Bedbug infestations have become a market that attracts many charlatans. False diagnoses, prices varying from simple to triple, unscrupulous entrepreneurs… A test carried out by “Special Envoy” shows how certain pest control companies take advantage of the ambient psychosis to scam tenants or owners in distress.
It is an almost invisible scourge, which affects one in ten French people: bedbugs have colonized many public spaces, cinemas, hotels, public transport… On social networks, videos which have gone viral have triggered psychosis, a panic fear of having them at home. Because in just six months, they can proliferate to the point that all that remains is to call on specialized companies to get rid of them. But wouldn’t some of these companies take advantage of this to sell overpriced or even useless treatments?
For “Special Envoy”, journalist Emilie Helmbacher put herself in the shoes of a worried individual, wanting to check that he is not being invaded. She tested three companies, chosen at random. But before bringing the insect killers into her apartment – previously inspected and perfectly healthy – she installed a discreet camera device in all the rooms, including the child’s bedroom… The results are edifying.
First observation: all the pest control agents charge 50 euros for their trip alone. The worker sent by the first company conscientiously inspects the parental bed, the journalist having explained that her husband had been stung. Thirty minutes later, he claims to have found traces of bedbugs and offers treatment… for a cost of 867 euros.
Cost of eradicating imaginary bedbugs: between 500 and 1,500 euros
Conducted by the agent of the second company, the same search will take less than ten minutes. At the end of which he displays what he says is a bedbug larva… very similar to a booger that the journalist’s little boy might have left. A beginning of infestation, according to the pest control specialist, which he suggests stopping using cryogenics. This destruction of bedbugs by cold would cost more than 1,500 euros.
For the last meeting, change of technique. To flush out the undesirables, the third professional says he has to spray the parental bed with a toxic substance, and asks his potential client to leave the room. The camera shows him in action, sprayer in hand – but no product comes out of the device. We then see him take a box from his bag, then place something at the end of a slat of the bed base… Something that he will refer to as a bedbug when he allows the journalist to enter the room. For this treatment against imaginary insects, the estimate amount is 514 euros.
Excerpt from “The hell of bedbugs”, a report to be seen in “Envoyéspecial” on January 11, 2024.
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