First of a four part series
Whether bedbugs happen to invade an office, a warehouse, school, library, hotel, or restaurant, they can be quite difficult to find and eradicate, more so than in the typical home. “In most cases [at work], there is no bed or sleeping area in which to focus a search for the bedbugs,” says University of Kentucky entomology professor Michael F. Potter, who specializes in pests infesting buildings, people, and property. “As a result, bugs tend to be scattered, and finding them can be a challenge.”
Before joining the university in 1991, Dr. Potter was the national technical director for Orkin. In recent years, Potter and his University of Kentucky research colleagues have been working on the front lines of the global bedbug pandemic. During a recent 90-minute audio event for HRHero.com, Potter discussed at least five other reasons why getting rid of bedbugs can be tricky business for employers:
- No one — from employers and employees to customers and visitors — likes to admit they have a bedbug problem. Consequently, a business or office can have a serious infestation before anyone is willing to admit there is a problem and seek help.
- Many employees transport bedbugs from home to work. But it’s often difficult to tell where the problem began. “Employees can be bitten at work and not realize it until they get home,” Potter says, or it could be the other way around.
- Bedbugs arrive in a thousand other ways, too. They are “amazing hitchhikers,” according to Potter. Patients carry them into doctors’ offices; family members tote them into hospitals in blankets, sleeping bags, and other personal items. Potter adds: “Their introduction into the work site is unstoppable. Short of strip-searching every employee, customer, and visitor who comes into your building, you can’t keep them out.”
- Today’s pesticides aren’t very effective. Years ago, infestations were eradicated by using very effective pesticides like DDT, and practically everyone got involved in fighting them. Only recently have people begun looking for bedbugs again.
- You’re not going to be able to take a facility out of service long enough to starve the bedbugs by keeping them away from your blood supply. “They are incredibly resilient and can live for months without feeding on people,” Potter says.
Potter’s best advice to employers is to learn as much as you can about the problem: “It is not going away. It is going to get a lot worse. We are only in the first inning of this game.”
Coming Tuesday: How effective are bedbug detection dogs?
“Bedbugs at Work? Guard Against Lawsuits, Productivity Threats,” a 90-minute audio event featuring Michael F. Potter and Epstein Becker Green attorney Susan Gross Sholinsky, is available on CD or via live streaming.