Bite Back Winnipeg is a dedicated program focused on supporting local residents in their battle against bed bugs. With a mission to address and mitigate bed bug infestations, the program provides essential resources and assistance to those in need. By fostering a proactive and collaborative approach, Bite Back Winnipeg plays a vital role in promoting healthier living environments for the community.

WERC is committed to providing essential services to enhance the living standards of our community in the Daniel McIntyre/ St. Matthews neighbourhood. We proudly offer complimentary items such as Spring Covers, Mattress Covers, Defender Cups, and Masks to our residents. Moreover, we provide Steamer rentals free of charge to our local residents when available.

WERC provides steamer and vacuum rentals free to residents of our neighbourhood (Daniel McIntyre/ St. Matthews) when available. At times, we will rent these items to people outside our neighbourhood at a rate of $40 for a three day period. A $50 refundable deposit and piece of photo ID is required. Contact us for availability.If you live in another Neighbourhood Development Corporation's catchment area, see above for a list, contact them to see what bed bug services they provide.

For city-wide services and initiatives, such as the Bug N Scrub program, visit the Province of Manitoba’s bed bug website or contact their Bed Bug Hotline at 1-855-3MB-BUGS (1-855-362-2847) or bedbugs@gov.mb.ca.

How Does Someone Get Bedbugs?

Bed bugs make their way around the community by hitchhiking. You can bring them into your home by:  

• Taking in used clothing or upholstered furniture such as couches and mattresses. A good rule of thumb is: if you find it in a back lane, leave it there. You may be taking home someone else’s infestation.Most used furniture and clothing shops don't treat their stock for bed bugs. Ask before you buy and if they don’t, examine the items carefully for signs of bed bug activity before bringing items into your house. 

• You or someone in your household may have visited a home, hotel or public space that had bed bugs. It is a myth that the presence of bed bugs has something to do with a building's condition or is the sign of an unclean house. Bed bugs don’t discriminate. You can pick them up as easily at a five-star resort as you can at a hostel.If you are concerned about picking up bed bugs while travelling see the Resources section for travel tips. 

If you need to visit a place that has bed bugs there are ways to reduce your chances of taking them back to your home: 

• Don't take your coat off or put your bag down. 

• Sit on hard surfaces rather than upholstered furniture. 

• Once you have left, stomp your feet and shake your jacket out. Bed bugs don’t have grippers on their legs and are easy to dislodge. 

• As a final precaution, when you return home you can remove and shake out your clothes in your bathtub. Put the clothes in a plastic bag end empty it directly into the dryer on “high” for a full cycle.

Signs To Look For

Most people first realize they have bed bugs when they see bite marks. Bed bugs are mainly nocturnal and will bite you in your sleep. Their saliva can cause red welts that become itchy.

Not everyone reacts in the same way to bed bug bites. Two people can sleep in the same bed and one might have a severe reaction while the other will barely notice them.

Your “bed bug bites” could be other things, such as fleas from your pet or an allergic reaction to a new laundry soap. Before you can do anything definite in terms of treating your home for bed bugs you will need to spot them or their traces.

There are seven stages to a bed bug’s life. As an adult they have six legs, no wings, and are reddish brown in colour. They are approximately the size and shape of an apple seed.

If you don’t find actual bugs, there are other tell-tale signs that they are around.

Just like mice, the presence of a bed bug’s poop, or spotting, is a giveaway. It appears as little dark brown dots and will usually smear when you wipe it. Bed bugs will also leave behind shedded skins from when they morphed from larvae into adults.

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Bed bugs will stay close to their food source – which is you. When looking for signs of activity start within a three meter radius of your bed and check the following places: 

• Beds: Check the bedding and put it in plastic bags to bring to the dryer. Then, inspect your mattress and box spring, including the decorative piping, inside the seams and behind any plastic corner protectors. Be sure check the joints and any empty screw holes in your bed frame. 

• Dressers and night tables: Empty and pull out the drawers. Check inside then flip them over to check underneath. “Chip board” is a material bed bugs can hide in so be sure to turn over the furniture or tilt it back to inspect the underside where the chip board meets the floor. 

• Carpets or rugs: Check in the fibres and underneath the carpet and any underlay. 

• Electrical outlets: Remove the cover plates and look behind them. 

• Skirting boards and floor boards: Check the space between floor boards and where the skirting board meets the floor. Drag a thin piece of plastic, such as a disposable knife, through these spaces to see if there are bugs or skins in there. 

• Walls: Inspect curtains and blinds as well as behind hangning photos, posters and rips in the wallpaper.

What Should I Do If I Have Bed Bugs?

First off, DON'T PANIC!

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Bed bugs can be eradicated, but the sooner you act the better it is as females can lay between 200-500 eggs at a time and they hatch within two weeks.

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If you are a RENTER you must inform your landlord that you suspect you have bed bugs. In turn, they must cover the cost of an inspection and treatment. You are required to cooperate with your landlord and their exterminator by allowing access and preparing your suite.  

