Severe clutter delays bed bug treatment in Jackson, NJ

Challenge

When dealing with a pest infestation, cooperation with the client is key. While a pest control technician can plan for and apply the necessary treatments, at the end of the day, successfully resolving a pest infestation is often a joint effort with the client. For example, when dealing with infestations in commercial restaurants, we need the cooperation of management and kitchen staff that needs to improve its daily sanitation and hygiene protocols. Other times, with residential infestations, we need the cooperation of a homeowner dealing with a bed bugs who needs to help us by reducing clutter (thereby reducing harboring areas) and performing other tasks, such as washing clothes and bedding in hot water. The customer’s help is necessary to improve the effectiveness of our treatments and keep the infestation localized until it can be resolved. 

With this particular assignment, a two-person team of bed bug specialists were sent to a home in to deal with a bed bug infestation. During our initial visit, we never know what to expect or what challenges await us when we enter the home. In this case, there was extensive home clutter that limited our inspection and treatment options. 

At Cowleys, our bed bug treatments are successful because of our attention to detail and our thoroughness in inspection and treatment. We carefully inspect all potential infestation areas, including mattresses, box spring, bed frame. We also inspect all of the seams and nooks and crannies the bugs are using to hide when not feeding. But that’s only the beginning. We inspect wall junctures, nightstands, curtains, and even remove the electric wall outlet plates — those bugs will actually crawl in the socket holes and hide in the housing underneath.

Wherever possible, we vacuum these areas and then apply a residual insecticide. Finally, we encase the mattress and box spring with bed bug-proof encasements that keep bed bugs from entering and leaving the bedding.  

Although we spoke with the homeowners prior to the initial visit of the importance of removing clutter, they failed to to do so. We explained to them that, as long as there was extensive clutter, the treatments would be ineffective because they had a virtually infinite number of harborage locations. We did what we could on the first visit, but told them that this infestation would likely get worse if the clutter was not removed. Fortunately, the homeowners listened. The second time around, the homeowners followed the Cowleys bedbug service protocol and removed most of the clutter. 

Solution

With most of the danger areas eliminated, we could successfully apply our treatments and finally get this infestation under control. It’s much easier to reach these bugs if they have nowhere to run and nowhere to hide! The reality is that resolving bed bug infestations may require homeowner cooperation, especially in cases like this where there are housekeeping issues. We won’t sugar-coat the problem and tell homeowners what they want to hear in order to get the job. In the long-run, homeowners will be more satisfied if the bed bug infestation is resolved correctly — even if it means that they need to do some “housekeeping” so that their home is ready for our treatments. Once we have homeowner cooperation, we love being able to do our job and get rid of these biting blood-sucking bed bugs for good!