I'm Jim Frederick's I'm with the
National Pest Management Association and
I'm here to talk to you about bedbugs
bedbugs are small parasitic insects that
feed on human blood while you sleep
bedbugs don't carry diseases that
doesn't mean that they're not a public
health pest in most people the bites
result in itchy red welts oftentimes
people think of bedbugs as just living
in a bed but bedbugs are able to spread
from one place to another very simply
because they are excellent hitchhikers
of course it's important to remember
that bedbugs
once they feed they don't stay on the
host they feed and leave they're not
interested in you finding them on your
body after bedbugs feed they spend most
of their time in cracks and crevices
hiding perhaps in a bed frame or behind
a baseboard or in furniture but they
also happen to get inside backpacks and
boxes and that sort of thing so when
people move from one place to another
there they often will move bedbugs to
places like movie theaters or hotels or
buses or subways in their purses and
backpacks and other personal belongings
adult bedbugs are about the size of an
apple see their reddish-brown in color
and flattened from top to bottom but the
adult bedbugs are not the only thing
that might be present the small nymph
bedbugs just when they hatch out of an
egg are extremely small and they're
typically a translucent white color so
they're difficult to see there are a lot
of things that kill bedbugs and one of
the things that pest management
professionals do is they employ a method
called integrated pest management so for
instance bedbugs will die if they're
subjected to temperatures above 120
degrees the eggs will die the nymphs
will die the adults will die but I
wouldn't recommend that you try to heat
your home to 120 degrees pest management
professionals use specific tools that
are designed for bed bug control to do
that sort of a thing there is also
extreme cold some pest management
professionals will employ vacuums as
part of their pest
and so there are many different methods
that will kill bedbugs but never a
simple solution