It may not seem like it, but you are doing your landlord a favour by informing them as soon as possible of an outbreak as it may require fewer treatments to eradicate them.

If there is inaction on the part of your landlord you can contact the province’s Bed Bug Hotline or the Tenant / Landlord Cooperation worker. Their contact information can be found in the Resources section. In the case of a severe infestation the city can send an inspector to inspect the premises if it is reported to 311.

If you are a PROPERTY OWNER you can self treat or contact an exterminator.

When hiring an exterminator don’t base your decision on cost alone. Be sure you are comparing “apples to apples” by finding out in detail what each company’s treatment entails.  What you need to ask: 

• How many follow up visits does their price include? Most sources say a minimum of two full treatments scheduled days apart are needed. 

• Do they offer a guarantee? What happens if a month later you find that you still have bed bugs?

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• Will they provide you with detailed advice about properly preparing your home in advance of their treatment? Treating a space without proper preparation makes the treatment much less effective. For tips on how to prepare your home for a treatment, see the Resources section.

• Did the exterminator ask you how many rooms and the square footage of the space they are expected to spray? Proper chemicals and labour are expensive, so it would be odd if they could provide you with a quote without knowing this key information.

Self-Treating for Bed Bugs

If you have a bed bug infestation or just want to take precautions, here are five tried and tested steps to self-treating your home. To be most effective, you will need to do all of these steps in conjunction with each other and some may need to be done more than once. 

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 1. Use the Dryer: Bed bugs are very heat sensitive.  Put bedding, clothing, plush items etc. into the dryer on high for a full cycle, about 30 minutes. When done, put items in garbage bags or plastic containers until your treatment is completed. 

2. Declutter: Discard extra clothes, furniture, papers, books and other clutter.  This will make it easier to find bed bugs and their traces. Be sure to mark anything you discard with “may contain bed bugs” to prevent others from finding them and taking them back to their home. 

3. Deep Clean: Now that you have decluttered it is time for a cleaning. Removing any built-up dirt, dust and grime will help in the later steps of treatment, such as vacuuming and steaming.Use a bank card thick piece of plastic such as a disposable knife to scrape along crevices under baseboards and gaps between floorboards. This will scoop out years of debris and maybe even some bugs. 

Wherever you see spotting or skins, clean the area with 99% isopropyl alcohol. This kills bed bugs and their eggs on contact and is most effective if you put it into a spray bottle. The alcohol spray will smell bad at first, but as it evaporates that smell will diminish.The sale of “rubbing alcohol”, as it is also known, is restricted in Manitoba by the Non-Potable Intoxicating Substances Regulation and not sold on store shelves. Ask your pharmacist about the availability of 99% isopropyl alcohol and let them know what you will be using it for. 

4. Vacuum: Use a good quality vacuum cleaner and tackle all the surfaces you can including furniture, under skirting boards, cracks between floor boards, etc. Use the narrowest attachment or the basic hose to get maximum suction.Try to use a bagless vacuum cleaner and wipe down the canister with 99% isopropyl alcohol when you are done. If you are using a bag vacuum be sure to buy extra bags in advance so that you that you can discard them they get full or if you are leaving the vacuum alone for extended periods.

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 5. Steam Treat: Heat in excess of 45° Celsius, or 113° Fahrenheit, kills bed bugs and their eggs. Use a commercial steam cleaner on your furniture and floors. With the narrowest nozzle, inject steam under baseboards, between floorboards.              

​Be careful when steaming delicate materials, cheap or expensive furniture, plaster walls, coloured fabric, etc.. Do a test patch to make sure that the high temperature will not damage them.

​​Bed Bug Prevention Supplies 

​There are several types of bed bug prevention supplies on the market that offer varying degrees of protection. These do not kill bed bugs, so you are not getting at the root of the problem, but if used in conjunction with a treatment program may be helpful.

Interceptor Cups: These work as a monitoring tool by allowing bed bugs climb the textured exterior, but once inside the cup they cannot crawl out of the smooth interior.

After a treatment, move your bed from the wall and place interceptor cups under your bed legs or couch legs. Check them regularly to see if you still have bed bugs.

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Interceptor cups can be expensive. You don't need them on every bed leg. Do the ones closest to the wall or wherever you think the source of your bed bugs was. You can also make your own.

Another downside to interceptor cups is that by blocking access to their food source – which is you – the bugs may spread out further in search of a new source, which makes treatment more difficult. 

Mattress and Box Spring Covers: These vinyl or polyester covers will seal your mattress and box spring to prevent bed bugs from getting in our out. 

These are recommended if you have just undergone treatment or have bought a new mattress or box spring to replace an infested one. If you are in the midst of an infestation they will not provide a great deal of protection as bed bugs will continue living in your bedding or climb from a wall over your mattress to get to you mattress cover or not.

