Maybe you don’t follow the latest pest news, but if you did you’d probably get tired pretty fast of hearing about bed bugs. The flood of stories, reports, and advertisements related to these blood-sucking pests is well-deserved because bed bugs are a menace that has grown quite a lot in this fast-paced, mobile era. Along with that threat have come many proposed solutions, some in good faith and some relying on the fact that you’ll try anything to rid these parasites from your home. The truth is, over the counter products have a very low chance of eradicating bed bugs, which is part of the reason they continue to spread.
So what can you do about bed bugs? Well, prevention is really your best hope of taking care of bed bugs on your own, so here are 2017’s best prevention tips:
- Knowing how bed bugs get into your home will help you put in place the safety measures needed to prevent an infestation. Simply put, bed bugs enter your home when you or someone else brings them in. Bed bugs do not live where humans aren’t, and they will readily crawl onto/into bags or even ride on you to keep close to their food source. Keeping a close eye on who and what comes into your house may prevent accidental introduction of bed bugs. Pro tip: Used furniture is a contender for top bed bug entry method into homes. Is the money you save on that sofa really worth it?
- Perhaps the most well-known or at least the most stereotypical location that we fear to encounter bed bugs is in hotel rooms. This is not an ill-founded fear, as hotels are a perfect place to host a bed bug population. When traveling, inspect hotel rooms thoroughly for any signs of bed bugs, including the little black adults, brownish to whitish shed skins, and dark stains from feces or crushed bugs. Don’t let your bags into the room or even onto the hall floor until you are confident that the area isn’t infested, and even then it is wise to keep luggage off the floor just in case.
- If only we could be confident of where bed bugs weren’t, we’d have nothing to worry about. It’s a sad truth, however, that you can encounter bed bugs in nearly any public location or space. Restaurants, retail stores, taxis, buses, and even airplanes have been found to have bed bug problems. This is scary to think about, but it’s also a valuable reminder to be mindful of where you settle down and what you do with personal items when you’re there. Checking your headrest on the plane is quick and easy, and keeping your purse off the floor in public places is a simple step the can improve the odds of avoiding bed bugs.
- Not only should you know their habits and habitats, knowing how to kill bed bugs can give you some insight into how to deal with returning from public places and keeping your home secure. Heat is the number one way to kill bed bugs. When you come home from your trip to the city, change right away and throw your clothes in for a hot wash. If you can, toss your shoes and purse in the dryer. For those items that can’t be washed or tumbled, you’ll at least want to perform a visual inspection, checking your suitcase’s zipper cover and seams for instance. Don’t give bed bugs the chance to hop off you or your belongings and start exploring the house.
- Finally, knowing how to identify bed bugs at home will give you the criteria you need when deciding to call for help because once they’re in the chances that you can eradicate bed bugs on your own are slim. Bed bugs will hide in the seams of furniture, in the cracks and corners of bed frames and bedside tables, under the edges of rugs, in cracks in the baseboard, and even inside of electrical outlets. As mentioned above look for adults, shed skins, and stains; adult bed bugs are roughly a quarter inch long. Bed bug bites are often not something you’ll feel, but will usually show as a line of red dots on the skin, slightly raised perhaps.
If you think you’ve got bed bugs, call Spencer Pest Services. Eliminating bed bugs is about hitting fast and hard, so that they have no chance to go dormant and wait for safety, and no way to repopulate fast enough to maintain a presence in your home. Spencer Pest Services uses safe, effective treatment that really works, and we guarantee our work, providing a 90-day bed bug warranty. With some work up front you can minimize the risk of bed bug infestation, and with Spencer Pest Services’ help, you can deal with any bed bugs foolish enough to cross your threshold. Isn’t that some good news?
