How to get rid of bed bugs for good

How do you get bed bugs?

Bed bugs are those little annoying creatures that invade our homes and ruin our entire lives, making it impossible to stay comfortable at our own homes and spoiling one of the most important routine of each person – sleeping. Where do the bed bugs come from? Well, they penetrate in our homes quite easily. In fact, it’s most likely that you, or your family members, or people who came to your house even once (that could be even a delivery man) have brought them to your house. They travel with human clothes, in suitcases and bags you’ve taken for a trip somewhere, with used mattresses and couches you’ve purchased from someone. It’s almost impossible to identify how they’ve penetrated into your house, just as to prevent them from taking over the entire space.

 

What does a bed bug look like and where does it live?

Have you ever wondered what do bed bugs look like? Well, those evil creatures are small flat yellow-brown or dark brown bugs without wings about the size of a rice grain. The newborn ones are even smaller, they look just like a poppy seed. However, one grown-up bug is able to produce about 5 tiny white eggs a day. Those will turn into the baby bed bugs in two weeks, they’ll start feeding on humans and pets right away and they will be able to lay their own eggs just in 5 weeks after they hatched. Such a short reproduction cycle allows them to spread all over the people’s houses and apartments like crazy. And although they feed just for 5 minutes every single night and it’s already determined that their ‘meal time’ happens one hour before the sunrise, the number of bites one person might get is quite reasonable due to the excessive concentration of bed bugs inside one house.

As we’ve already determined, they are easily transmitted by people, pets, clothes and other things they may potentially live in. That’s why, unless you’re a cleaning and social freak, who inspects everyone and everything before allowing them to enter the house, you won’t be able to stop a bed bug from coming. And even if you are, there’s no chance that you manage to spot one tiny bug among your clothes or in your furniture. They start small, but just a couple of bugs may turn your house into a hell.

They prefer people’s beds and couches as their habitats, as those are the main places where they may feed on them. However, they might also live in closets, dressers (especially in blankets and winter coats), laundry baskets, under the wallpaper, inside the carpets and pet beds. And yes, they may feed on pets as well, but they affect humans more as they’re less hairy and, consequently, they are easier to suck the blood from.

 

How to identify the bed bugs? Are they dangerous?

As bed bugs bite at night and their bites are painless, people often fail to determine the real culprit of the red marks on their skin in the beginning, when there’re not too many bugs which bite yet. People often blame mosquitoes or weird outdoor midges that have bitten them during picnic. The bed bug’s identification is also complicated by the fact that their bites may not show up on human body, and it may take up to 9 days until they become visible. So, if you get those red spots that appear on your body in a spiral pattern after the night time, you may want to check the target areas mentioned below for the evidence of bed bugs’ presence – those are brown or dark red excrement spots.

Bed bugs symptoms vary from person to person. Someone might have zero reaction to bed bugs’ bites. But usually, they cause constant itch, which may even result in skin infection. It’s possible to get rid of that itching feeling with the help of anti-itching and antiseptic salve. But red itchy spots aren’t the main issue when it comes to the bed bugs danger. And even though bed bugs aren’t carriers of serious diseases, they may transmit them from person to person with the blood they feed on. Moreover, the saliva of bed bugs penetrates under our skin, concentrates in our system overtime and causes the development of serious allergic reactions. Some people, who are sensitive to their bites, may go through severe allergic reactions up to the anaphylactic shock instantly. For example, if you’re sensitive to mosquito or other similar bites and develop a strong allergic response to them, there is a high chance that your body’s response to the bed bugs’ bites will be the same. And who knows how your pets will react to their bites?