Caulking and Sealant: A good idea after a treatment is to caulk and seal cracks around your house. This will not kill bed bugs, but will cut down on the number of places you will need to check in future. In many new build or newly renovated apartments care is taken to separate units from each other by sealing common pipes, duct work and conduit to prevent the spread bugs from room to room or unit to unit.

A note about store-bought chemical sprays:  We do not recommend self-treating your home with chemicals. The “bug spray” from discount stores is too weak to effectively kill bed bugs and their perfumes and may send bed bugs deeper into the walls to escape the odour, which makes the infestation harder to treat. The chemicals that are strong enough to be effective against bed bugs can be dangerous. Leave it to the pros. (See the Resources section for more information.)

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A note about freezing: It has been found that freezing an infested item for an extended period at more than -20C will kill adults, but not their eggs. This is colder than most home freezers.

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A note about internet or home remedies: Online you will find many simple, one-step treatments involving common household items like certain brands of laundry detergent, or aromatic oils that will kill bed bugs. We hear many of them here at our resource centre.

These are hard for us to recommend as there has been little, if any, scientific research done to show that they are effective in eradicating an infestation. Use them if you want, but do not let it take away from doing the above tried and true treatment methods. Waiting for even a couple of weeks to test out a home remedy can mean hundreds of new bugs have bred in your home.

Bed Bug Resources

There are a number of websites and other resources that can help in the fight against bed bugs.

The West Central Bedbug Coalition 

• Aside from this website, the coalition has produced a one-page information sheet entitled Steps to treating a bed bug infestation. 

  
  

General Bed Bug Information

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• The Province of Manitoba's Bed Bug home page has a great deal of information, including links to videos and fact sheets in multiple languages. 

• The Province of Manitoba's Bed Bug Hotline, toll free at  1-855-3MB-BUGS (1-855-362-2847) or email bedbugs@gov.mb.ca, provides information about identifying bed bugs, treatment options, tenant / landlord rights and responsibilities and available city-wide programs, etc. 

• The Bed Bug Field Guide App from Ohio State University is very thorough and allows you to have information about identifying, monitoring and treating bed bugs right at your fingertips. It is available free at Google Play for android and the Apple App Store. 

• The New York City Public Health Department has a very good bed bug website. Specific information about legislation and contact information obviously does not apply in Manitoba, but some of their reference material, such as the 'Is it a bed bug, carpet beetle of cockroach?' information sheet and the 'Preventing and getting rid of bed bugs safely' booklet are excellent resources. 

• The University of Minnesota's 'Let's Beat the Bed Bug!' website is another excellent out of town resource with sections for renters, homeowners, building managers and travellers. 

• The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Bed Bugs: Get them out and keep them out is one of the most comprehensive websites on the issue of bed bugs.

  
  

Tenant / Landlord Information

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• The Residential Tenancies Branch provides fact sheets about the rights and responsibilities of landlords and tenants when it comes to bed bugs. You can also contact the nearest RTB office to discuss the matter in more detail. 

• The Tenant Landlord Cooperation (TLC) program is managed by the North End Community Renewal Corporation (NECRC) and assists tenants and landlords with rental issues. They have one worker who deals with inquiries outside of the North End and can help answer questions about the rights and responsibilities of landlords and tenants when it comes to bed bugs.

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Information for Travellers

• Simple ways to avoid bed bugs when you travel - NYC Public Health Department 

• Inspecting your hotel room for bed bugs - University of Minnesota

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​Programs

• The provincial Bug N Scrub program assists vulnerable persons who need help due to limitations that prevent them from preparing their home, such as moving furniture, general cleaning, laundry service, and reducing and removing clutter 

• Age and Opportunity's This Full House program can assist those aged 55+ that have issues with hoarding. Extreme clutter makes it very difficult to effectively treat for bed bugs or any other infestation.

• Oyate Tipi offers a for hire bed bug heat treatment and moving service. For more information about their program, see their website.

  
  

Bed Bug Supplies

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• See the 'About Bite Back' tab for links to coalition members, some of which provide bed bug supplies and services to  clients and those living in their catchment area. Some lend out the Vapamore 100 Primo Steam Cleaner. For information about how to safely use the Vapamore to kill bed bugs see this company video.

• The Province of Manitoba offers a Non-Profit Bed Bug Grant for community organizations to purchase bulk bed bug supplies. 

• The Province of Manitoba now sells bed bug supplies directly to the public through the Bed Bug Materials Prevention Program.

Research Links

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• The Social Impacts of a Bed Bug Infestation on Winnipeg's Inner-City ResidentsPolicyAlternatives.ca (Canada)

• Review of field tests on bed bug control technologies National Collaborating Centre for Environmental Health (Canada)

• Prevention, identification, and treatment options for the management of bed bug infestations National Collaborating Centre for Environmental Health (Canada) 

• Bed Bugs: A Social health problem? National Collaborating Centre for Infectious Diseases (Canada) 

• Bed Bug Information Clearing House Environmental Protection Agency (U.S.A.)

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