It turns out bed bugs love living in Northeast Ohio. The area has landed at the top of both Orkin鈥檚 and Terminix鈥檚 list of most bed bug infested cities this year.
On Orkin鈥檚 list, Cleveland came in second place, while Terminix ranked the Cleveland-Akron area at number three.
Experts would like to clear one thing up when it comes to bed bugs, though.
鈥淚f you have a bed bug problem, it鈥檚 because you鈥檙e human,鈥� said Seun Odalipupo, an Assistant Professor of Urban Entomology at the Ohio State University and an expert on bed bugs. Odalipupo said that there tends to be a lot of shame when it comes to bed bugs, which can lead to delays in treatment and reporting.
鈥淧eople think when you have bed bugs, it's a reflection of how poor you are and how unhygienic things are where you live,鈥� he said. 鈥淣either of those things are true.鈥�
Still, enough Northeast Ohioans called exterminators to land the region near the top of both major bed bug lists. Those lists, according to Orkin Branch Manager Rodger Poindexter, are based on the number of calls they get about bed bugs.
On his company鈥檚 list, Cleveland was near the top, but Columbus was not that far behind at number eight, and Cincinnati came in the thirteenth spot.
鈥淐leveland is kind of a through way from the Midwest to the East Coast,鈥� Poindexter said. 鈥淪o you've got a lot of people traveling through the area. We do have a larger airport. Most of the cities that are on that list have larger airports. So you've got either people traveling for business or people traveling for leisure.鈥�
Hotels have a bad reputation for spreading bed bugs, and Poindexter recommends always checking your room for the little blood suckers before you settle in. But bed bugs are hitchhikers that can be picked up at lots of places, like doctors鈥� offices, schools, movie theaters and on public transportation.
If you do spot a bed bug in your home, or perhaps their tell-tale blood stains, time is of the essence because they multiply exponentially. Experts recommend skipping at-home solutions, which tend to control the bed bug population, at best, but don鈥檛 get rid of them completely. Professionals can take a couple routes to get rid of bed bugs, but the first step is always to vacuum up as many as possible.
Exterminators can then lay down chemical treatments onto furniture, carpeting, and even spray it as a dust into your walls- anywhere bed bugs might hide.
You can also cook them. Bed bugs and their eggs generally die at 113 degrees Fahrenheit.
Chris Gonda, one of the co-owners of Bed Bug Barbecue, recently let ideastream in on a heat treatment at a tidy Parma home. Industrial strength heaters were positioned outside the home, with large black ducts carrying hot air up to the second floor. Inside, more heaters warmed the space up to between 120 and 150 degrees Fahrenheit, while
large fans made sure the hot air got into every nook and cranny.
The owners of this home opted to get rid of some of their furniture and several mattresses. Some of the mattresses, already bagged and headed for the trash heap, still had live bed bugs crawling on them. They鈥檙e about the size of a small apple seed, and when squished they let out blood - human blood they had recently fed on.
鈥淏edbugs, they don't care about your race, your religion, your sex, your financial ability,鈥� Gonda said. 鈥淭hey will bite anybody. They want humans.鈥�
The good news is that bed bugs don鈥檛 spread diseases, but the bad news is that getting rid of them isn鈥檛 cheap. While economic inequality isn鈥檛 a factor in where bed bugs call home, it can be a factor in who can get rid of them quickly.
鈥淭his is not inexpensive,鈥� Gonda said about the heat treatment. 鈥淭his is probably a $4,000 cost for these people to get rid of bed bugs in their home today.鈥�
Most homeowner鈥檚 insurance doesn鈥檛 cover bed bugs, and Gonda said there is little government assistance for the issue.
Odalipupo, the bed bug expert at Ohio State University, said they鈥檙e also becoming more resistant to certain chemical treatments. He collects bed bug samples from around the state to study them in his lab.
鈥淭he first principle in heavy warfare is know thy enemy,鈥� he said. 鈥淚f you know what you're dealing with then, only then can you now devise a strategy to be able to effectively defeat them.鈥�
Odalipupo hopes his research will lead to new ways to defeat these tiny enemies. He鈥檚 found that unlike the much deadlier mosquito, bed bugs aren鈥檛 great at smelling. Still, they prefer human hosts to, say, pets. So one thing he鈥檚 researching is how bed bugs pick their victims, and it might come down to what鈥檚 on our skin.
鈥淲e think they might be using microbiome to discriminate between hosts,鈥� he said. 鈥淪o, our goal is to understand the relationship between bed bugs and those microbiome, even human skin microbiome to see if there are vulnerabilities and say, okay, if this is an integral part of their biology, the need is going to be able to discriminate between hosts. Can we come in there and break the relationship?鈥�
He thinks perhaps one day, studying bed bugs鈥� preferred microbiomes could lead to new ways to trap and kill them.
