Garden Help: Don't become the next victim of bedbugs

With all the preparations for the holidays, bedbugs might the last thing on your agenda. However, if you have kids coming home from college or are hosting out-of-town guests, you may get more than you bargained for.

I recently had a scare when my son was traveling with the baseball team and stayed overnight in a hotel. He described insects that resembled ticks on two of his roommates when they woke up the next morning. Collecting the insects would have been helpful so I could have ruled out bedbugs, but what 20-year-old thinks of that? I immediately went into action and proceeded to heat treat everything before his belongings were allowed entry into the house. Folks need to take this seriously. Bedbugs are showing up in area hotels, schools, dormitories, and apartments, so the problem is real. They move around easily on students' backpacks from their home, to school and then to your home.

So what is a bedbug? Bedbugs are about one-quarter-inch long, are brown and have an oval flattened body. Before feeding, they are clear in color but, after consuming blood, they change to a dark red color. Female bedbugs lay eggs that are 1/25 of an inch long in clusters where adults reside. Eggs hatch in four to 12 days and take 35 to 48 days to mature. For a bedbug to grow, it needs to feed. An adult bedbug, however, can go up to a year without a bloodmeal. In the absence of humans, they may feed on birds and rodents.

Bedbugs hide during the day in cracks and crevices in loose wallpaper, behind molding or throughout all areas of a bed. At night, they emerge to inject their mouthparts into an unsuspecting host creating a painless bite while taking a blood meal. How do you know if you have been bitten by a bedbug? If you have never been bitten by a bedbug, it may take 10 days to 2 weeks for a reaction to occur. Others that have been previously exposed may wake up with several red, scratchy welts (usually in a row) the next morning.

The best advice is to avoid bringing these guys home with you. My family makes fun of me when we stay in hotels. The first thing I do is to peel back the sheets and look at the mattress pad for signs of excrement and/or reddish-brown spots from blood stains about the size of a pencil point. When leaving the hotel, check clothing and suitcases for small insects. If the room you stayed in had bedbugs, do not bring the suitcase into your home. Unpack it outside and put clothing directly into the washing machine. Wash in hot water and then dry on high heat. If the clothing requires dry cleaning, let the cleaners know that you suspect bedbugs so it can be handled appropriately. Treat the suitcase before bringing it into the home.

When bedbug numbers build up, a sweet, musky odor becomes obvious because of an oily substance they emit. Some describe it as a sweet raspberry odor. If you find signs of these insects, request another room or go to another hotel. Some folks are taking extra precautions by cleaning luggage and clothing carefully after staying in hotels.

These insects are very difficult to control and the help of a professional pest control operator is preferred. Control options are varied. Some homeowners throw away bed, frames, mattresses and pillows trying to rid their homes of these critters. We recommend that you keep the bed but place a bedbug encasement over the mattress, pull the bed away from the wall, and use monitor traps at the base of the bed. Also, don't move the pillows to the couch because they will move with the pillows. Sticky traps can be placed around the room and bed to determine the hiding areas. Some pest control companies are using canines to detect bedbug places with great success. It's amazing how efficient dogs are at detecting bedbugs because of their enhanced sense of smell.

Once the hiding places are determined, one can develop a line of attack. Initially, remove as many bedbugs as possible from the area. Vacuum to remove bedbugs from beds, sofas, carpets, etc., then put the vacuum bag in a zip lock bag and place in a deep freeze for a week or more or immediately throw it away. Bedding should be washed with soap and borax in hot water and then dried using high heat. Placing items in the dryer for one hour on high heat is sufficient to do the job. Send curtains and pillows to the dry cleaners or place in the dryer. Clean out drawers in the room(s) and treat with pesticides. Homeowners may try treating this problem on their own, but pest control companies have additional products available for treatment and are trained on dealing with these pests. For more information on control and pesticides for treatment, refer to http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/ig083 .

University of Florida researchers have found a way to treat bedbugs without the use of chemicals. Cold doesn't affect these critters, but turning up the heat does the job. All the furniture is moved to the center of the room and a box is placed around the furniture. By using two heaters and a fan at the center of the box, the heat is pushed up to 113 degrees. Go to http://news.ufl.edu/ 2010?/?08?/02/bed-bug-remedy/ for a short video on the process.

Terry Brite DelValle is a horticulture extension agent with the Duval County Extension Service and the University of Florida/IFAS.