Chicago resident shares decades of bed bug experience

Chicago recently ranked as the number one bed bug spot in America. Photo from www.chicagoarchitecturetoday.com.

The Windy City, recently named the top bed bug spot in America, may be home to the wisest, most experienced pest expert of them all: 99-year-old Anna Easter, proprietor of N&L Pest Control.

Easter, just four months shy of her 100^th birthday, has worked in the bed bug industry longer than most – if not all – of her pest control competitors.

In a recent Chicago Sun Times article, she shared several bed bug insights from her years working in the field. While she doesn’t perform exterminations anymore (her business now only sells pest-control products), you can bet she’s seen more than her fair share of infestations.

Here are some highlights from her interview with the Sun Times:

-       “If you go into a bedroom infested by bedbugs, you can smell it,” she said. And, according to the article, that smell is (unfortunately) the odor of human blood.

-       While bed bugs are thought to feed at night, that’s actually a common misconception. “They don’t say it’s ten o’clock at night. Time to go,” she said. “They’ll feed when they’re hungry.”

-       Easter also shared an old family secret to prevent bed bugs. The article notes: “As a child her mother taught her to rub baby powder on her wrists and ankles to ward off the pests and to wash bed linens with vinegar.”

If you want to follow Easter’s lead and prevent bed bugs from coming into your home, try Protect-A-Bed’s Bed Bugs 101 mobile app which offers tips and tricks to identify and prevent those pests.