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Funded Project

Funding Program: IPM Partnership Grants

Project Title: A Partnership for Developing IPM Protocols for Bed Bug Management

Project Director (PD): Jody Gangloff-Kaufmann [1]

Lead State: NY Lead Organization: Cornell University

Undesignated Funding: $35,524

Start Date: May-01-2007 End Date: Apr-30-2008

Pests Involved: bedbugs, bed bugs

Site/Commodity: residential, community, structural, urban

Summary: The common bed bug, Cimex lectularius, is a blood-feeding parasite of humans that has reemerged as one of the most significant indoor pests of our time. Although it is well understood that integrated pest management is necessary for bed bug control, effective protocols and standardized IPM practices are lacking, particularly for multiple-unit dwellings, including homeless shelters. The integration of pesticides with physical controls is unsystematic and often ineffective. Sufferers of bed bug infestations are regularly taking matters into their own hands, by applying pesticides and discarding furniture and other possessions. The economic and health risks associated with bed bugs are presumably great. Bed bugs have reversed the benefits achieved in Urban IPM over the past fifteen years, by reintroducing frequent, unrestricted, household pesticide use. A standardized bed bug management strategy that relies on IPM is desperately needed. This project will address the management of bed bugs in long-term homeless shelters in New York City, where bed bugs continue to be a major concern. Protocols for managing bed bugs and preventing their introduction and spread will be used and evaluated in shelters. Protocols will be made widely available and will be applicable to other multiple-unit dwellings. These protocols will be developed into training resources and a training session will be held in the New York City area and open to the public, but targeted at pest control professionals, shelter staff, and building managers. This project furthers the mission of the Northeast IPM Center by applying IPM to a critical emerging pest issue to directly reduce the impact of bed bugs and pesticides on human health and economic well-being. Objectives: The overall objective of this project is to develop, demonstrate, and test protocols for bed bug management in urban homeless shelters and extend this information to pest control professionals, municipal agencies, and the public. Demonstration of techniques for bed bug management and evaluation of the protocols will be the focus of the work funded. The development of sound protocols is anticipated to have tremendous impact on shelter managers and residents, tenants and landlords, and many others. i) Objective 1. The first objective is to create a stakeholder advisory group for bed bug management that will develop the management protocols out of their experience. The advisory group will include 2 pest control professionals, several university and extension staff (not limited to New York State), and New York City municipal agency officials. This regional group will gather for a one-day meeting to develop protocols that are feasible and tools for evaluating the success of the protocols. ii) Objective 2. The team (project leader, assistant, Health Department staff, pest control professional, and shelter manager, or staff) will implement the protocols developed by the Advisory Group and set up resources for training shelter staff. The pest control technicians will be given specific instructions on how to manage bed bugs, shelter residents will be given instructions on how to cooperate, and shelter managers will be given resources to make the program work. For example, one non-chemical tool that has been shown to work is the use of mattress dustmite covers that create a barrier between the main harborage and the host. Mattress covers will be provided to shelter managers for evaluation and use. Another helpful tool is direct training of residents in the identification and location of bed bug harborage sites. Resident self-inspection may be a more thorough approach than sole reliance on pest control technician inspections. iii) Objective 3. Evaluate the protocols for bed bug management, and the training materials, and conduct a basic economic analysis of the cost of bed bug management. Evaluation measures for control techniques might include the numbers of bed bugs that can be found at a certain time after treatment. Counts might be made using vacuuming, sticky traps, and/or visual inspection. If circumstances allow, it may also be possible to evaluate new techniques like heat traps or steam cleaning. Shelters may be paired allowing the comparison of shelters where the protocol was tested to shelters with no intervention, where only conventional pest management is being used. Follow-up evaluations to each shelter involved will also be useful to determine the relative long-term efficacy of bed bug management protocols. Proposal Final Report Highlighted in October 2008 IPM Insights

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