After a 50-year hiatus, bedbugs are back in the developed world due to a resistance in currently used pesticides putting Americans at an increased risk of finding the critters in dorm and hotel rooms.
Isolated incidents of bedbugs have occurred a few times this year in UF dorm rooms, according to Wayne Walker, senior pest control technician at UF.
Sharon Blansett, assistant director of housing for research and organizational development at UF, said the incidents occurred in graduate housing and family housing on campus.
Blansett said she attributes the infestations to students bringing the bugs back after traveling overseas and buying previously infested furniture.
The outbreaks, which have also occurred at Ohio State University and other colleges, are treated with insecticides, extreme heat and steam cleaning, Walker said.
Margie Pfiester, a doctoral student in the UF department of entomology who studies bedbugs, said that the old means of exterminating bedbugs have lost their effectiveness.
Entomologists are advocating the reintroduction of insecticides previously banned by the Environmental Protection Agency, she said.
Pfiester recommends checking dorm rooms and hotel beds when traveling to prevent getting latched onto by the blood-sucking bugs.
When arriving at a hotel she puts her luggage down on a safe surface and strips her bed, checking for the apple seed-shaped bugs or traces of their fecal matter, she said.
"It doesn't matter if it's a one-star hotel or a five-star hotel, all beds are susceptible," Pfiester said.
Pfiester also said that the lull of bedbug infestation after World War II was a briefly enjoyed abnormality.
"Bedbugs have been documented before Jesus," Pfiester said. "Greeks and Romans wrote about bedbugs."
Although the bugs are annoying and can have psychological consequences for those who are pestered by them, there is no evidence that they transmit disease, she said.
Bedbugs are much more of a problem for students who live off campus, even if they are less likely to contract them in their homes.
Orkin Pest Control in Gainesville offers Vikane fumigation, a very powerful treatment that is three times as toxic as the one they use to treat termites and costs $700 to $800 per home.
Students who live in apartment complexes are often at the mercy of their landlords, as Vikane cannot be applied to a single unit and must be applied to an entire apartment building. This would cost the building owner a huge amount of money, according to a pest control service technician at Orkin.
That's why Margie Pfiester is so adamant about preventing bedbugs before they become a problem.
"You're not going to just wake up with bedbugs one day, you're going to get them from someplace," Pfiester said. "And that is something you definitely do not want."
