Finally, a breakthrough in bed bug detection

By Lucy Cohen Blatter | March 7, 2012 - 12:22PM

And now for some good news on the bed bug front.

A new product hitting the market this week makes it much easier to tell if you have a true bed bug infestation (or are just being paranoid--or getting scammed by an 'exterminator') and it already has the skeptics at Bedbugger.com singing its praises.

First, a quick brief on a crucial point: One of the easiest ways to detect the presence of bed bugs is through fecal staining (bed bug poop) which looks like dark little dots on your sheets and mattress. The trouble is, it can be hard to tell what's what if you're not an expert--and even experts can have trouble making an accurate confirmation.

As its name suggests, the new Bed Bug Blue Fecal Spot Detection Kit helps people see whether or not the dots they see are, in fact, the poop of bed bugs.

The kit is portable (good news for those trying to avoid picking up bed bugs while traveling -- or apartment hunting...), and consists of a bottle of solution, detection tape and cotton swabs: Swab the mysterious spots, rub the it on the detection tape, dab some solution on and wait for the result, pregnancy-kit-style--only in this case, blue means it's time to panic. Check out the video to see how it works.

The kit is being sold online by our friends at U.S. Bedbugs, in a quantity designed for an exterminator (100 tests for about $100). A $29.95 kit for consumers use--good for about 20 tests--will be available by the end of this month.

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