Let’s take a quick look at some pieces of information about bed bugs you might find useful.

Bed bugs don’t spread diseases; they leave you with annoying, itchy bite marks. The itchiness begins because of the saliva they inject into you.

Their perfect target is someone motionless in a dark room.

During the daytime they typically are hiding although some experts claim they occasionally do bite humans during the day.

 They are unintentionally delivered here by visitors and they may also be living in chicken coops. 

Insect foggers don’t kill them but rather inspire them to invade other parts of your home.

Don’t buy used furniture in areas where bed bugs have been reported. They don’t mind moving to your house.

On  a silly or perhaps troubling note, one pest control company would remove bed bug infested mattresses and place them on the curb for pick-up. They painted the mattress with a big red X and figured that would be the end of the mattress. The exterminators would be called out to new locations for bed bugs infestations and find the mattresses with big red X’s on them in the residences. Perhaps people thought the middle of the X indicated the best landing position for their body.

Cryonite works great for bed bug eradication.

A home owner discovered she had thousands of honey bees in the inside walls of here home. I give her permission to yell “Oh the Horror! The Horror!” at thirty minute intervals.

Who is responsible for this invasion? Well I could easily blame the Queen bees. In the month of June the Queen gets bored with her residence and leaves her comfortable hive and  the rest of the bees begrudgingly or perhaps happily follow her to her new location which can be the inside walls of your home.

The homeowner realized there is a shortage of honey bees in the world for pollination purposes, but was saddened to learn the cost of  having bee keepers remove them was five times more expensive than hiring a pest control company to exterminate the honey bees.

However, exterminating or removing the honey bees will not end the problem. Hundreds of pounds of honey can easily be left in the walls which attracts other pests. Thousands of ants in the walls is not easy to deal with either.

Call a bee control specialist at the first sign of an infestation because “home sweet home” doesn’t make sense  if it’s accomplished by honey bees.

You may think you have a bed bug problem but it might be some other annoying insect. Experts claim that only a small percentage of the insects sent to them turn out to be bed bugs.

Beg bugs are typically about 1/5 of an inch and weigh about thirty pounds (not really). Young bed bugs are typically light yellow in color, however if they just consumed some blood they become dark in the middle region of their bodies. The blood ages and becomes darker and typically a small amount of undigested blood is excreted and ends up on mattresses and bed sheets and four hundred dollar dresses.

Adult bed bugs are reddish brown and they also darken  after a meal. They have no wings, are oval in shape and crawl at a steady pace. If they are scampering, skipping  or sauntering you have another issue to deal with.

They’re usually active at night and when they bite you they often leave bite marks that are two or three in  a row. If you awaken to a pungent aroma you probably have a very large gang of bed bugs lurking. Check for blood spots and fecal matter. 

Call an expert on bed bug pest control if you have spotted them in your residence.

Cable TV has taken us into the heaving northern Pacific to experience the harrowing life of crab fisherman in search of the Deadliest Catch. We’ve followed the Ice Road Truckers on their perilous journey across the frozen lakes of northern Canada. We’ve cringed and flinched as the Ax Men wield the dangerous tools of their trade in remote forests. TV’s next amazing reality show targets the creepy, crawly world of the dedicated pest exterminator. Yes, it’s finally our turn to shine! Watch this fall when A&E debuts Billy the Exterminator. (Yeah, we’re a little disappointed by the name too. We were hoping for something more macho like Terminator Exterminators.)

Patterned after Dog the Bounty Hunter, the new show will feature fellow pest control expert Billy Bretherton, 37, an 11-year industry veteran. You may have seen Billy on the Discovery Channel’s Dirty Jobs this past year. The new show will follow Billy and as-yet uncast sidekicks as they battle insect invasions and combat out-of-control wildlife to keep America safe and pest-free! If our own experiences at Stern Environmental Group are any indication, the show should be entertaining. Pest control certainly has its share of comic blooper and icky gross moments. Should make for riveting TV. Tune in this fall!

Hot weather brings the start of flea and tick season. May through September is the worst time of the year for fleas and ticks. In the U.S. there are more than 200 species of fleas and 200 different types of ticks just waiting for you or your pet to walk by. Fleas and ticks are usually brought into homes by dogs and cats. Your pet can get them from contact with an infected animal at the dog park or from brushing up against them while burrowing in the brush. My neighbor’s dogs got them from squirrels that traipsed across his lawn, shedding fleas in their wake which then hopped onto the dogs.

A single adult female flea can lay 50 eggs in one day; a female tick, twice that number. One dog can carry as many as 5,000 fleas on its body, says Scott Spear, Petsmart operation manager. “When your dog digests that flea they can get tape worm which can lead to all other sorts of problems. Ticks can lead to Lyme disease.” More than 16,000 American are infected with Lyme disease from deer ticks each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Protect your pet with flea drops or collars. If your pet brings fleas or ticks into your home, don’t place your family at risk. Consult a pest control professional before the situation gets out of hand.

If rats or mice are causing you trouble, Stern’s innovative Track & Trap rodent control program is the answer. The smart solution to rodent problems, Track & Trap uses a special tracking system that allows you to actually see all the places where disease-carrying, destructive rodents are getting into your home or business. One-pound, one-foot long rats can squeeze through an opening the size of a quarter. Mice can push their tiny bodies through spaces that don’t seem to be much bigger than a baby’s fingertip. Finding their entry points can be a challenge.

