Hello all. This is my first post for Rentokil, but I felt I just had to share what happened with me today with people as it was really shocking. I work for Rentokil as a Technician, and much of my day is made up of visiting homes and businesses looking for pests and helping get rid of infestations. Today started out pretty normally (get my equipment ready, plan my route, a couple of visits to business sites) and then got really weird.
I visited a residential customer, who had called about being bitten during the night. I reckoned it might be bed bugs or fleas or some other little insect (its hard to tell normally) but once I got there it was really obvious that they had a bed bug problem! Normally these little things are hard to find, and you have to look very carefully to find them in mattress seams, cracks and crevices. This time though, well, let me just say I saw a monster bed bug straight away. It was the size of cockroach! Literally! I nearly jumped out of my skin when it started walking towards me – see the picture!
Normally bed bugs are tiny, its just about possible to spot an adult, but a nymph, forget it (they can grow to about to about 5mm as an adult). This one was nearly 20mm – 4 times as big as any I have ever seen! I had to force myself to catch it and put it in a jar that the lady who lived there gave me. Luckily I only spotted the one…
I have handed over the bed bug to our Divisional entomologists to see if they can see what has happened – but I reckon it’s some sort of mutation or maybe even a cross between a bed bug and a cockroach!
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Yesterday one of our UK technicians handed a giant bed bug into us here at the Rentokil European Technical Centre, saying that he reckons it is either a mutation or a cockroach crossed with a bed bug.
Although I am in South Africa right now, my colleagues tell me they have had a good look at it and that nobody in Rentokil has ever seen a bed bug as big as this. We have done quite a lot of work with external bed bug experts from universities around the world, and we have asked some of them to have a look at the photos we took. So far, none of them have seen anything like it either, and they have asked us to see if they can study it in more detail to see if this is a new strain not seen before.
We know that bed bugs are becoming immune to some of the insecticides that have been used over the last 5-10 years, and we also know that Insect Growth Regulators (IGRs) can actually produce super-numary nymphs that are bigger than adult bed bugs, and require bigger feeds as well. However, neither of these explanations would seem to explain the amazing size of this bed bug. Our Chief Entomologist believes that this must be some sort of freakish natural exception. However, we have sent the specimen off to one of our university contacts to see what they can discover.
More news when we get it.
That’s terrifying. I wouldn’t like to find something like that at home.
Let’s hope this is just one off mutation – otherwise soon it will be them spotting for human beings rather than us trying to spot an infestation sign.
A good entertaining story (and picture) about the bed bug!
Can we get a resumé at another date?
You’re joking, right????
Nice April Fools joke!
check the date people
After reading this, last night I had a night mare about a big bedbug hanging off my hair. I screamed at first but then I thought I can bring this specimen to Rentokil R&D and they can incubate the eggs to see if they will become mutant bedbugs. My excitement of finding a new species of bedbug woke me up. It will be very cool if this story is true and a new species of bedbug was found.
I feel all itchy!!!
I actually think this blog is really rather good – opens your eyes to all those nasties out there!
I have been bitten by bed bugs – TWICE! SOOOOO itchy! (Not in my own bed I must add!)
Nice April fools, but your pictures gave it away you need to spend more time in photoshop.
@ aj: I thought the one of the hand was pretty good, perhaps not the ruler one so much!
@LGC: If not at home, must have been away. Take a look at my post on “Bed Bugs and me” for top tips when travelling.
fake. if anyone of you believed that – well youre goddamn dumb
Having just seen this used on an external blog post in the US, please can I confirm that this was an APRIL FOOLS JOKE timed to coincide with the blog launch (as we specifically state on the authors page here).
In the first place I was terrified by the article. It was so fine when I saw that it was just a joke.
looks lie a juvanile radroech
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