Until about 10 years ago, a bedbug was nothing more than a character in a nursery rhyme. How things have changed!
Reports of bedbug infestations in Central Ohio are up and so was the attendance at Friday’s Central Ohio annual conference on bedbugs.
Close to 400 people gathered in Grove City for the 4th annual Central Ohio Bed Bug Task Force Summit.
What they learned is that bedbugs in Ohio are more resistant to household insecticides than bedbugs in other parts of the country.
"That is definitely one of the main reasons why the problem is a little worse in Ohio jurisdictions than in other areas of the country," said Gene Harrington, vice-president of National Pest Management Association.
Ohio State University entomologist Dr. Susan Jones has been testing over-the-counter aerosol products that claim to kill bedbugs.
"They don’t work against bedbugs. This is a product that people are buying, and it says bedbugs right on the bug bomb, but you're wasting your money," Jones said.
The bedbug resistance to most insecticides can be traced to genetics. Their short life-cycles speed up the process of developing a resistance to the chemicals. Dr. Jones says the bedbugs have changed genetically.
"They have up-regulated their genes so they can really detoxify these materials," Jones said.
Jones says her team of researchers is in the early stages of trying to develop a way to interfere with the bedbug genes that resist insecticides.
She says there’s plenty of research to be done but that federal research dollars are in short supply.
For now, Paul Wenning, chairman of the Central Ohio Bed Bug Task Force, says the only pesticides that work on bedbugs are those used by the professionals. "It has to be done by a licensed exterminator; they have to know what they're doing; and they have to apply a mix of chemicals - not just one," Wenning said.
Meanwhile, Ohio has a request pending with the United States Environmental Protection Agency to allow the state to use a highly effective chemical called propoxur against bedbugs. The US EPA has thus far been reluctant to approve propoxur for indoor use out of concern for possible toxicity to children.
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