By Jay Canzonier, Employee Housing Management Specialist, Cornell Ag Workforce Development
With spring weather upon us, farm employees across New York are making annual migrations to their homes for the planting and harvest seasons. With their friendly faces comes the season’s excitement and anticipation….but beware, travelers of an unfriendly nature may also arrive. Bed bugs do not seek poor hygiene, but environments optimal to their opportunistic lifestyles. Bed bugs thrive in communal living of people coming together from different locations. Sound familiar?
Bed Bug management in farm-provided employee housing is manageable through a diligent, multistep strategy:
- Inspection: Before, during, and after occupancy. Bed bugs are easiest to detect when the facilities are free from bedding and personal belongings.
- Identification: Be able to identify all growth stages of bed bugs and evidence of bed bugs.
- Prevention: Eliminate safe havens, use bug-proof zippered encasements on mattresses and box springs, and inspect furniture and other items that bed bugs may travel in before they are brought into housing.
- Orientation for residents: How to avoid, identify, and report bed bug issues.
- Treatment: With pesticides labeled for such use and other mitigation measures.
Note: In New York State, all pesticide applications to farm-provided employee housing must be performed by a resident who has a signed lease or by someone who has met the state’s certification and training requirements for Structural Pest Control.
For more information in identifying and managing bed bugs in farm-provided employee housing, visit these helpful publications:
Bed Bugs – Cornell CALS: Fact Sheets by NYS Integrated Pest Management.
Bed Bugs Action Plan for Migrant Worker Housing: fact sheet by Dini M. Miller, Ph.D., Department of Entomology, Virginia Tech. NOTE: Pesticides mentioned in the document from Virginia might not be registered for use in New York State. Go to www.dec.ny.gov/nyspad/products to find out.
Bedbug Control Video in Spanish: from the Cornell Farmworker program.
How to Select a Pesticide Product: fact sheets from Cornell Cooperative Extension Pesticide Safety Program.
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By Jay Canzonier, Cornell University. Permission granted to repost, quote, and reprint with author attribution.
The post It’s Bed Bug Season appeared in The Ag Workforce Journal
