the bed, and headboard as well.

Now here's the surefire way to spot them: You're not only looking for the bugs themselves, but for signs of their active nests.   Small, dark blood from their excrement is a dead giveaway. Check all the furniture in the room because bugs can lurk there, too.  However, give the hotel a break, previous infestations may have left a mark or 2, and it would be ridiculous to expect hotels to replace beds after each successful treatment.

If you find evidence of live bugs, gather your belongings from the bathroom and ask the hotel staff for a new room.

Make sure you do not bring the bedbugs home with you by immediately washing all of your clothing in hot water. You'll need to spray out your suitcase with 90% alcohol as well. And to be extra safe, you should store your suitcase inside a large trash bag to prevent any hearty bugs from invading your home.

When Bed bugs bug you!

When Bed bugs bug you!

 A Christmas Miracle

By David Hersh

Sylvia awoke one morning with a small bite on her ankle. A week later she received three more bites, one on the ankle and two on her arm. After four weeks, Sylvia was getting up to a dozen bites at night, some swelling up to the size of a quarter, itching. Sylvia suspected bedbugs, and she thought a new mattress would solve the problem. This didn’t work because the bugs were all over the room. She moved into her other bedroom infesting that room, also. Sylvia lived with the Bedbugs for over one year, embarrassed to tell anyone, including her children, of her problem. She tried killing the bugs with toxic pesticides from the local hardware store, used mattress covers, prayer, and hoped they would just go away. 

Exhausted from not sleeping, Sylvia finally called locally owned A Healthy Home.  In tears she said she felt ashamed that in spite of trying to keep a clean home, her home had in fact become infested with Bed bugs. The owner assured her that Bed bugs in fact do not care how clean your home is, they are only interested in two things, a place to call home, where they can lay their eggs, and human blood for food. The bite marks she got were the result of an allergic reaction to the bugs injecting some saliva as an anesthetic before they feed.  They feed  (mostly) at night, and get away clean. This company was able to eliminate the problem using only Organic Non-hazardous (MSDS) products. The Environmental Protection Agency requires all products which impact on the environment to have a Material Safety Data Sheet, which describes the hazards to people and the environment.  In addition, the EPA has become concerned that Bed bugs can become resistant to common chemical pesticides used by most exterminators.  

Now that bedbugs have become such a common menace, it is important to hire an exterminator that uses only Organic pesticides which are safe for you, your children, and your pets, and which have been proven safe for the environment.

Buying and Selling in DC. Bedbugs Included?

From the New York Times, August 23, 2009

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/realestate/23cov.html?scp=1&sq=aug.%2023,%202009%20Real%20Estate&st=cse

Have we reached the point in DC where people are deciding to buy or not based on the fear (real or imagined) that Bedbugs will be moving in, or are currently occupying the home that we intend to buy? First, do NOT base a buying decision on the presence or absence of Bedbugs. Even if you hear of them in a building or discover them in a place you want to move into, safe effective treatments can rid your new digs of these pesky creatures. Humans have been dealing with Bedbugs for thousands of years. Let's not be total wimps. Just because they haven't been seen in a while, doesn't mean we cannot win the war again. Only this time, we can do it without using pesticides which can be worse for us than the bugs. While these creatures certainly can move around, and may be hiding in a place we want to move into, there are several things which can be done. Lets show those weak New Yorkers that we are tougher and smarter about Bedbugs than they are. Over the next few weeks I will explore some solutions for detection and treatment which do not exhaust your bank account and expose the myth that you need to bomb the hell out of them to get rid of Bedbugs. We will explore the Zen of Bedbug Eradication!

Welcome

I have started this blog in order to bring my professional experience killing Bedbug using only non-toxic products, and non invasive methods to enable people to get rid of and get over having Bedbugs. I also believe that there is a lot of outdated information on treatments. There are many blogs, and much information which describe and prescribe for the problem, so I don't want to duplicate. There is a lot of bad information in my opinion, due to the fact that there were many years when we did no research into controlling and eliminating populations of Bedbugs without using toxic pesticides.

I will post links to news, and scientific articles, and in use my experience to comment on the information and techniques described by them. I do not claim to be an expert, or a scientist. I do however have some experience in ridding homes of these pests. By the way, I also have had to rid my own home of Bedbugs. I understand the physical and psychological ramifications of having to deal with them.

Your comments, and experience are welcome, and if you have found other non-toxic, simple, effective ways to kill the bugs, and to deal with the head case (paranoia, anxiety), Please share them here. We do not have to have our homes invaded by these bugs only to be told that we have to disrupt our lives even more to get rid of them.

Don't Throw out your Mattress

This has been bad advice for most of the people who get Bedbugs. Bedbugs live only on the surface of the Mattress, and can always be killed there, although they may be embedded in the Box Spring. Only those whose bed is so actively infested that the nests are going to leave bad stains which they don't want as a reminder, or were planning to get a new bed soon any way really need to throw the bed away. Occasionally, a new Box Spring, (which is a lot less expensive than a mattress) may need to be replaced.