Parent of a college student? Beware of bed bugs!

By: Mike Garrity

KSDK -- Bed Bugs have become a real problem on college campuses nation-wide, a growing problem in the last 3 years especially.

With Holiday breaks approaching pest control professionals are warning parents to take action

Whether they're going to school on the east or west coasts, or closer to home, many students have become unsuspecting bed bug victims.

Locally, the University of Central Missouri, Northwest Missouri, and Missouri State have all had to deal with bed bug issues in student housing this fall.

Closer to home local pest control professionals won't name names, but say they have been called to fight bed bugs at colleges and fraternity houses in the St. Louis area as well.

"We've seen a resurgence of these bed bugs coming in town, and its something we haven't seen in a long time." Gary Rottler, Operations Manager for Rottler Pest and Lawn Solutions tells us.

"In almost 30 years of doing this work, up until about five years ago, I could probably count on one hand how many jobs we did for bed bugs, but the past few years its been considerably high," Rottler says.

Experts say college students are known to swap furniture, including beds, and sometimes bring in old furniture left outdoors, and those are just some of the ways the bugs can be introduced, and spread.

"When kids go to school they're on a tight budget, and they are going to swap furniture, and swap beds, and you've got students coming from around the world, and some of the folks from around the world don't necessarily have the same practices that we have here in the U.S.," says Rottler.

They can come into a school setting via student luggage, especially coming in from overseas.

"We had a customer that had a daughter at school over in France, and we're not sure if the daughter brought them home, or Mom brought them back, but they got them," says Rottler.

The bugs are often found under sheets, on mattress edges, and they can leave bloody brown stains.

Also, they do bite.

University of Central Missouri Freshman Allie Edwards had bed bugs in her dorm room two different times this fall.

She was bitten all over her legs.

"It was bad. It was all swollen up. It was like welts. It looked like I had hives," Edwards said.

Paying to rid a home of bed bugs be costly. Bills can run as high as a thousand to fifteen-hundred bucks.

"We basically use heat, we'll steam a bed, we'll purchase mattress covers that you'll literally lock them into the bed, as opposed to throwing the bed away itself, and then we go on an intense weekly regiment to the home, or to the room that we're going to treat, and we don't give up until they're gone," explains Rottler.

What's the story with the recent nationwide bed bug explosion?

Experts cite increased international travel and government restrictions on powerful insecticides that they used to use, like the chemical "D.D.T.".

Rottler says bed bugs are, "extremely difficult to control. Us, as professionals, and all the products that we have, we can't apply those products to a bed itself. So it becomes a very sensitive area to treat, and these guys (bed bugs) they reproduce so fast, they get into the tiny areas and difficult areas to treat."

Experts warn parents, when their students come home for break, unpack their luggage outside the house, or inside the garage, then bring their clothes inside via plastic bag, and finally, run the clothes through the washer and dryer.

They say high heat, or a hot wash will kill bed bugs.

"Their laundry, their luggage, they're picking them up somewhere in their dorm and they're bringing them back. And our suggestion is when the kids come home with a couple of bags of laundry in their suitcase, is leave it out in the garage and inspect it. Maybe put it in some plastic bags and get right in the laundry machines, hot water, and get it in that dryer as fast you can," recommends Rottler.