Bed Bugs Are Back: NJ pest control convention focuses on bedbugs
Category Health | Friday, August 20th, 2010
bedbugs
They virtually disappeared until about three years ago, when Baker started getting so many inquiries about the pests that he dusted off his grandfather’s original product labels and EPA registrations for JT Eaton’s Kills Bedbugs spray.
“On the retail side, it’s now over 50 percent of our business,” Baker said. “This is the new termite for the industry; everyone is trying to come up with a cure.”
Experts are baffled by the resurgence of the tiny reddish-brown insects that feed off human and animal blood, their bites often leaving red welts. Entomologists say the pests are appearing on a scale not seen since before World War II and cite increases in global travel and the elimination of certain chemicals, like DDT, that were once used to treat bedbugs, as possible factors contributing to the upsurge. The Environmental Protection Agency even hosted its first bedbug summit in April.