The Central Blog

Inspect: Moving Trucks

So I am moving soon, in one month to be exact, and I have been looking into renting a moving truck so that my move is easier, quicker, and overall, takes less time.  But obviously, there must be a downside to renting a moving truck, right?

Although chances might be slim, the possibility of renting a bed bug infested moving truck seems to be becoming more of a reality each day.  Really, I am not trying to live my life in fear here, nor am I trying to make 400 trips moving my stuff from one apartment to another less than 20 miles away.  So, the obvious question is, how do you inspect a moving truck for bed bugs?

According to Jeff White, Research Entomologist, you inspect moving trucks as you would any other structure.  You are looking for evidence such as bed bugs, spotting, skins, etc.  However, moving trucks, unlike structures such as houses, can be very difficult to inspect.  The bugs living in trucks, according to Jeff, are transient bugs and are not usually a reproducing and growing population.  This means that the bugs in moving trucks are most likely just some straggler bugs fallen off infested furniture waiting for some new furniture to come through.  To me, this means that my chances of encountering bed bugs might be slim, but if I do encounter any in a moving truck they are probably really hungry bed bugs.  To give us all some hope (not), Jeff summed up the idea of inspecting your moving truck for bed bugs to the idea of looking for a needle in a haystack.

Overall, we can’t live in fear of bed bugs (not completely anyway).  Although in a few weeks I will definitely inspect my moving truck as thoroughly as I can, I am sure that if there are one or two bugs hiding I won’t find them.  I think the only thing that gives me some piece of mind is that my mattress and box spring are encased.

So aside from having a moving truck fumigated for several hundred dollars, there isn’t much more to do other than encase, inspect, and pray!

General: Bed Bugs, Moving Trucks |