Misconception #: Bed Bugs Only Live In Mattresses
Bed bugs live in beds, so the best way to get rid of them is to get rid of the beds, right? No, not really. This is a common misconception that has risen because of the name of the pests bed bugs.
Bed bugs do live in beds, but those are not just the places where they can thrive. They can live in closets, floorboards, furniture, walls, and many other places. Its ridiculous to even think that throwing away your mattress will get rid of your bed bug problem.
How To Treat Bites
One of the oldest remedies for bites is to use a mix of baking soda and water. The first step is to thoroughly wash your skin with antibacterial soap and water. Once you have cleaned the area and dried it with a clean towel, just combine the water and baking soda in order to form a thick paste, and generously apply it to the affected areas.
Once the paste dries, you will notice that the itching and the pain have subsided. If it hasnt helped, try applying a second application. Usually, the second time around is a charm. You can also use a crushed up aspirin with water to make a paste in order to reduce the swelling.
However, if the baking soda paste and the aspirin paste dont help you, you can try topical treatments such as calamine lotion, cortisone cream, steroid cream, and creams that contain pramoxine to relieve the itching and pain from the bites.
If the bug bites are really severe and causing your affected areas to have rashes and swell up, try taking an antihistamine like diphenhydramine and combine it with anti-inflammatory medications such as ibuprofen and naproxen.
Prep For Bedbug Treatment
Before you start treating your home, do a little prep work to maximize your odds of success. Make sure all your linens, carpets, drapes, clothing, and other hiding places have been cleaned or thrown out .
Next, get rid of bedbug hiding places. Pick up books, magazines, clothes, and anything else thats lying on your floor and under your bed. Throw out whatever you can. Dont move items from an infested room to a clean oneyou could spread the bugs.
Seal up any open areas. Glue down loose wallpaper. Caulk cracks in furniture and around baseboards. Tape up open electrical outlets. Finally, move your bed at least 6 inches away from the wall so bedbugs cant climb on.
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Prepare Your House For Treatment
Once youve booked a bed bugs control services, prepare your house for the visit. Remember that the treatment will be at least six hours, so make plans for your family and pets to be out of the home. Launder and seal all your belongings, including furniture. Dont move large furniture away from walls. Keep your bed, dresser, and couches where they usually are in your house.
Where Bed Bugs Hide
Bedbugs may enter your living quarters unseen through luggage, clothes, utilized beds and couches, and other items. Their squashed bodies make it feasible for them to suit little spaces, concerning the size of a charge card.
Bedbugs do not have nests like bees or ants, but have a tendency to live in groups in hiding areas. Their first hiding places are normally in bed mattress, box springs, bed structures, as well as head boards where they have very easy accessibility to individuals to bite in the evening.
Over time, nevertheless, they might spread via the bedroom, relocating right into any hole or secured place. They may additionally spread to neighboring areas or houses.
Having them in your residential property is not an indicator of uncleanness due to the fact that bedbugs live solely on blood. You are as most likely to discover them in immaculate homes and resort rooms as in dirty ones.
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How To Get Rid Of Bed Bugs In Furniture
Bed bugs are excellent hitchhikers and they can go months without a meal. Bed bugs can infest furniture, especially sofas and recliners where people tend to sleep, and bedside tables, and dressers.
Be especially careful when bringing a used piece of furniture into your home, bedbugs can hide in the smallest of cracks in furniture. If you have bedbugs in your living room sofa or recliner that is usually a sign of a more severe infestation.
With careful inspection and treatments, you can get rid of bed bugs in furniture follow these tips to succeed.
Look Up Your States Policies
Some states like California, Connecticut, and Rhode Island have mattress recycling laws in place. The law in these states requires the manufacturers to provide you with a reliable solution to discard your mattress.
If you live in Los Gatos or Bay Area, you can get fined for throwing out your mattress with other waste. So, it is better to check your states regulations before deciding what to do with your old mattress.
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Tea Tree Oil Bed Bug Spray
The insecticidal properties of tea tree oil make it a great natural treatment to get rid of bed bug infestation. You can use the homemade tea tree spray to kill off bed bugs in hard to reach places, like cracks, crevices, and furniture joints.
A study from 2014 found that a tea tree oil solution is an effective and natural insect repellent and also acts as an insecticide.7
To make a natural insecticide with tea tree oil, put 20 drops of tea tree oil in a spray bottle filled with water and shake well. Spray liberal amounts of the natural insecticide in all areas where you think bed bugs are living. Use the tea tree oil bed bug spray daily until all the signs of bed bugs have disappeared completely. Remember to shake the natural spray well before each application.
