News

< Back to News Home Page

Small Business Spotlight

Decontamination company finds success with bedbugs
Firm boosts sales by adding eco-friendly pest eradication

Maureen McDonald / Special to The Detroit News

August 19, 2010 -- Bloomfield Hills, Mich.  – Larry Smith originally went into the decontamination business in 2008 to prevent odors and virus outbreaks from plaguing businesses and residences. But his Bloomfield Hills-based BioGreen Solutions took off recently when he invested in an environmentally friendly technology for zapping bedbugs, the small insects that feed on human blood and have re-emerged as a public scourge.

After Smith acquired Ridder Thermal, a bedbug remediation program in March, he added five staffers to the team and doubled his business in 90 days. He anticipates $1.5 million in sales next year, more than seven times the $200,000 he generated in 2009.

BioGreen's niche is to eradicate the pests without destroying furnishings or endangering people -- something that could happen with a more traditional pest control company that chemically treats an infested space.

"We became the eco-friendly killers," Smith said.

Bedbugs have become a growing problem after having been practically killed off around the country in the 1940s by pesticide sprayings. They re-emerged in the late 1990s and have grown to the point that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last year held a two-day bedbug summit.

"Bedbugs -- Cimex lecturlarius--are a psychological terror," Smith said. "The very notion of bugs feeding on you at night, in your bed, is repulsive."

BioGreen's approach is to use a dry-heat process to get the waxy coating off the bodies of bedbugs.   "At 115 degrees Fahrenheit, it dehydrates the bugs and their eggs," said Smith.

Thermal bug zapping, conducted by a trained operator with skilled site preparation, custom-built heaters and temperature probes for uniform distribution of the heat, could be very effective, said Howard Russell, an entomologist at Michigan State University. Part of the reason bedbugs have spread so far and so fast is their increasing resilience to synthetic pyrethroids, the pest control substance most commonly used to try to eradicate them, he said.

BioGreen charges almost double the pest control price of $500 to $900 a hotel room because an operator spends hours on the job. The company argues the cost is worthwhile because one treatment usually eliminates the bedbug threat without having to pitch mattresses, drapes and couches that were infested.

Smith and business partner Greg Quante formed BioGreen Solutions after watching ongoing public health crises involving E. coli, H1N1 and other viruses. Smith made a point of understanding everything about pest control and contagious diseases.

Then, he and Quante decided a way to separate BioGreen from competitors was not to react to contamination problems after the fact, but prevent outbreaks or odors with decontamination.

BioGreen developed a proprietary fogging process to treat every square inch of exposed surface and air in a facility. Their clients have included hotels, daycare centers, doctors' offices and gyms.

The Townsend Hotel in Birmingham sought its help in removing the odor from smoking rooms this spring to prepare for the statewide ban on smoking.

"BioGreen is one of the few firms offering green and effective chemicals," said Rupal Baxi, director of housekeeping at the hotel. "We were delighted to use the service and will use them in the future without a doubt."

The firm has lured more than $400,000 in venture capital, and Smith hopes to get more investors in a quest to expand nationwide.

"We have attracted capital from people who believe in our vision to help take clean to the next level," he said.