Thousands Line Up for Bed Bug Webinar

Over 3,000 people registered for a recent webinar called “Lowering Costs with an In-House Bed Bug Prevention and Management Plan” hosted by the StopPests in Housing Program of the Northeastern IPM Center. WebEx, the webinar hosting provider, enabled the first 1,000 users to sign in; over 2,000 people have watched the recording. The event took place on September 10.

Dini Miller and Molly Stedfast from Virginia Tech shared their extensive knowledge on bed bug prevention and management in multifamily housing. The audience was mainly from the affordable housing community including property managers, maintenance staff, contract officers, and service coordinators. Professor Miller is an internationally recognized expert on bed bug biology, behavior, and control. She is the urban pest management specialist for the state of Virginia and heads up the Dodson Urban Pest Management Lab at Virginia Tech. Molly Stedfast is the director of the new Bed Bug and Urban Pest Information Center at Virginia Tech.

Attendees learned about the importance of inspection, monitoring devices, staff education, and working with pest management companies. The pros and cons of treatment options including heat, diatomaceous earth, and chemicals were discussed but all who attended now know there is no silver bullet in bed bug control. Success depends on an integrated pest management (IPM) approach combining varied methods of monitoring, prevention, and treatment.

The interest in this webinar reflects the growing demand for information on bed bug prevention and management.

“To my knowledge, this is the biggest WebEx webinar we’ve had,” said, M. Scott Walters, instructional technology specialist at Cornell.

The recorded webinar is available at http://www.stoppests.org/vtechbedbug.