The Track & Trap program begins with installation of a special tracking box. Packed with tasty rodent treats, the box is dusted with a special fluorescent powder that adheres to the feet of the hungry varmints. As they come into feed, they track the powder around, leaving trails to their entry sites and back to their nests. Stern’s rodent eradication experts use a special UV light to follow these tracks. We know exactly where homes and buildings have to be sealed to prevent rodents from entering.

The program is eco-friendly and comes in two sizes for mouse or rat control. Click here for more information on Stern’s innovative Track & Trap rodent control program.

New York City has gone on a rat rampage in an attempt to make a dent in the city’s considerable rodent population. Rat czar Bobby Corrigan, the noted rodentologist, and his team (dubbed the rat pack) are scurrying about the city looking for signs of rodent infestation. When a problem is found, property owners must correct the problem quickly.

The world record for biggest rat is held by an Asian rat that weighed in at a hefty 1 pound 7 ounces. (As a comparison, “purse dogs” like those favored by Paris Hilton weigh about 3 pounds; the average house cat weighs, 6 pounds.) Fortunately for NYC residents, it’s the Norway rat that makes the Big Apple its home. Weighing just a pound, adults grow to be between 1 and 1.5 feet long, though that’s plenty big enough.

At least we don’t have the problems found in some parts of the world. In the remote state of Mizoram, India, an army of rats has caused a critical food shortage. Initially attracted by tasty bamboo flowers, the rats have been feasting on standing crops and rice stored in granaries.  Rats have devoured nearly three-quarters of the region’s annual rice supply. State authorities have initiated a “kill a rat, get cash” program, paying 5 US cents for every dead rat. What they need is Stern’s Track & Trap mouse and rat control program.

Let’s take a look at some tips for dealing with bed bugs:

Don’t sleep in another bed or on the couch because the bed bugs are like detectives; they will find you and they will now occupy more locations and be harder to eliminate. Isolate your bed with a quality bed casing.

Don’t sleep at a relatives house since the bed bugs can cling to your clothes and create a bed bug community at your grouchy Grandma’s house.  They can go dormant for longer than the neighbors lopsided polar bear and survive over a year without feeding. When you go back home they will be excited.

Don’t toss out your bed and furniture. Your pest control company can treat most pieces of furniture and mattresses.

Don’t try to eliminate the bed bugs by attacking them yourself with chemicals. Instead of killing them you could actually cause them to move to multiple areas of your house which will make it difficult for the professionals to destroy them.

Have a professional use Cryonite or other substances. Do not use a bug bomb or a fogger. Bed bugs chuckle when these are activated. They don’t work on the critters and they may cause them to disperse and reside in more areas of your home. Don’t give up; hire a professional.

Yesterday’s post chronicled the woes of the Milford Plaza in Manhattan which is being sued by an unhappy couple who got nibbled on by bed bugs during their stay. It’s not the first hotel or motel to be sued by grossed-out guests and it won’t be the last. A lawsuit is expensive even if damages aren’t awarded. Here’s what hotel and motel managers need to know about bed bugs:

• Bed bugs hitch a ride into hotel rooms on guests’ clothing and luggage.
• A room that was bed bug free this morning can be infected in the afternoon by the arrival of a bug-carrying guest.
• Most of the bed bugs won’t leave with the guest. They’ll stay in and near the bed, nesting in the mattress, box springs, linens, carpeting, bed frame, baseboards, under wallpaper, nearby furniture, etc. and start to multiply.
• Bed bugs spread easily through electrical and plumbing conduits and voids, air ducts, elevator shafts, in laundry carts, even on the clothing of your housekeeping staff.
• If a room is infected, the rooms adjoining and above and below are likely to also be infected.

For more information on bed bugs, click here. You’ll find information on how to identify bed bugs, where to look for them, and how Stern Environmental can get rid of them for you.

The thing about bed bugs is that they’re hearty little devils. They hide in tiny cracks and crevices where pesticides don’t reach. They can go months, even a year, between feedings. They can survive in hostile weather, both extreme heat and cold. And they’re prolific enough to put rabbits to shame. A female bed bug lays 1 to 12 eggs per day which hatch in 6 to 17 days. In a year’s time, you can have three generations feasting away.

Nearly eradicated in the U.S. after WWII, bed bugs are back — with a vengeance. New bed bugs are more powerful than a speeding bullet, able to survive commercial pesticides at 10 times the recommended dose, and practically immune to the DDT that wiped out their ancestors in the 1950s. Now, of course, that’s not all bed bugs; but a growing number are being found to be resistant to normal chemical pesticide treatments.

Stern to the rescue! We are among a select number of pest control companies able to offer “The Cryoniter,” a revolutionary new bed bug control system that is popular throughout Europe. Cryonite uses a carbon dioxide “snow” to reach bed bugs where they hide, immobilizing them before they can scurry out of reach. The fast-freezing gas kills adults, nymphs and eggs alike, unlike pesticides which are impotent on eggs.

The best thing about Cryonite is that it uses no harmful pesticides and leaves no toxic residue so it is safe for use around children, seniors and pets. Your home or business can be used right after application. Our customers have been so excited about Cryonite, we’ve had to purchase another system to meet demand. If you get bed bugs, call Stern today and ask for “The Cryoniter.”