Pest Control Community

Pardon the language but “Bed Bugs Suck” 

I was reminded of that particular entomological fact last week at the EPA Bed Bug Summit…a governmental meeting sponsored by the Environmental Protection Agency that brought together Government  bureaucrats, university researchers and Pest Management Industry leaders to discuss the growing ‘bed bug problem’.   At the Sheraton Hotel in Crystal City, VA, over three hundred stakeholders assembled for a day and a half to develop recommendations geared towards finding a solution to the ever-increasing pandemic of bed bugs that is sweeping through the country’s urban centers.   Bed bugs have become such a topic of conversation that even Jay Leno paid homage to the scourge that now plagues many of our hotels, apartments and even private homes, after having disappeared for nearly fifty years. 

The long time host of The Tonight Show joked in his monologue on April 15th… ”in Arlington Virginia the EPA is holding something called the National Bed Bug Summit so health officials will offer advice as to how to combat the growing problem with bed bugs and it’s being held at the Crystal City Sheraton Hotel.   See…that’s when you know the economy is bad…when the Sheraton Hotel is thrilled to be hosting the bed bug summit”.  “Hey”, Leno quipped…”Be sure to come back in June for the big head lice symposium…you don’t want to miss that. “ 

But I digress.  Despite the warning that we heard our parents and grandparents say time and time again as we readied for bed, “Sleep tight…don’t let the bed bugs bite”, bed bugs don’t bite…they suck.  Oh sure, I know we all think having an infestation is unfortunate and you might have heard a frustrated tenant or a homeowner at their wits end say that bed bugs ‘suck’.  I think most of us agree that having an infestation of blood sucking ectoparasites invading the innermost sanctum that is our bedroom really stinks.  But I’m speaking very technically about what happens when a bed bug feeds…they don’t bite…THEY SUCK.  Insects of the order Hemiptera to which bedbugs belong have piercing-sucking mouthparts, and inject a straw-like proboscis into our skin through which they suck blood, in contrast to insects with chewing mouthparts that can actually bite. 

Bed bugs are such a current public issue that Rep. G.K. Butterfield, D-N.C., has introduced a bill in Congress to expand grant programs to help public housing authorities cope with infestations. The bill will be called the “Don’t Let the Bedbugs Bite Act” but I think more correctly it should be called the “Don’t Let the Bedbugs Suck Act”.   

So the next time you tuck your little ones into bed, remember that a bed bug does not truly bite…it sucks…but if you are technically correct, the bedtime rhyme will never be the same.  “Oh yuck…don’t let the bed bugs suck”…just doesn’t have same ring to it. 

TAGS: Bed Bugs, EPA Bed Bug Summit, American Pest Management