Concerns about bed bugs, especially in urban areas, continue to rage throughout the United States, and the self-storage industry is no exception. This week self-storage operators have taken their own as well as customer concerns about bed bugs to Self-Storage Talk, the official online forum of Inside Self-Storage.

On a thread titled "Bed Bugs," forum member jaywontfly posed the questions, "What do I tell my customers about bed bugs?" and "How do I keep them out?" For jaywontfly's facility, a couple of other facilities nearby have had tenants report bed bugs, but they remain unscathedso far. How would a facility's staff know if they had bed bugs until someone reported it?

To track whether bed bugs have been reported in your area, use Bed Bug Registry, recommended by SST member Madman. The same member suggested making sure the entire staff has been through awareness and prevention training, not only for actual bed bug prevention but for sales situations in which customers ask what you do to prevent the pests.

Member shaekirk points out that bed bugs don't just attack mattresses, they attack anything that has had regular contact with human skin including boxes of linens, towels, blankets, perhaps even clothing. Member DebT suggests upselling tenants with plastic mattress and linen covers to put on all of these items before they're stored.

Do you have ideas on how to thwart the bed bug revolution? Log into SST and post your suggestions. You must be a registered member to post; if you aren't registered, you can do so for free. The process is easy and takes only a few minutes.

Live and growing since 2008, SST is the largest online forum in the self-storage industry, with approximately 3,800 members, 23 different topical forums, 3,740 discussion threads and 32,200 posts.