HOUSTON – Bed bugs are spreading across the country, and so is concern over do-it-yourself treatments.
"It's embarrassing to say that you've got bed bugs," one Houstonian said.
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Unfortunately, bed bugs are becoming a real problem in Houston. Area exterminators said they've gone from one or two cases a month to a case or two a day.
"The issue of bed bugs in Houston, Texas, is over double what it was last year," said Raleigh Jenkins of ABC Pest Control.
Some people are willing to do anything to get rid of bed bugs.
"We started using the sprays and soaked the beds enough that it would retard them," another Houstonian said.
The government has said some treatments have proven to be dangerous. One person has died and dozens more have gotten sick.
"We can't figure out exactly if bed bugs are a health risk, they're just a nuisance," said compounding pharmacist Chris Barnett of Westchase Specialty Pharmacy. "Chemicals, very definitely, are a health risk when they're used inappropriately."
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a warning after it evaluated 111 cases. Officials said people were using the wrong kinds of sprays, mixing fumigators and generally using too much.
"The side effects of that are going to be things like headaches, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, tremors and difficulty breathing," Barnett said. "They're generally going to be pretty rough."
Using too much or multiple "safe" products can have bad results.
"If you put two chemicals together, you're going to get a reaction," Barnett said.
"You do not want to just blindly grab a chemical and start spraying away," Jenkins said.
Jenkins said bed bugs just are not easy to kill.
"If you do not get 100 percent, then you're going to be treating and treating and battling this thing until you finally break down and do the proper thing," Jenkins said.
To avoid using chemicals where people sleep, Jenkins said his company uses heat instead.
"We're taking temperatures up to 125, 130 degrees and holding it there for a certain amount of time so that we hit that threshold of 100 percent killed," Jenkins said.
Treatments can cost about $800 for an apartment and $2,000 for a house.
The last do-it-yourself plan is to just toss everything, but dumping infested furniture is actually the worst thing to do. It allows the bed bugs to spread all over town.
Jenkins said that even though they're called "bed" bugs, they're not just confined to mattresses.
"You can take a tape measure and go up to 15, 20 feet away," he said.
The bugs are known to move, and they can crawl in and hide out in luggage and bags, traveling right along with their human host.
Some studies are being done in Canada to determine if bed bugs can transmit blood diseases from one person to another. The only known problems are irritating bites and psychological stress.