Tea tree oil is also a great natural remedy to cure any skin itching caused by bed bugs.
How To Find Bedbugs On Mattress
Bed bugs are roughly the size of an apple seed, which means that, although hard to spot, they are visible to the human eye. As a matter of fact, just like it was indicated above, they do leave signs of their presence on your mattress, bed, and bedding which you should check. If you suspect that there are bed bugs in your home, use these tips below to check your mattress.
Related: Getting rid of bed bugs means asking for help from the experts. To contain the situation, you can check out our home remedies for bed bugs.
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Integrated And Alternative Approaches To Bed Bug Control
As an alternative or an addition to bed bug control using chemicals, bed bug steamers and heaters have become an increasingly important tool in the pest control industry. Use steamers and heaters where chemical sensitivity is a concern, such as hospitals and nursing homes. These steamers also get rid of allergins, bacteria, germs, and viruses.
Be Careful With Used Furniture
They are famous for living in furniture such as mattresses, couches, and anything made out of wood. So if you are eyeing a nice couch, piece of wooden furniture, or mattress that has been put out to the curb, it is wise to just leave it there because it was thrown out for a reason.
You dont want to take the chance of bringing an infestation into your home just because you want to save money and get free curb furniture. Youll end up spending way more on the costs to exterminate than will cost you if you just bought brand new furniture.
This also goes for secondhand furniture at thrift stores and garage sales. You never know if what you are buying has bugs and eggs just waiting for their next host.
However, if you find a piece of secondhand furniture that you really want and cant live without, you should at least pay the costs to treat the furniture with chemicals, a freeze treatment, or a heat treatment just in case it is harboring any bugs.
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Life Process And Biology
A female bed bug can lay 200 to 250 eggs in her life time as well as the eggs hatch in 6 to 10 days. The life cycle of a bed bug can be completed in as low as three weeks.
Bed bug larva goes through insufficient transformation. It takes five phases prior to a larva matures into an adult bed bug. A blood meal is required each time before a nymph moults right into the following period.
Bed bugs are opportunistic feeders. They take in as much blood as feasible from you till they are fully engorged.
A tropical bed bug can live for as much as 100 days while a typical bed bug can live for as much as 1 year. As much as they require blood dishes for development, bed bugs were discovered to be able to endure an extended period without blood meals.
Bed bugs are enticed to the co2 as well as temperature released by human bodies. A greater concentration of co2 because of human visibility stimulates bed bugs to feed.
As they approach the human host, they are attracted by the temperature of the host.
Professional Bed Bug Removal
If youve already tried the DIY options to no avail, or you simply dont want to deal with treating them yourself, its time to call a professional. Professional bed bug exterminators can remove bed bugs for good, saving you a lot of time, hassle, and general ickiness. They are trained in permanent bed bug removal and have special equipment to get the job done. If you are in an apartment, you may be required to use a professional because the bed bugs can travel to other units in your building.
If a bed bug infestation is especially severe, the last resort is fumigation. Chemical fumigation raises the heat to temperatures as high as 135 or 140 degrees, well above the 117 degrees most bed bugs can survive in.
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Signs Of Bed Bugs On Mattress
What do bed bugs look like on a mattress? You may not notice bed bugs on your mattress if you are not observant. However, there are signs that can give you clues that your mattress is infested with bed bugs. Nevertheless, some of these signs are not always evidence of bed bugs in mattress. After seeing such signs, you will do a more serious check in order to determine if indeed your mattress has bed bugs. The bed bug signs on your mattress may include:
Do Bed Bugs Automatically Move Out With Your Bed
For most people, the immediate reaction to bed bugs is to dispose of their bed. The reasoning is simple the bed bugs were on the bed, the bed is the source of the infestation and throwing out the bed eliminates the problem. Think again! Bed bugs do not only confine themselves to your bed. They can live in the headboard, nightstand, dresser, and carpets as well as any cracks and dark crevices in your bedroom. You need to find all their hiding places, and eliminate the entire population, to rid yourself of the problem.
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Where To Find Bed Bugs And How To Get Rid Of Them
If you notice bite marks or blood spots on your body, sheets, pillows, or clothing, you may have bed bugs. Check areas of your home where they may live for further evidence.
Bed bugs hide in tight, flat spaces, so they are most often found:
- In the seams of couches and chairs.
- Within the folds of curtains or sheets.
- Between cushions or under pillows.
- In appliances or electrical receptacles.
- Under wall hangings, pictures, or in folds of wallpaper.
- In the junction between the wall and ceiling, or floor and wall.
- In drawer joints.
