The bed bug treatment plan has been pretty consistent in the pest management industry for many years. Massive amounts of customer preparation, constant follow ups, and pulling bedrooms apart to ensure direct application of kill agents that bed bugs become resistant to over time. These plans often did not include guaranteed results, and therefore have been a service opportunity that some companies skip altogether.
By combining some game-changing bed bug control products, we believe we can completely change how bed bugs are treated. We can do this with a customer friendly treatment plan that doesn’t use a single pyrethroid or neonicotinoid insecticide. As with all bed bug treatments, the first step we recommend is vacuuming and removal of as many live bed bugs and bed bug material (not sure what you mean by material) as you can, but that will only remove most of the sneaky sleep suckers. The real value of a treatment is eliminating the remaining bed bugs to not only end the life cycle that has started in your customers space, but also prevent reestablishment. Bed bugs are driven to feed and progress their life cycle when a person is sleeping nearby, so one thing we know is that they will expose themselves on a routine basis no matter how hidden they are when you do a clean out.
By using the Aprehend® bio pesticide system along with the long-lasting and low toxicity desiccant CimeXa® dust, you can create barrier systems that use the bed bug’s biology against them. Not only can this treatment make the claim that it is effective at ending a bed bug infestation with just these two products, but the residual efficacy of both products ensures less need of reservicing and less chance of reintroduction.
Aprehend® is a spore-based bio pesticide that uses B. Bassiana fungal spores suspended in an oil solution to create a residual barrier that if crossed by a bed bug guarantees death within 14 days (with most bed bugs dying within 7 days of exposure). This is an undetectable and non-repellent treatment that has almost immediate effects on bed bug behavior after exposure even if the final death doesn’t occur immediately. This treatment also is not susceptible to resistance buildup from synthetic active ingredients. So no matter how many battles your bed bug problem has lived through, this will be the last one.
Aprehend® is sprayed in low volume in “barrier” treatments around sleeping surfaces and locations where bed bug harborage is suspected. This allows our proposed treatment with so much less customer prep than traditional bed bug treatments. No need to overturn every part of the room, unpack every box, flip over the bed, and remove all pieces of clutter. Just treat in perimeters around where you know they will be going, which is the sleeping location. While it is able to be applied to box springs, furniture, and walls, it cannot be applied into voids very easily and also cannot be used on mattresses or upholstered furniture. It is a contact-sensitive treatment that would lose efficacy if it was directly contacted or rubbed. This is where a supplemental product can help create a virtually impossible survival situation for the bed bugs you are dealing with.
The other major product involved in the post-removal area denial is CimeXa. This is an amorphous silica dust that when contacted by an arthropod’s exoskeleton will cause immediate irritation, rapid moisture loss, and a quick death.
The niche that CimeXa fills here is that any kind of void spaces nearby, the folds of a mattress or chair, and even other flat surface perimeters can all be treated with CimeXa. And since it is a very stable dust with a mineral-based active ingredient, it can remain effective if undisturbed for up to 10 years.
So while both Aprehend® and CimeXa® are excellent bed bug control products by themselves, incorporating both of them into a bed bug treatment protocol makes them a deadly duo. This is a novel treatment that is able to attack bed bugs two different ways and use their own drive to feed against them. With proper trainings for your team, (which we are happy to help with) you can deliver these services that stand out from local competition, discard the classic “two week follow up/retreatment”, and deliver the longest residual and least invasive bed bug treatment on the market.