Pest Management Professional, August 2017
By Shane Green Contributor B ed bug jobs are never fun Anytime you are forced to deal with dozens or sometimes hundreds of bloodsucking parasitic insects there are probably other things you would rather be doing That said we pest professionals know bed bug jobs are good money Besides somebodys got to do it One day about 10 years ago in my first year as a pest management technician my boss informed me we picked up a bed bug job and considering Id never performed one before this would be a good learning opportunity for me My certified operator and I headed out first thing the next morning We arrived at an older home on the river reminiscent of an old fishing cabin outpost As we pulled up a man with several dogs was waiting in the front yard He informed us he was the property owner He told us he was a bit skeptical that he had a bed bug problem but his girlfriend who recently moved in insisted he have the place treated Now its worth noting this customer could pass for Captain Ahab himself the kind of guy who shaves with a straight razor twice a month and hasnt felt a sunburn in the 30 years since his skin turned to full grain leather Despite one of our technicians having previously been out to the property and confirming the presence of bed bugs our customer insisted he has never been bitten and that his girlfriend probably just has sensitive skin toward sand fly or mosquito bites So we went inside to take a look We confirmed that bed bugs were in fact present Immediately what stood out most was the custom made bedframe the client built himself It turns out he was a dock builder and using the old splintered pilings from docks he had torn down he built the four corners of his bedframe He had already removed the mattress and placed it in a new vinyl mattress cover We began our treatment of the wooden pilings of the bedframe and the hundreds of cracks and splits within them using a liquid application Within minutes bed bugs started coming out At first there was just one here or there Then as they realized they couldnt go deeper to get away they started pouring out by the dozens But thats not what makes this a pest nightmare You see as the product ran down the pilings it began to puddle a bit on the tile floor below Only the puddles werent the white color youd expect They were a dark blackish red The pilings were literally bleeding from the buildup of bed bug fecal matter My first introduction to bed bugs was definitely a pest nightmare pmp IllustratIon leo MIchael When the bed bleeds you know youre in trouble GREEN is founder and president of Green Pest Services Port St Lucie Fla online at GreenPestServicesFl com VECTOTHOR Mobile UV A Tester Test UV Fly traps on the go with Your smartphone ENSYSTEX 1 866 FOR THOR FOR THOR COM 58 August 2017 pest management professional mypmp net
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