Sniffing out trouble

“You don’t want to go to work every day and not get paid. He’s the same way,” Josh Brand says when he drops by the News office one February day to introduce Geordie, the newest employee at Standard Pest Control.

Geordie is a highly trained bed bug specialist; he’s been in an educational program for the last two years and has his credentials. He’s only been at his new job two days when we meet him, but he seems excited to be working with Brand and his team.

The only thing that’s weird is that Geordie prefers to be paid in American cheese slices and tennis balls.

Did we mention he’s a golden retriever?

“He’s a very nice guy,” Brand assures us. “If this [employment] doesn’t work out, I just have a really expensive, really well-behaved dog.”

For pest control services like Standard, based in Riverside, the demand for bed bug specialists is solid, especially here in the Midwest. Cedar Rapids (20) and Davenport (21) are on Orkin’s Top 50 list of bed bug cities for 2025; weekend destinations like Chicago (1), Omaha (26), St. Louis (18) and Minneapolis (40) are all on there too. If you think about it too much, you might start to itch.

Brand responds to bed bug complaints about twice a week he says; he didn’t know a dog could help him determine if a location has a problem until about this time last year when he saw videos on Facebook and Tiktok.

“I looked into it a little bit and found a company that did it, and a couple of my customers, like the Coralville Library, already use a bed bug dog,” he says. So he headed down to North Carolina in the snow and ice to meet Geordie and learn how to work with him.

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Here’s a fun story: ages ago there were no bed bugs, scientists believe. There were, however, bugs that enjoyed feeding on bats – bat bugs – in the Middle East. Then humans joined the bats in their caves, the bugs developed a taste for humans, and when humans moved on to other dwellings, the bugs tagged along with them. Now we have bed bugs.

Bed bugs may have stayed local, but you know how humans are; it was just too enticing to see what else was out there. Europe, Asia, and Africa were all nearby, waiting to be explored. Soon enough Ancient Rome had a bed bug infestation; by the 1500s, England did too. And then those needy little bugs hitched a ride on ships bound for the New World, and now America has bed bugs too.

We thought we had exterminated them, you know. From the mid-1940s until 1972, pesticide use – like DDT -- was prevalent and it wiped those bloodsuckers out. A couple generations of Americans had never seen a bed bug . . . until the late 1990s. Then they were back, and with toxic chemicals no longer a permitted solution, bed bug populations soared. It seemed like they were everywhere – schools, offices, hotels, homes.

Today it’s like we’re living in the 1950’s again: everyone either has a bed bug story or knows someone who does. Although the wingless parasites don’t live directly on our bodies, they can travel on our clothes or luggage, making it easy to inadvertently give them a ride to someplace new. Once they hop off, the path is open for them to tuck into mattresses, feed on us while we sleep, and reproduce. Give them a month or two and you’ll be calling Standard Pest Control wondering where you went wrong.

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Here’s how Geordie works: Brand gives him the command to “search,” and he switches from regular dog to working dog wherever they happen to be.

“He’s pretty quick with finding,” Brand says. “Some dogs like to walk and sniff every inch of a building before they detect on it. [Geordie] kind of bounces around and finds the scent cloud somewhere and then tries to hone it out.”

Once bed bugs made their comeback in the early 2000s, entomologists knew they would have to find new and effective ways to combat them. Since the late 1970s dogs had been used to sniff out termites, and they had proven their worth. It turned out breeds like beagles, labradors and shepherds could be trained to detect bed bugs too.

A sweet, musty smell is one of the signs you might have a bed bug problem; the insects use pheromone scent to communicate, and when crushed, they increase the potency, sounding the alarm. Humans can detect this with their six million scent receptors; for a dog with 300 million, and significant brain space dedicated to smell, there’s no question.

When Geordie smells bed bugs hiding in a nightstand or a corner, “he does what’s called freezing point,” Brand explains. “He kind of goes solid and buries his nose into whatever and his tail goes – it doesn’t straight point like a bird dog would, but it gets still – and he waits for you to reward him once he finds it.”

We hide a training packet in our office and watch to see if Geordie can find it. He scampers around the desks and chairs, all the way to the back kitchen, then is about to come back through the main area for another pass when something catches his attention. He sniffs the doorframe to a little storage room very thoroughly, and when he finally enters, he finds the packet. He freezes, and his tail stiffens out like an eagle feather. Brand rewards him with a tennis ball.

It’s fascinating the types of places Brand regularly visits to check for bed bugs: libraries, schools, hospitals, and coffee shops, in addition to homes. Often it’s precautionary, and with Geordie along for the ride, he’ll have more certainty if there is an infestation – trained dogs are as much as 98% accurate.

“Instead of treating it here and there, every month or whatever, we can just go through and check to make sure there’s nothing,” Brand says. “If Geordie doesn’t mark, then it’s cheaper than having to treat stuff.”

Bed bugs are tiny, nocturnal, and crafty. Even professionals like Brand might never see them, even though it’s clear they’ve made themselves at home. They like to hide in inconspicuous places like tight seams and wall outlets. They can lay dormant in a suitcase for nine months to a year. As long as humans move about, bed bugs will piggyback, and trained dogs like Geordie will have secure employment.

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There’s no getting around it: bed bugs suck. Although they don’t transmit disease, their bites cause itchy red welts, and once they establish a colony in your safe space, anxiety and insomnia follow.

Once they’re in, you’ll need a professional like Brand to get them out. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t things you can do to minimize the risk of infestation. When traveling, experts suggest you use the bag stand in hotel rooms for your luggage, rather than putting bags on the bed or floor. Inspect your luggage and clothes before leaving to go home. Once you are home, wash and dry your travel clothes on hot, if fabrics allow.

In terms of daily maintenance, keep clutter out of your bedroom so bed bugs don’t have places to hide. Use a protective cover on your mattress and box spring and vacuum your home regularly.

No one is immune to bed bugs; they show up in 5-star hotels and immaculate mansions.

If they show up looking for you, you know who to call. There’s a very friendly expert out there hungry for an American cheese slice.