- Between the mattress and box spring.
- Between the mattress and headboard, or headboard and wall.
- Between furniture and the wall.
Even with the listed tips, you may not know what you are looking at when you find evidence of bed bugs.
If you are worried about a bed bug infestation, get help from a professional exterminator who specializes in bed bugs. As more people around the world report these infestations, more local and state governments are providing information on the best exterminators in the area to help their residents.
Identifying signs of bed bugs early means less drastic measures may work to eliminate the infestation in your home.
Signs Of Bed Bugs In Your Home
Although bed bugs are not known to spread diseases, they are a nuisance. Their bites can make your skin itchy or blotchy, they can disrupt your sleep, and they can spread quickly to other people. If you scratch the bites on your skin, you may develop a secondary skin infection from breaking these open.
Some people may be bitten by bed bugs and never have a skin reaction at all. Other people have an allergic reaction to the bites that cause pain or swelling.
Bite marks are the primary way most people figure out they have a bed bug infestation. These bites will appear as red marks or splotchy areas on your arms, legs, torso, or even your face.
Bite marks usually appear overnight however, they can take up to 14 days to develop, with some people experiencing no reaction at all.
There are certain signs to look for if you are concerned about a bed bug infestation:
- Small brown exoskeletons after the bed bugs molt.
- Dark or red spots on sheets and pillows.
- Rust-colored spots on furniture or bedding.
- A musty odor.
- Small white lumps or crawling white spots, which are eggs and juveniles.
- Round, brown insects, which are the adult bed bugs.
- Disturbed sleep that has no other cause.
When bed bugs bite their victims, they typically inject an anticoagulant and an anesthetic, so the person does not react strongly to the bite and feeding. You may have a quick reaction that brings you out of deep sleep or REM state, so you may begin to feel less rested as a result of being bitten.
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What Is The Best Type Of Steamer For Bed Bug Eradication
The general recommendation is to use a powerful and heavy duty steamer with a large water tank, preferably with a steam volume control. Small steamers may not be effective in eliminating bedbugs. Small steamers require constant refilling and may cover less surface area so they can be less effective in eliminating bed bugs. They may also not get hot enough to eliminate bedbugs on and around the mattress.
How To Tell If You Have Bed Bugs In Your Mattress
Bed bugs often find their way to your house by traveling with you from other locations, such as a hotel room. But, sometimes, its difficult to know if you have a bed bug problem. Here is how to tell if you have bed bugs in your mattress.
Signs of Bed Bugs
One of the most worrisome signs of bed bugs is bedbug bites. If you wake up in the morning with red or itchy sores on your skin, check your mattress and bedroom for bed bug activity.
Knowing how to identify bed bugs ensures that you enact the proper treatment methods. These bugs are the size of an apple seed and relatively easy to spot if you look in the right areas.
Check your mattress seams, headboard, and bed frame, and look in crevices along the wall, baseboards, and electrical outlets for bed bug shells and skins. Inspect your bedding for fecal spots, and check your pajamas for bloodstains.
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Do I Have To Throw Out The Mattress
This question is answered by the condition of the mattress and the size of infestation. If there are holes or tears in the gauze fabric or fabric of the mattress, bed bugs and eggs may be inside. The bed bugs may be outside as well. There are restrictions on how beds can be treated with insecticides. We carry both Mattress Safe Bed Bug Encasements and ActiveGuard Mattress Liners.
1. Mattress Safe Encasements: Mattress Safe Products are bed encasements to place over your mattress or boxspring, so you don’t have to throw them away. They are bedbug certified. If using a labeled insecticide on the mattress or boxspring first, apply on mattress or box springs then zip it up. It has a patented hook to keep the bed bugs inside the encasement so they cannot escape. Keep the encasement in place for one year .
2. Active Guard Liners: Active Guard Mattress Liners may be placed on beds and are effective as both preventative and active bed bug treatments. They kill bed bugs and dust mites within 72 hours and will prevent bed bugs from infesting mattresses. ActiveGuard Liners act like a fitted sheet it comes in single, full, queen, and king sizes that fit up to 17″ in depth.
Encase Your Mattress And Box Spring In A Cover
If youve decided that getting a new mattress is too expensive and DIYing your extermination is too dangerous, consider purchasing a special mattress cover and box spring cover. These highly specialized covers make it virtually impossible for bed bugs to escape. For this method to be most effective, leave the cover on for a year to ensure the bed bugs inside are all dead and are no longer reproducing.
This method is best if the bed bugs are only in your mattress, but it wont do anything if bed bugs are in your bed frame, nightstand, or anywhere else in the room.
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