The importance of completing a proper bed bug inspection at the early stages of unwanted activity is vital in the fight to keep your home or property bed bug free. These pests are known to be difficult to remove and the longer they have to spread throughout your property the harder the job becomes. This difficulty is attributed to their size, their fast rate of reproduction, and their ability to hide. The solution to prevent bed bugs from infesting your home or property is to stop the spread of the bugs as soon as possible. However, if you are not familiar with the signs of their live activity, bed bug detection can be an extremely challenging task.
During their developmental stages, bed bugs can be the size of a sesame seed. Their color makes it possible for them to blend easily with carpets, furniture, as well as your mattress and box spring. These factors are why many individual efforts fail to detect the presence of these pests and stop bed bugs from taking over the property. The failure of detecting bugs can cost a homeowner or a property manager thousands of dollars. An infestation also comes with much psychological torture to the people who are forced to live with bed bugs. Canine scent detection and visual inspection are the main methods used for bed bug detection.
The Best Method for Successful Bed Bug Inspection
Canine detection is regarded as the fastest and also the most accurate method for successfully detecting live bed bug activity. It relies on the use of well-trained scent detection canines, and the accuracy rate of these types of inspections range between 95-98 percent.
Properly trained dogs like our K9 Detectives have the ability to smell out even small traces of bed bugs activity within a short time. Therefore, dogs that have the necessary certification can save people a lot of time and money by sniffing out the pests during their first inspection.
The problem with visual detection
Compared to scent, visual inspections have many drawbacks. First of all, visual detection only has an accuracy rate of 50 percent. Not only is this method of bed bug detection less accurate it is also very time-consuming.
This increase in time is due to the tech needing to go through the entire home physically looking through furniture, linens, curtains, wall crevices and night stands for signs of bed bugs. The whole process is capable of taking many hours compared to the few minutes it takes to detect using canines.
Furthermore, visual detection fails at determining whether the traces of activity they find is actually from bed bugs that are still active or leftovers from dead bed bugs. A false positive can end up costing you more money that you do no need to spend.
Signs of live activity
You can identify traces of bed bugs when changing the linens on your bed. You should look for rusty or reddish stains that might be present on the sheets, dark spots that are bed bug excrements, and the presence of eggs and eggshells. You should also keep an eye out for bites on those sleeping in possibly infested areas.
Hiding places
When they are not feeding, bed bugs can hide in numerous places. Such places include the mattress and box spring, piping system, seams, tags of the mattresses, and cracks and crevices on the bed frame and along the walls near where you sleep. During high infestation, bed bugs can also be found in the seams of chairs and couches, in drawer joints, on electrical receptacles and appliances, at the junction where the ceiling and the wall meet and under loose wallpaper or wall hangings.
A proper inspection procedure should leave no room for errors. An examination that gives false negative results can make the costs of eradicating them increase. This increase can be caused false negative results allowing the bedbugs to multiply and spread, or false positives resulting in unnecessary treatments. Therefore, it is recommended to use the services of scent canines that are certified for reliable results.
Call Pronto Pest Management today or visit our contact page and request an inspection. If our inspection detects the presence of bed bugs we will then begin our Proactive Bed Bug Removal Plan in order to eliminate these pests from your property.
Do you offer bed bug inspection services near me?
Pronto Pest Management regularly provides bed bug inspection and elimination services to residents all over the state of Michigan. We regularly inspect homes, offices, and apartments in the following cities:
