Action Termite and Pest Control

www.njbedbugdog.com

Phone: 800-920-0906

Serving New Jersey, Philadelphia and New York

Bed Bug DogsBed Bug Dogs

Meet Sara and Rex, both are certified Bed Bug Dogs, trained by the Florida Canine Academy.  Each has over 800 hours of training to detect bed bugs in commercial and residential buildings.  Both were originally rescued from a shelter in South Florida and is now helping Action Termite and Pest Control protect the environment of our customers.

You've heard of Bomb dogs? Drug dogs? Arson dogs? Now, Man's Best Friend is the latest weapon in the war on bedbugs. Traditional bedbug detection methods can be very time consuming and labor intensive. Certified Bed Bug Dogs generate quicker and more accurate results.

►The bedbug canine can search the average hotel room in less than two minutes.

Bed Bug DogsBed Bug Dogs

Take a closer look at the Bedbug Dog...

•From a single drop of urine, the sniffing dog learns

the marking animal’s sex, diet, health, emotional

state, and even whether it’s dominant or submissive,

friend or foe.

•Tracking dogs follow a biochemical trail of dead

skin cells, sweat, odor molecules, and gasses.

•For dogs, a scent article is like a three-dimensional “odor image” - much

more detailed than a photograph is for a person.

•Dogs can track a scent through snow, air, mud, water, and even ash.

Bed Bug DogsBed Bug Dogs

According to a report prepared by the Institute for Biological Detection Systems (IBDS) of Auburn University (Auburn, AL), dogs have the following capabilities:

•Sensitivity: Documented limits of olfactory detection for the dog range from tens of parts per billion to 500 parts per trillion.•Discrimination: Dogs are extremely good at discriminating a target vapor from non-target vapors that are also present, even at relatively high concentrations of non-target odors.•Odor Signatures: When being trained to detect a substance, dogs learn to alert to one or two of its most abundant vapor compounds.•Multiple Odor Discriminations: Dogs can easily learn as many as ten odor discriminations.

What are Bed Bugs? What are Bed Bugs?

The common bedbug (Cimex lectularius) is the best adapted to human environments.

It is found in temperate climates throughout the world and has been known since ancient times.

Bed BugsBed Bugs

• Adult bedbugs are reddish brown, flattened, oval, and wingless, with microscopic hairs that give them a banded appearance.

• A common misconception is that they are not visible to the naked eye, but adults grow to 4 to 5 mm (one-eighth to three-sixteenths of an inch) in length and do not move quickly enough to escape the notice of an attentive observer.

• Newly hatched nymphs are translucent and lighter in color and continue to become browner and molt as they reach maturity. When it comes to size, they are often compared to lentils or apple seeds.

Bed Bugs BiologyBed Bugs Biology

• Traumatic Sexual Reproduction (TSR) the female has no natural opening for reproducing.

• The male has to tear open the abdomen of the female in order to penetrate and inseminate the female. The female does not like the experience and leaves the area where the mating took place. She is impregnated and will start to lay eggs shortly.

• Female bedbugs can lay up to five eggs in a day and 500 during a lifetime.

• The eggs are visible to the naked eye measuring 1 mm in length (approx. 2 grains of salt) and are a milky-white tone in color.

• The eggs hatch in one to two weeks. The hatchlings begin feeding immediately.

Bed Bug BiologyBed Bug Biology

• Bed Bug nymphs pass through five molting stages before they reach maturity.

• They must feed once during each of these stages. • At room temperature, it takes about 5 weeks for a

bedbug to pass from hatching, through the stages, to maturity.

• They become reproductively active only at maturity. • There may be 3 or more generations a year

The Bed Bug The Bed Bug Life CycleLife Cycle

Feeding Habits Feeding Habits

• Bedbugs are generally active only at night, with a peak attack period about an hour before dawn.

• Given the opportunity, they may attempt to feed at other times of day.

• Attracted by warmth and the presence of carbon dioxide, the bug pierces the skin of its host with two hollow tubes.

• With one tube it injects its saliva, which contains anticoagulants and anesthetics, while with the other it withdraws the blood of its host.

Feeding HabitsFeeding Habits

• After feeding for about five minutes, the bug returns to its hiding place.

• The bites cannot usually be felt until some minutes, hours, or days later, as a dermatological reaction to the injected agents.

• Some people don’t have any reaction at all to the bites and don’t even realize they have bed bugs until the population grows

• Although bedbugs can live for up to 18 months without feeding, they typically seek blood every five to ten days.

How Bed Bugs Travel How Bed Bugs Travel

• They can travel up to 100 feet for feeding, although they prefer to be 10 to 20 feet from their host.

• Consider that a very small bedroom is 10 x10 feet. In apartment buildings, condominiums, and nursing homes, 100 feet gives them a lot of range which they usually take advantage of by moving both outward horizontally and upward to levels above by way of the wall voids.

• In a single family home with at least one person, the bedbug would remain very close to their human food source by living in a mattress, box spring, headboard, bed frame, nightstand, etc.

