How to Get Rid of Bedbugs in Your Home
Ways to get Rid of Bedbugs on Your Own or With Expert Exterminators and Pesticides
By: R. Renée Bembry
Bedbugs attack at night while people sleep and hide during the day when people are awake. Having activity schedules that differ from human schedules plays a vital role in bedbug populations ability to survive. Differing schedules also makes finding and destroying bedbugs a bit much more trying. Should you discover bedbugs in your home, and do not know what to do, herein are some helpful tips.
Hire an Expert Bedbug Exterminator
One way to get rid of bedbugs and to prevent them from sucking your blood while you sleep is to hire a bedbug eradication expert to exterminate the pests. When choosing to hire an expert, you should plan to have an adult on the premises when the exterminator comes to your home. This way, you can watch what he or she does and ask questions about their procedure. In addition, the adult will be able to monitor the expert to make sure he or she does not miss areas where bedbugs might be hiding. These areas include mattresses, box springs, closets, base boards, sofas, chairs, dressers, bureaus, bed pillows, throw pillows, socket covers, and any cracks or crevices in the home.
Obtaining References for Bedbug Removal Experts
As always, it is a good idea to get a referral from someone you know prior to selecting an expert. Getting rid of bedbugs is no easy business and you want to have confidence the person you pay truly knows how to eliminate your bedbug problem. With that said, however, getting a bedbug referral may not be as simple as getting a referral for a dentist or a babysitter. This is because even when bedbug infestations increase throughout a neighborhood, not everyone gets bedbugs, and in fact most people do not get the critters.
When questioning experts about their practices, ask them to tell you exactly what they will do to get rid of the bedbugs in your home. Find out what types of pesticides they intend to use. Find out if they have options as to the degree of harmfulness pesticides they use might have on people in your home—or on the environment for that matter. Make certain to find out when humans may safely occupy rooms that the expert treats with pesticides. Have the expert come to your home in advance of the pesticidal application date to have a look at your infestation. Also, find out, in advance, how much they will charge you to get rid of the problem.
When getting rid of bedbugs, bare in mind that the expert may need to come to your home more than one time. Experts may even need to ‘treat’ your home more than one time. The bottom line here is the severity of your problem by time you discovered bedbugs and sought assistance getting rid of them will play a role in ridding the infestation. Good experts should pay a follow-up visit even if your home does not require a second pesticidal application. The follow-up visit, in this case, would be to verify that all bedbugs have been eradicated from your home.
Whether or not the expert you decide to go with comes through a referral, you should check their license with the city in which you live to find out what kind of record of accomplishment he or she has. You need to know the expert has a high success rate in eradicating bedbugs so that you do not waste your time or your money.
Trying to Get Rid of the Bedbugs on Your Own
If you decide to fight the bedbugs on your own, utilizing the same types of tactics an expert uses will increases the chances of successful eradication. Keen eyesight and thorough inspections of areas bedbugs hide out should help you to determine areas needing treatment.
Finding and Treating Bedbugs
No matter if you hire an expert or decide to tackle the bedbug infestation on your own, you must get rid of clutter in which bedbugs hide.
Whether looking for the sneaky pests yourself or hiring an expert, herein discusses what to look for and how to treat furniture, walls, baseboards, molding, and other places bedbugs hide.
When ridding bedbugs on your own, as well as when doing your part to help your chosen expert, the following techniques can help you locate and eliminate bedbugs.
Prying or Scooping Bedbug Removal
Pry or scoop bedbugs out of places such as windowsills, cracks in walls, and closet door jambs, by using narrow blunt shaped objects such as putty knives, old table knives, and strong pieces of cardboard.
Pesticidal Treatments
When necessary, it should be safe to treat areas such as sofas, chairs, mattresses, and box spring seams with minute amounts of bedbug pesticides. This treatment should be geared to seams only, however, and should never be used in attempt to eradicate bedbugs from surface areas.
Using Blow Dryers to Lure Bedbugs from Hiding Places
Use blow dryers to lure bedbugs out of hiding places. When using blow dryers, however, keep gusts low so as not to scoot pests from one area to another.
Using Sticky Tape to Pick Up Bedbugs
Use tape to lift bedbugs so that you can get rid of their presence. Strategically placing tape in areas in which you discover bedbugs could suffice to trap those you might miss because of their successful hiding abilities.
Crushing / Smashing / Blowing Bedbugs to Death
Destroy bedbugs by crushing them, pointing hot blow dryers at them for thirty seconds to a minute, or by using bedbug allocated pesticides.
Shine Flashlights in Hard to See Hiding Places
Use bright flashlights to see into dark or shadowed areas where bed bugs might hide. These areas include bed frames, underneath heavy furniture and inside closets.
Use Mirrors to View Beneath Heavy Furniture and Other Hard to Reach Areas
Use handheld mirrors to see undersides of heavy furniture such as dressers and bureaus. Mirrors also work well in hard to view areas such as low hanging cabinets and sides of medicine cabinet doors located in corners of walls.
Get Rid of Nasty Bedbug Droppings
Rid your home of bedbug residue such as droppings by using hot soapy water to wash down furniture, walls, cracks and crevices, sheets, pillow cases and the like. Items such as throw pillows should be washed or tossed in the dryer under high heat for twenty to thirty minutes. Check fabric care instructions prior to tossing pillows or other such items in the dryer, however, to make sure the dryer will not ruin the items.
Mattress Care When Eliminating Bedbugs
Encase mattresses and box springs in bedbug proof mattress covers after the bedding has been cleared for bedbug presence. When bedbugs are found on mattresses and box springs, however, get rid of the bugs prior to encasing the bedding in plastic.
Sucking Up Bedbugs with a Vacuum
Use the vacuum cleaner to suck up bedbugs wherever you can. Whereas, most people would routinely jump to vacuuming their carpets, vacuum cleaners work well for cracks and crevices found about chairs, sofas, mattresses, box springs, bed frames, closets, base boards and just about any place a vacuum can be run over or a vacuum hose can reach.
Whenever vacuuming bed bugs, make certain to dispose of vacuum waste immediately. Do not leave vacuumed bedbugs to sit in the vacuum cleaner. These bugs are very determined and their small flat bodies allow them to maneuver through small spaces with ease. Tying up the bags, placing them into plastic bags, and then tying the plastics as well will keep the pests contained.
Plug Cracks Crevices and Holes to Keep Bedbugs Out
When discovering bedbugs located between cracks and crevices, plug the areas by making repairs after eliminating the bugs. Remove baseboards to eliminate bedbugs and then clean the area before replacing the boards. After replacing boards, seal them tightly with caulk or a good baseboard glue. Also, when discovering pests living in wall holes, eliminate the bedbugs and then apply an application of plaster to prevent more bugs from entering.
Throwing Away Bedbug Infested Belongings
When getting rid of bed bugs, sometimes it becomes necessary to throw away the items in which the bugs infest. This must be a judgment call. Consider how bad the infestation is, the likelihood of ridding all bedbugs from the item, as well as replacement costs when making this decision. When choosing to toss out items, however, securely enclose the items in plastic before setting them outside or other wise trashing them. This is important because non-secured bedbugs that have a means of escape may well run right back into your home. What’s more is that if the bedbugs run into a neighbor’s home, you could still wind up with a problem again when their offspring decides to pay your home a visit.
Everyone in the home must learn what bedbugs look like so they can kill them when they see them. In cases where children are too young to understand about killing bugs or are afraid to kill them, parents should teach them to let an older person know if they see bedbugs so the elder individual can take care of the problem.