Bed bugs arrive via special delivery!

by Tommy Underhill
June 10, 2022

No need to feel shame about needing to call a bed bug exterminator because a bed bug infestation makes you feel dirty. I hope this blog brings feelings of normalcy to your life.

I’ve seen a lot of things over the past 20 years I’ve been working with bed bugs and heat, and this was a first for me! This morning, I was on a phone call with a pest control operator in Texas who related a bed bug inspection where they found a horrible bed bug infestation… something out of most folk’s nightmares. Bed bugs were everywhere and they were thick. After some investigation, the pest control operator found the probable source of their bed bugs… and it wasn’t what anyone expected.

For months, this person’s children had been sending them medical supplies from a large, well-known, online retailer. Some of the old, brown shipping boxes were still in the house; a new package was on the table.

As the exterminator made his inspection, of course he assumed he would find bed bugs on the old delivery boxes since they were within the bed-bug-infested area. He really didn’t pay them all that much attention, moving them to look at the furniture and carpeting underneath. Something caught his eye on one of the shipping boxes that was torn. The interior cardboard fluting was visible… there— in the fluting that would be on the inside construction of the cardboard box wall— were bed bugs!

“OK,” he thought. “Bed bugs feel at home in tight crevasses like mattress seams. These bed bugs got into the open fluting as they moved across the torn, discarded boxes and found the crevices homey.” To test his hypothesis, he ripped one side of the cardboard skin from another box and found shed bed bug skins inside the box construction. “This is not what I expected,” he said to himself. He had a possibly plausible explanation: all of these boxes had been within their home for some time and the bed bugs, seeking harborage and refuge during the day, could have migrated into the fluting.

Seeing the unopened and intact box on the table, he asked if he could open the box. “Sure,” said the elderly homeowner.

Our pest control technician opened the box to find a baby-changing pad with no bed bugs inside the box or on the pad. As he peeled the facing from the cardboard box, the source became apparent: live bed bugs in the fluting of this recently delivered and unopened box.

Bed bugs are expert hitch-hikers and continue to find their ways into your home via pathways that sometimes amaze us. Don’t feel shame or stigma from bed bugs. Treating with GreenTech Heat equipment allows you to eliminate the infestation in just one day with clean, chemical-free heat. Call today, and tomorrow you’ll be glad you did.

For pest control operators, property management, university dorms, housing authorities, senior housing, restaurants, airlines, and apartment owners, GreenTech Heat technology is 100% effective for bed bugs, cockroaches, and all other insects. Heat is an effective tool to drive market share, increase profits, and improve customer satisfaction. Our certified training lets you do it right and do it safely the first time, reducing call-backs. Heat safely kills insects and microbes everywhere they may be found in a single one-day treatment. Call us at 888-699-3944. We have bed bug heaters for sale so you can get started with heat today and self-treat with heat on your schedule.