Bed bugs in apartment buildings are become an increasingly worse issue, for many different reasons. For apartment owners and managers, it used to be that 90% of the budget for pest control was for general pests, and 10% for bed bugs. In recent years, we’ve seen that change to 90% spent on bed bugs and 10% other pests! This crazy change is because bed bugs are a significant issue in our area, and unfortunately bed bugs in apartment buildings are increasingly more common.

Why Apartment Buildings are Higher Risk

Apartment buildings can be the perfect storm for a few different reasons.

Reason 1; Shared walls, shared halls, shared laundry etc. A tenant can very easily drop bugs off around an apartment building during routine daily activities. If person A has bed bugs and walks down a hall way, or goes to the laundry room or sits on a chair in the lobby, this can be the start of spreading the issue throughout the building. The bugs will look for someone else to hitchhike on or another door to crawl under. Bugs can also get dropped off furniture during the moving process if a tenant is moving in or out.

Some apartment building structures can also be very conducive to spreading bed bugs. Any sort of shared heating vents or plumbing entry points for example, can lead to bed bugs going from one unit to another.

Reason 2; Friends and neighbors often visit each other, so if one person has an issue, it can quickly spread just by visiting each other or kids playing together in one apartment to the next.

Reason 3; Bed bugs travel fast! We may not be doing much traveling these days, but bed bugs are still on the move. An Ohio State University Study showed how tagged bed bugs on one floor spread throughout an apartment building quickly, under a variety of different situations. In some instances only a few bugs were able to travel throughout the entire apartment building in just a few short weeks.

Unfortunately any one of these reasons (or any combination) can lead to a serious infestation pretty quickly.

What to do if you Find Bed Bugs in your Apartment Building

We work with apartment owners, property managers and residents across Northeast Ohio to identify and treat bed bug issues in a single unit, or throughout an entire property. The very first thing to do is to call a professional bed bug extermination company. Learn more about our services for apartment properties!

Do not self treat, as DIY products are repellant based and can spread bed bugs throughout the apartment building even further.

If you’ve discovered a bed bug problem in your apartment building, give us a call today to go over the steps to take next!