Why are the bugs hard to kill?
Common bed bugs are small, thin, and can hide deep in very narrow cracks. They are mainly active at night. They will routinely travel as far as a 20-foot radius from their hiding places (and back) in one night to take a blood meal. Bed bugs are very adaptable. They move much quicker, and can pass through much smaller openings or cracks, than most people expect. Even Ph.D. entomologists who work with live bed bugs for the first time are often surprised. Bed bugs can detect (and often avoid) chemical deposits such as some cleaning agents. Adult bed bugs can live longer than a whole year without feeding and most currently labeled insecticides used against them in the U.S., Canada, Europe and Australia, do not last more than one to three months when applied by a well-trained and competent PMP. In addition, there are reports in older literature that state that certain populations of bed bugs have developed physiological resistance to specific chemical insecticides in past, making these prod
