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Bedbug fact sheet - Ohio State University Extension

Facts from Harvard School of Public Health

More information from Bedbugger.com



CUMBERLAND — Derrick Bender knows what a bedbug looks like. And he said he’d feel guilty if he didn’t share his knowledge, and his experience, with the community.

Bender, a faculty extension assistant with the University of Maryland Extension Office in Cumberland, stayed in a $300-per-night hotel room in Annapolis about six weeks ago after attending a meeting in Ocean City. He found lodging that “was a pretty nice place.”

But there was a surprise guest waiting for Bender and his wife in their hotel room. A handful of bedbugs had infiltrated the room. A bedbug is an insect that can be white or reddish brown and between one-quarter-inch and three-eighths-inch long — or about the size of a pencil eraser.

And in line with the warning your parents probably whispered to you in an almost joking manner each night before bedtime, bedbugs do bite. Their main prey is human. They drink their blood at night by climbing on an unsuspecting victim and injecting the person with an anesthetic before filling up on blood. Bedbugs can go for up to six months, maybe more, before another feeding is required.

“Just because a motel (appears) clean and is expensive ... it does not mean that they don’t have bedbugs,” said Bender, who is going to conduct a free public information session Aug. 27 between 6 and 8 p.m. at the Allegany County Fairgrounds. “That’s why I think people should know where to look for them.”

It so happened that Bender had learned about the creature about a month before his trip during a professional development session.

“If I wouldn’t have been there, I would not have known” what it was, Bender said. “It wasn’t a terribly heavy infestation ... we found three (bugs).”

His goal, Bender said, is to educate people on what bedbugs look like and where to find them. Traveling is one way people bring home bedbugs, Bender said. Experts point to globalization as the reason why bedbugs — largely unheard of since a chemical known as DDT became available after World War II — are making a comeback.

“If you don’t look, you could be bringing them home with you and you don’t realize it,” Bender said.

Tom Delawder, Ellerslie branch manager of the Home Paramount pest control company, said he and his workers travel between Morgantown, W.Va., and Breezewood, Pa., chasing the tiny insects in private homes and hotels. And despite what one might think, Delawder said it’s not the down-on-their-luck crowd that have to deal with the problem.

“Sometimes, we find them in what is almost a flophouse,” Delawder said. “Sometimes they’re in some real well-to-do upscale places. Bedbugs don’t discriminate.”

A “prominent” medical doctor in Allegany County had a bedbug issue a few years ago. Bedbugs aren’t known to transmit diseases, but the doctor was embarrassed about the situation and feared that Delawder would contact the health department.

“His son went on a camping expedition and brought bedbugs back to the house,” Delawder said. “He was so upset by it.”

Most people, Delawder said, “don’t want anybody else to know. They freak.”

Delawder isn’t required to call the health department and, in this instance, the infestation was not severe.

Bedbugs are, before feeding, small and paper thin. Bender said he’s heard stories of a room being continually infested with bedbugs despite pesticide treatments. Their hiding place? The television remote control. And while bedbugs are known to enter a home through electrical outlets, Bender said he’s heard of them weaving their way through a closed zipper.

Bender’s information session will review how to get rid of an infestation. He and his wife checked their luggage, washed everything in hot water and placed it on the family dryer’s high-heat cycle multiple times.

He thinks he has taken appropriate steps to prevent a problem in his own house.

“But I’m not going to brag about it yet,” Bender said.

Bender said people interested in attending the Aug. 27 session should call his office at (301) 724-3320 or e-mail dbender@umd.edu.

Contact Kevin Spradlin at kspradlin@times-news.com.