A bed bug infestation that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has been battling in one of its buildings since May is an example of how the pests can become a problem in places where people don’t expect them. 

“Bed bugs are cosmopolitan,” Shannon Sked, national technical director at pest-control giant Orkin, told Facilities Dive. “They can be anywhere, any time, for any reason. There is only one conducive condition, and that is people.”

Although bed bugs feed on human blood, they haven’t been shown to transmit disease, he said. They can cause skin infections and trigger psychological responses, however, and significantly to facilities managers, can create operational and reputational damages that extend beyond their initial infestation.  

Recent office outbreaks

The USDA outbreak was reported in May at the George Washington Carver Center in Beltsville, Maryland, where the agency’s animal and plant inspection service operates. The building was treated, but USDA officials notified workers later that month that bed bugs were still in the building, NOTUS reported. 

Similarly, Google’s office in New York was hit with bed bugs last year, with some employees pointing the finger at colleagues who had brought oversized stuffed animals into the building. “Large stuffed animals … are rumored to be implicated in the outbreak,” a Wired article said.  

Sked said his team once found bed bugs in a state office facility in which employees tended to minimize the amount of time they spent in the office, which ordinarily helps protect against infestation. “Basically, everybody was gone at 4:30 p.m. …. And nobody showed up before, like, 6:30 a.m., so nobody was staying overnight. And still we had an embedded, established bed bug population there.” 

While it’s rare, he’s also found them in rail cars, furniture stores, distribution centers and movie theaters, he said. The highest-risk areas are hotels and other hospitality facilities, followed by multifamily housing units and facilities where furniture is moved and stored. 

Data Orkin released in early July identified Chicago as the leading city in bed bug infestations. The city is characteristic of the type of densely populated area, with high rates of resident and visitor turnover, that can be susceptible to infestation, the company says.   

Detection and treatment

Sked recommends facility managers keep a watchful eye for the pests, which, if they spread undetected, can have operational and reputational consequences. 

“The biggest [cost] outside of the control cost is brand and reputation impacts,” he said. 

If you’re running a distribution center, for example, and storing mattresses, couches and other furniture, and you find bed bugs in them, “it could actually impact your business on the revenue and the profit side.”

In case of an infestation, early detection and action is the best scenario, Sked said. “The earlier that we find them, the less [costly] and the more effective the control measures are,” he said. 

For detection, while canine teams can sometimes be effective, it depends on the team, he said. Sometimes, a dog is having a bad day and you can end up with false negatives and false positives, he said. Interceptor traps, which are set for a period of about two weeks, are more consistently effective and can detect bed bugs even when they’re hiding in places other than furniture, he said. 

“We’ve … put them out over by a baseboard in an office environment next to a cubicle line, not even on a piece of furniture, and we have still been able to identify new introductions,” Sked said. “Those interceptors are probably something that’s underutilized by the industry.” 

Bed bugs, alongside mosquitoes, have some of the highest rates of resistance to commercial insect control products on the market, meaning that facility managers should not jump to use over-the-counter remedies like thermal foggers or bed bug bombs, according to Sked. 

“It just doesn’t work all that well,” he said. “When it comes to bed bugs in particular … having a professional with access to professional-grade product is the route you want to go.” 

Sked says as his experience at the state office building made clear, it can significantly impact more than the typical suspects of multifamily and hospitality buildings. 

“We’ve always looked at [those at] hospitals, office environments and movie theaters as being hitchhikers, or introductions,” he said. “My experience with that office environment, where there was an established bed bug population … that took us about three months to finally eradicate, tells a story.”

While the risk is lower at offices and warehouses than in multifamily dwellings or hotels, an infestation can still happen, he said. “[But] if you have a bed bug monitoring program in place, if you can identify and find bed bugs early, and get a professional on site, it can be solved very easily in warehouse environments.”