Does the media over cover a topic, and then later not cover it enough? Yes, of course. They cover what is topical, and what others are covering (where do you think many ideas for stories come from?), which is why some subjects get covered ad nauseum.

Relating this to pests, coverage was widespread about Lyme’s Disease (ticks), and then West Nile Virus (mosquitoes), and now Bed Bugs. Have those other diseases or pests gone away? No. From a business standpoint, we are seeing far more impact by bed bugs, yet they pose far less health threats than do the others. Bed bugs do pose a threat to one’s psyche - who wants something feeding on them when they sleep?

One expert stated a year ago that bed bugs will only get worse before they get better. That was a year ago and I’ve seen this to be true. I won’t scare people where we’ve found bed bugs and bat bugs in Minnesota and Wisconsin, but we keep finding them in new places. As for hotels, which everyone talks about as being a source, at least here we aren’t seeing many - at least in our accounts.

What do you think will be the next media darling - pest related?

This entry was posted on Monday, July 20th, 2009 at 8:55 am and is filed under Bed Bugs, The Business of Pest Management. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.