"Good night, sleep tight" may be part of nursery rhyme, but bedbugs biting are a very grown-up problem in fire stations across the country. Just ask Cincinnati Fire Department Safety Officer/District Chief Ron Texter about his department's little critter problem.
“There are a lot of bedbugs in this area, and the guys bring them back from calls,” he says. “One good thing is that they are pretty easy to kill, and if you stay on top of it, it’s not too much of a problem.”
Bedbugs were virtually destroyed in the United States 50 years ago by pesticides that contained DDT. Even as recently as 2000, no pesticide company in the United States treated for bedbugs as part of their service. But bedbugs have returned in recent years, and Texter says Cincinnati is one of the top-five cities in the country for bedbug infestations (New York, Las Vegas, San Francisco and Atlanta round out the top five) and every extermination company has a bedbug service.
“You can’t bring in new beds every time because you can bring [bedbugs] back from a call,” Texter says. “The best thing you can do is have the name of a company that is competent and have them ready to respond when the critters show up.”
Bedbugs multiply rapidly. Their eggs look like white dots and quickly develop into ¼-inch-long, six-legged reddish-brown insects that hide during the day and feast on blood at night. You can’t feel them because of an anticoagulant they inject in your skin while they suck your blood.
Cincinnati Fire Department now has covers for the mattresses and box springs to keep the bugs from crawling into the seams and welting and wooden frames. By encasing the beds in a material that is breathable yet resistant to bedbugs, the department has been able to keep stray bugs on top the covers. Cincinnati Fire Department supplies bedding to firefighters, yet some personnel prefer their own bedding. “Some don’t like the blended sheets we have and prefer pure cotton, while others like their own pillows,” Texter says.
Cincinnati takes special precautions to prevent firefighters from bringing bedbugs back to the station in the first place. “When we go out on a call, we have four on an engine company and two on a medic company. One person will stay standing and hold the medical bag so we’re not setting it down so the bedbugs can crawl into it,” Texter says. “It doesn’t always work, but the awareness is raised.”
The department recently responded to a fire where a woman doused her mattress with alcohol and pesticide, saturating the mattress with both to kill the bedbugs. The mattress caught fire, and the firefighters wanted their gear washed when they returned.
Temperatures around 120°F will kill bedbugs. “One of the primary methods is to put clothes in a dryer on high heat for 10 minutes,” says Texter. “We’ve [also] had success with parking vehicles in the summer time in the sun for two days, and the heat builds and kills bedbugs.”
Infestation is not an issue of hygiene or cleanliness; however, apartments and homeless shelters are more likely to be infested. Cincinnati Fire Department has adopted a regular pest control program to control the problem of bedbugs, as well as mice and roaches.
Texter believes it’s important to educate personnel on bedbug truths and myths. He recommends a Web site created by Michael Potter, extension entomologist for the University of Kentucky College of Agriculture. According to the site, bedbugs aren’t known to spread disease, but may be host to organisms that cause irritation or an allergic skin reaction.
Then there’s the problem of nits or head lice, but that’s for another time.
