Bedbugs: Tiny, year-round invaders nobody likes to consider

This is a must, even if you don’t want to:

Telling someone they have bugs is the hardest thing I do in my job.

Why? Because bed bugs don’t care how clean your home is. They don’t stop spreading on the door of an apartment, and they can get into all kinds of crevices in your home – making them difficult to get rid of.

Let me just put it this way: if you live in an apartment building or maisonette and you know for sure that your neighbor has bedbugs in the building, so do you – or you will soon have them!

Never do this:

If you find that bedbugs are not donating any of your clothing, furniture, or other items to Goodwill, simply spread the infestation onto them.

Know your enemy!

I always tell people that they are fighting a pest in the house or in the garden. The best plan to attack and / or defend is to understand your enemy. Cornell Cooperative Extension (CCE) hosts a webpage with links to bugs at http://cceoneida.com/environment/invasive-nuisance-species/bed-bugs. The links also include how to deal with infestations. Our Oneida County Local Government website also provides a wealth of information via links at https://www.ocgov.net/health/BedBugInfo.

When you travel, keep in mind that hotels and motels also deal with bug issues. So check your room thoroughly when you arrive.

A link from our CCE Bedbugs page to the EPA website reads, “When bedbugs aren’t fed, they hide in different places. Around the bed, they are located near the pipes, seams and labels on the mattress and box spring, and in cracks on the bed frame and headboard. If the room is badly infested, you can find bed bugs: in the seams of chairs and sofas, between pillows, in the folds of curtains, in drawer joints, in sockets and appliances, under loose wallpaper and wall hangings, the joint where the wall and ceiling meet hit, even in the head of a screw.

Since bed bugs are only about the width of a credit card, they can squeeze into really small hiding places. If a crack contains a credit card, it can hide a bed bug. “

More information is available online at epa.gov/bedbugs/how-find-bed-bugs.

If you think you have a bug problem please call us at 315-736-3394 and press extension 100, you may need to leave a message. Don’t be ashamed because this problem is more common than you think.

The most important thing is to help you figure out how to deal with getting rid of them! If you are in a rental, you need to contact and inform your landlord as well. We are asking you not to bring bugs into our building, but a photo sent to my email address law287@cornell.edu will help us identify the bug.

For more information please call us or visit our website cceoneida.com, phone 315-736-3394, extension 100. Like us on Facebook (www.facebook.com/cceoneida) and visit our YouTube channel (www. youtube). com / user / cceoneida) for great gardening talks.