As bed bug infestations spread across the country, pest control services are getting more and more adept at diagnosing and eradicating bed bug problems. The first step, however, is being certain that there’s a bed bug infestation in the first place. Tom Norton, the owner of Combat Pest, says that sometimes when he gets a bed bug call, he’s never sure what he’s going to get. Every call to Norton’s Massachusetts bed bug control company, which services the South Shore, is different.
Norton says, “In some situations, someone calls us thinking they have a really big bed bug infestation. But then we’ll go over, check it out, and find that there were absolutely no bed bugs. Instead, it’ll turn out that the person had a rash from another source, and got excited thinking it was a bed bug bite.” Anybody can understand how frustrating this would be. But Norton can’t use it as an excuse to give up the fight against bed bugs: There are plenty of calls that alert Combat Pest to legitimate bed bug infestations.
“Typically, the landlord of a building will call us saying that his tenants are complaining about bed bugs,” says Norton. Sometimes, at these visits, Norton’s team will find an apartment crawling with bed bugs—but that’s actually quite rare. Usually, Norton says, Combat Pest is lucky to find a single bed bug.
In fact, there’s a bit of a crying wolf syndrome when it comes to bed bug calls. People hear about the resurgence of bed bugs nationwide and they get anxious that they could be next. “When we find bed bugs,” says Norton, “we’re almost happy, because at least we know they’re actually there—that we’re not searching for nothing.”
These days, there are unlikely tools that help professionals like Norton’s team pinpoint bed bugs’ location. In an age that is all about the latest technology, you may be surprised to learn that a pest control’s secret weapon in the bed bug search is a special bed bug-sniffing dog!
“These dogs have a pretty good accuracy rate,” says Norton. “They are 90% accurate! Bed bug-sniffing dogs are the only other reliable way of looking for bed bugs other than combing over a place with a flashlight.”
Although Norton’s bed bug control company doesn’t employ bed bug-sniffing dogs yet, he’s looking into it. It’s a new industry trend that Norton thinks could broaden his pest control business.