Brand extension in sterilization: Battling infestations of bedbugs

Leach Logistics of Sparks, which does a lot of milling and packaging for the food industry, has expanded one of its business units to provide mobile sterilization services.

The target market? Bedbugs.

Using knowledge gleaned through years of working with dry-heat sterilization chambers at its facility on Glendale Avenue, Leach Logistics expanded its Global Sterilization unit by purchasing a 30-foot-long car trailer that houses a mobile sterilization chamber. The unit can be brought on-site to apartments or hotel properties that are experiencing problems with bedbugs.

Though not as large a problem in northern Nevada as in other parts of the country bed bugs prefer hot, moist climates, says Richard Levine, communications program manager for the Entomological Society of America the troublesome bugs aren't unknown to the Truckee Meadows. Residents of Orvis Ring Senior Apartments recently reported problems of the parasitic bugs to local media outlets.

Leach Logistics President Greg Leach is capitalizing on the growing problem by providing a place for hotel and motel operators and others residence operators to sterilize infected bedding, mattresses and furniture. The mobile sterilization unit dry-heats items to 140 degrees for four hours to eradicate the bugs, which can live for more than one year without feeding and are most often transmitted in personal effects.

"Any facility can put their products in and do it right there," Leach says. "They can get a complete kill and won't have a recurring issue."

Leach says he's invested about $40,000 in the mobile unit, which can be hauled to an infection site with a pickup truck. The unit is equipped with special ducting and sensors to ensure the interior reaches at least 140 degrees, the temperature required to eradicate bedbugs.

Bryan Gardner of Global Sterilization will manage the new unit along with another Leach Logistics employee. Greater Reno-Tahoe is their initial target market. Leach says running the sterilization chamber requires no special training, but he did have to earn licensure through the State of Nevada for fumigation.