• If the population increases, the pressure for more food moves them out further and further into the home. This is when the possibility of hitchhiking insects or their eggs increases, and people may spread the infestation outside of their dwelling.

Bed Bugs Bed Bugs MovementMovement

•When you consider the high rate of reproduction and the distance that bedbugs can travel, an extreme infestation of a single room, apartment, home, or condo can create a domino effect.

•As the bedbug population grows, the pressure for more food can send insects scurrying through the wall voids or down the hallway.

•Before long, the infestation in one apartment can move to another, spread to a whole floor, then move between floors.

Bed Bugs Bed Bugs MovementMovement

• Most of the time, there are no solid barriers between apartments or condos, so plumbing or electrical lines provides direct access to the next unit and conditions they favor,

• Once in the wall void, their search is aided by carbon dioxide exhaled by the occupants in an adjoining living area.

• The higher the occupancy, the more attractive the new space.

How they SpreadHow they Spread

• Apartments and condominiums can present the worst-case scenario for bedbugs. In multi-family dwellings, shared common areas (hallways and laundry), frequent high occupancy for each unit, and shared wall voids provide ample opportunities for spreading bedbugs very quickly.

• One apartment or hotel room with a moderate to severe infestation can infest whole floors and multiple levels over a period of months.

• From the point of origin, bedbugs usually spread out in a pyramid shape.

• With 109 being the start apartment; the infestation quickly moves horizontally and vertically from the point of origin. This can take weeks or months depending on how promptly it is reported and how intense the infestation is.

4th floor 401 403 405 407 409 411 413 415 417

3rd floor 301 303 305 307 309 311 313 315 317

2nd floor 201 203 205 207 209 211 213 215 217

1st floor 101 103 105 107 109 111 113 115 117

How Bed Bugs How Bed Bugs Find you.Find you.

• Bedbugs are attracted to the carbon dioxide that you exhale.

• Bedbugs come out for feeding when they detect the presence of carbon dioxide, which humans produce upon exhaling.

• Since they prefer darkness, this one sensory asset is their guide to where you are. It dictates where they will live, which is usually going to be no more than 10 or 20 feet from where you sleep.

• Carbon Dioxide also guides their movement if they have to find other food sources.

Bed Bug HabitsBed Bug Habits

• Bedbugs are often erroneously associated with filth.

• They are attracted by exhaled carbon dioxide, not by dirt, and they feed on blood, not waste.

• In short, the cleanliness of their environments has no effect on bedbugs. Their numbers may be reduced temporarily by vacuuming, but will recover and require vacuuming again, and again.

Bedbugs have Bedbugs have a food a food

preference.preference.• Humans, this preference is so strong that they are more

likely to travel a good distance to seek humans than feed on a pet that is easily accessible.

• Women and children are generally more sensitive to bites, although men do get bitten.

• Two people can even sleep in the same bed, and one person will be bitten while the other is not affected.

• Though it is more likely that both are being bitten, but one is more sensitive to the allergen in the bedbugs saliva than the other person.

Bed Bug Feeding Bed Bug Feeding

• Bed bugs feed for about five minutes and immediately return to their hiding place.

• Should feeding be interrupted then multiple feedings can occur during the night.

• It then crawls into hiding, remaining there for several days to digest its meal. When hunger returns, the bug emerges from hiding and seeks another blood meal.

Where they hide.Where they hide.

• Heavily used hiding places are evident by black or brown spots of dried blood excrement on the surfaces where the bugs rest.

• Eggs, egg shells, and cast skins may be found near these places.

• Usually there is an offensive odor where bed bugs are numerous.

• In early infestations the bed bugs are found only about the tufts, seams, and folds of mattresses and daybed covers; later they spread to cracks and crevices near the bed area.

• If allowed to multiply, they establish themselves behind baseboards, window and door casings, pictures, and moldings, and in furniture, loosened wallpaper, and cracks in plaster and partitions.

Treatment Treatment ProceduresProcedures

• Any decorations that are on the walls will have to be treated. We will remove all outlet covers in the alerted rooms and dust the wall voids.

• We will then mist the interior and all occupants must be out for 3 hours after treatment.

•On the first treatment Action will steam and treat the entire interior of the residence paying special attention to the areas that the canine team alerted to.

•The treatment consists of a full crack and crevice treatment to the entire home. In the rooms that the canine team alerted,

•Action will treat the insides, underneath and exterior of all furniture and mattresses that are in the rooms.

Treatment Procedures Treatment Procedures Cont.Cont.

• After the steaming and treatment process all mattresses must be covered with approved mattress covers that will stop bed bugs from exiting or entering the mattress.

• These covers can be purchased from Action at an additional fee. The cost depends on the size and quantity of the mattress and box spring.

Treatment Procedures Cont.Treatment Procedures Cont.

• On the final treatment Action will perform a sweep to the structure.

• Whether the dogs alert or not to areas that were hit on the first sweep Action performs a final treatment to all those areas and any additional areas alerted on the final sweep.

• There is a 60 day warranty after the final

Treatment

Thank YouThank You

www.njbedbugdog.com

1-800-920-0906