Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
2
Bed Bug Management
Clive Boase
1
* and Richard Naylor
2
Introduction
of this challenging pest and has hopefully
provided the pest control industry with at
least some of the tools required to turn the
resurgence into a downturn.
Once thought to be consigned to the history
topics, bed bugs were a pest of a bygone era.
Even the name 'bed bug' would probably
have been long forgotten had it not been
immortalized in the popular bedtime
nursery rhyme. And yet, despite our best
efforts, at the start of the 21st century this
tenacious little insect made a comeback, re-
emerging as one of our most detested urban
pests.
The bed bug resurgence has been
attributed to a range of factors infl uencing
their survival, reproduction and spread. For
example, their ability to become concealed
within luggage and personal effects facili-
tates their dispersal around the world,
while the lack of bed bug awareness in
today's urban residents allows infestations
to become well established before being
detected (Reinhardt
et al.
, 2008). One of the
biggest challenges for bed bug control today
is, however, the emergence of insecticide
resistance to some of the commonly used
insecticides (Boase, 2001; Romero
et al.
,
2007; Davies
et al.
, 2012). As a result treat-
ment failures are now commonplace.
The bed bug resurgence has not only had
a profound impact on the housing and
hospitality sectors, it also has provided a
major stimulus to research on this pest. As a
result, the number of publications has
increased dramatically over the last decade.
This has greatly improved our understanding
Signifi cance of Bed bugs
Medical
Skin responses to bed bug bites can vary
considerably from one person to the next.
For the most part bites appear as raised,
itchy, red areas of infl ammation between 5
and 10 mm in diameter, although it may
take several exposures and up to 2 weeks
before the infl ammation appears (Reinhardt
et al.
, 2009).
For a fortunate few, there may be no
visible bite response even after multiple
exposures to bed bugs (Reinhardt
et al.
,
2009). However, this can be a mixed blessing
as infestations can go undetected, allowing
them to become more established and
harder to treat. In a minority of cases
sufferers exhibit blistering skin eruptions at
the bite site and in the most severe cases
anaphylaxis-like systemic responses have
also been reported (Doggett
et al.,
2012).
The potential for bed bugs to vector
human pathogens has been extensively
investigated, and while some human
pathogens can persist in or on the bed bug,
there is no evidence to suggest that these
can be transmitted back to humans
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