Created by Susan Jones, a professor of entomology with The Ohio State University’s College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences (CFAES), the Bed Bug Field Guide app comes complete with photos, descriptions and enough information for consumers to know, definitively, what bed bugs look like, where to find them and how to get rid of them. Most importantly, it reviews how to ward off an infestation in the first place.
Jones has been studying bed bugs for more than a decade and is a founding member of the Central Ohio Bed Bug Task Force.
“Bed bugs can be found in homes, in the workplace, in schools, hotels, theaters, vehicles, in the soles of your shoes, nearly anywhere,” Jones said. “And, because they’re expensive to get rid of and many people are using ineffective chemicals trying to kill them, bed bugs aren’t going anywhere.
“The bed bug problem is not going away, so we wanted to create an app to get factual, relevant information into the hands of as many people as possible in an easy-to-use format,” Jones said. “There’s so much misinformation out there, so we wanted to provide the most factual information that we can about bed bugs.”
With that in mind, Jones worked over the past year creating and writing the bed bug app. The app was funded through a grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency via U.S. EPA Region V pass-through funding to the Ohio Department of Agriculture, Division of Plant Health, and developed by EduTechnologic.
In addition to photos, the app contains multiple chapters on all things bed bugs, including:
If consumers think they have bed bugs but aren’t sure, Chapter One: How to Identify Bed Bugs, can help them decide.
Chapter Four: Preventing Bed Bugs explains how to avoid getting bed bugs in the first place. (Hint: Make sure that a bed bug inspection of second-hand items is part of a normal routine.) Chapter Three: Inspecting for Bed Bugs tells how to do so.
Want to get rid of bed bugs? Chapter Seven: Treating for Bed Bugs explains how. (Hint: It’s not easy or cheap, but hiring a professional is preferable to do-it-yourself approaches, which tend to fail.)
Chapter Nine: Advice for Residential Visits explains how consumers can safely visit people who have bed bugs in their homes and not bring the bugs home with them.
Chapter 11: What Not to Do for Bed Bugs dispels many myths about bed bugs.
In Chapter 8: Tips for Travelers, Jones offers tips to reduce the likelihood of returning home with hitchhiking bed bugs.
The app, which is available for Android and iOS devices, can be downloaded free by searching for “Bed Bug Field Guide” in the App Store and Google Play Store. The app frequently will be updated with additional information.
Source: The Ohio State University
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