MEDICAL ENTOMOLOGY Effectiveness of Bed Bug Monitors for Detecting and Trapping Bed Bugs in Apartments

Bed bugs, Cimex lectularius L., are now considered a serious urban pest in the United States. Because they are small and difÞcult to Þnd, there has been strong interest in developing and using monitoring tools to detect bed bugs and evaluate the results of bed bug control efforts. Several bed bug monitoring devices were developed recently, but their effectiveness is unknown. We comparatively evaluated three active monitors that contain attractants: CDC3000, NightWatch, and a home-made dry ice trap. The Climbup Insect Interceptor, a passive monitor (without attractants), was used for estimating the bed bug numbers before and after placing active monitors. The results of the Interceptors also were compared with the results of the active monitors. In occupied apartments, the relative effectiveness of the activemonitorswas: dry ice trap CDC3000 NightWatch. In lightly infested apartments, the Interceptor (operated for 7 d) trapped similar number of bed bugs as the dry ice trap (operated for 1 d) and trappedmore bed bugs than CDC3000 and NightWatch (operated for 1 d). The Interceptorwas alsomore effective than visual inspections in detecting the presence of small numbers of bed bugs. CDC3000 and the dry ice trap operated for 1 d were equally as effective as the visual inspections for detecting very low level of infestations, whereas 1-d deployment of NightWatch detected signiÞcantly lowernumberof infestations comparedwithvisual inspections.NightWatchwas designed to be able to operate for several consecutive nights. When operated for four nights, NightWatch trappedsimilarnumberofbedbugsas the Interceptorsoperated for10dafterdeployment ofNightWatch.We conclude thesemonitors are effective tools in detecting early bed bug infestations and evaluating the results of bed bug control programs.