 

How to get rid of bed bugs

The bad news is that it’s extremely difficult to get rid of bed bugs, especially if you’ve noticed their presence too late and postponed the elimination process for too long. Basically, you’ll have to go through your entire house, every spot and every corner, every clothing item, every mattress, pillow and blanket and treat all of that stuff with a bed bug killer to get rid of them for good. And, there’s a high chance that you will miss just one habitat, leave just several bugs alive. But that will be enough for them to come back in full force and make your life a real struggle all over again. That’s why it’s highly recommended to call the pest control services and ask the qualified specialists to inspect your house and perform the anti-bug treatment procedure. They’re able to pay attention to the smallest details and thoroughly examine all the spots where bed bugs live in order to kill them and prevent them from coming back. Besides, they’ll recommend further prevention steps you’ll have to take after their treatment.

Pest control services

So, if you’re unfortunate enough to face the bed bug issue, visit HireRush.com, hire the pest control professionals and start a life free from bed bugs and their annoying bites. Moreover, it’s better to cooperate with your neighbors and conduct the pest killing if they’re facing the same problem, so that the bed bugs won’t travel to your home from the neighbors after you kill them all at your place.

 

Bed bug treatment involves a combination of several measures, which are:

1. upholstery cleaning, clothes washing, steam cleaning – pest control professionals will move the pieces of furniture to see if the bed bugs have penetrated inside the filling of the soft furniture and under its upholstery, if they live under the drawers of your dresser, the clothes in your closet, the sheets and towels in your storage, etc. The whole upholstery, as well as curtains and bedding shall be removed and washed with hot water, as bed bugs die at 50 degrees Celsius. Then, all mattresses, pillows, couches and arm-chairs have to be steam cleaned, just as the carpets. People’s beds have to be encapsulated with a plastic case to avoid further bites of the bed bugs that managed to escape and survive the cleaning or travelled from the room that wasn’t cleaned yet. The latter scenario happens when you try to do everything on your own.
   All clothes must be washed as well. Those items, which can’t be washed under the high temperature, should be dried in a hot drier for not less than 30 minutes. Store cleaned items (including pillows, blankets, couch cases) in plastic zip-lock bags or secure bins so that the bed bugs don’t get into them once again. Upholstery cleaning services
2. a thorough inspection and cleaning of the entire house with special chemicals and just vacuuming them off the surfaces, wooden and soft furniture, etc. It’s necessary to be really careful not to let the bed bugs escape through the vacuum’s hose. That’s why you should always close the vacuum’s hose with the help of a paper towel and tape. Then, dispose the contents of the vacuum’s container or bag into the zip-lock bag as soon as you finish vacuuming. Don’t forget to wash the vacuum’s hose, container and other attachments in hot water after each vacuum cleaning, which, by the way, must be held every single day. Vacuum with a harsh brush setting, as bed bugs and their eggs stick to the furniture and carpets, so it’s quite difficult to detach them from the surfaces.
   Clean the wooden furniture as well.
3. the use of the proper pest control aerosols and chemicals (insecticides) to kill the bugs that live in different cracks in the walls and in the furniture.
4. the use of silica gel, which is distributed along the walls and onto the upholstery items; it sticks to the bed bugs’ bodies and the poor things aren’t able to get rid of those granules, which, eventually, dehydrate and kill them.
5. Some items that are too infected must be thrown away. Don’t forget to break or chop those items before throwing away, so that people don’t take them and bring bed bugs to their houses as well.

As you can see, it’s better to go through the house as quickly as possible, so that the bed bugs don’t travel from the untreated rooms into the cleaned ones. Otherwise you won’t be able to get rid of them any time soon. You’ll repeat the same cleaning and disinfection steps all over again, unless you approach the problem professionally and hire a team of pest control specialists to clean out the entire house in the shortest time. If several people work in each room at the same time, they’ll be able to de-bug your house in one or two days. Bed bugs won’t even have a chance to crawl into the cleaned rooms and items from the untreated spots, as they will be killed all over the house at once.

 

 

In the end, pest control services will also take preventive measures, so that the bugs they didn’t manage to notice or the eggs that survived the chemical treatment won’t spread throughout the house all over again.  That’s why you should definitely drop your desperate attempts to get rid of bed bugs on your own and let professionals do their job to bring your house back to normal.