The dog handlers have said that they do attempt to use a second dog when the first dog is a positive hit for bed bugs. They have not however taken the time to do a visual inspection for the bed bugs themselves, which is recommended whenever possible. What makes the UNL bed bug problem different is that other college campuses that have had bed bugs only have had infestations in five dorm rooms. Having a college with 94 infested dorm rooms (and counting) is astronomical by comparison! There are 3,256 dorm rooms on the entire campus. As the numbers are averaging out now, there will be on average 376 dorm rooms that will be infested.
The University’s position on the bed bug outbreak is amazing. A spokeswoman said that despite the false positives “the responsible thing to do is to treat the room anyway,” Bartling said. “What’s the alternative? Nobody wants anybody to get bedbug bites. The strategy is to get ahead of them and identify them before they start biting.” You may read the article here.
Although considered to be a fairly new tool to pest control professionals, bed bug sniffing dogs are considered to be very fast and accurate at detecting bed bugs in all types of environments. Like other working dogs, bed bug sniffing dogs train for many months prior to working with their eventual handler. They become certified only after passing rigorous tests. For a bed bug sniffing dog, every day is a work day as they must find bed bugs as a means of working for their food.
The University has vowed to search each of the campus housing units for bed bugs. Reports are that they are a quarter of a way through their search. It will be interesting to see how many rooms end up being infested with bed bugs.
Update: Additional information just reported…there are now 124 dorm rooms that have positive hits for bed bugs by the bed bug sniffing dogs at the campus!