If you’ve recently returned from a trip, carefully check second-hand furniture and luggage. Look for cracks in the wood, rusty screws, loose wallpaper, and other potential hiding spots.
You should also double bag clothes, shoes and other personal items in infested closets and cluttered areas. This helps prevent bed bug infestations from spreading to untreated rooms.
1. Use a Bed Bug Killer
Get rid of Bed bugs fast are opportunistic and can hitchhike in suitcases, clothes and packages from public places where they are present. They then travel to your home to find a warm place to live and breed. You can limit the spread of bed bugs by decluttering and washing clothing and personal belongings after traveling and regularly vacuuming and washing your bedding.
If you suspect you have a bed bug infestation, begin by looking under and around your mattress, box spring and frame. Examine the creases, tufts and seams. Look for black/brown spots (dried blood or feces) and white spots that may be bed bug eggs.
Also, check other furniture like dressers and nightstands, especially the backs, sides and corners of each. Use a crevice tool on wood furniture to check for gaps and cracks where bed bugs might hide. Look under metal drawer slides, in the corners of wicker furniture and under fabric window coverings and hardware.
If you do find a bed bug, consider using special encasement bags on your mattress and box spring that have zippers that are designed to keep bed bugs out for at least a year.
2. Heat Treatment
While bed bug sprays and powders can kill bed bugs on contact, heat treatments are the fastest and most thorough ways to deal with a full infestation. Professional-grade heat machines can raise the temperature of a room to 120 degrees Fahrenheit or higher, killing all life stages of these pests in as little as an hour.
This treatment isn’t cheap, but it can save a homeowner money in the long run by eliminating the need for chemical treatments or even to discard infested items. When you use this treatment, it’s best to double bag and seal all belongings that you don’t want to throw away. Then, place the items in a large storage bin with a pesticide strip attached to the side or lid (shown below). Seal the bin and set it in direct sunlight on a day when temperatures are above 95 degrees Fahrenheit.
Other preparations for this type of treatment include removing any items that could help the pests hide, such as oversize box spring skirting or excess drapery fabric. You should also vacuum every surface, including the baseboards and all furniture in the room. Ideally, you should also clean and wash all sheets, blankets, pillows and other linens.
3. Chemical Treatment
Many professional pest control companies offer chemical treatments to kill bed bugs. These can include bait-and-lure traps, foggers, and even fumigation services.
These services use approved chemicals, which are safe for humans and pets. However, they require multiple treatment visits and you may need to throw away infested furniture.
Some of the most popular chemical treatment products are silicates, like diatomaceous earth. These desiccants destroy the bugs’ protective outer layer, causing them to dehydrate and die. Other chemicals, such as carbamates and neonicotinoids, target the bugs’ central nervous system, stopping them from feeding. However, these products can also cause a variety of health effects, including sore throats and allergic reactions.
Regardless of which type of treatment you choose, it’s important to thoroughly vacuum the area and seal any hiding places. You should also wash all of your clothing, sheets, pillows, and plush toys in hot water and dry them on the highest setting. Items that can’t be washed should be sealed in plastic bags. This will help prevent re-infestation after the treatment. In addition, you should keep a journal and record when each treatment is done.
4. Insecticide Spray
Bed bugs are difficult to kill and evade many common household pesticides. A female bed bug lays five to a dozen eggs daily, so a colony can grow quickly even after you have stripped your bedding and vacuumed and put it in heat-treated bags. If you try to treat a large infestation with household products, you may be exposing your family and pets to dangerous chemicals and increasing the chances of recurrence.
Vacuuming and putting items in heat-treated bags is effective, but it doesn't kill bed bugs on the mattress or in nooks and crannies of a bed frame or headboard. You also need to treat these places with insecticide sprays and dusts.
Dusts such as diatomaceous earth (DE) and silica gels are desiccants that destroy the waxy coating on the outside of a bed bug, so they can't resist them. Other insecticides include pyrethrins (natural botanicals derived from chrysanthemum flowers) and pyrethroids (synthetic chemical pesticides that act like pyrethrins). Carbamates such as bendiocarb and propoxur are more effective than pyrethrins, but some species of bed bugs have developed resistance to these compounds.
5. Steam Cleaning
The high heat and penetrating power of steam is a natural way to wasp killer bug, and it can also penetrate cracks and crevices where the pests may hide. Use a steam cleaner that generates a steady stream of hot vapor for at least 10 minutes continuously to effectively treat your home.
Start by thoroughly inspecting the bed area, including the seams and corners of the mattress, as well as the dresser, headboard, and footboard. Also look under furniture, in the cracks of drawers and cabinet doors, behind wallpaper and paneling, and underneath clutter. Be sure to check all the drawers nooks and crannies of any nearby furniture, like storage containers or chairs, as they can harbor bed bug eggs and adults.
If you find any signs of a bed bug infestation, isolate the infested items to prevent them from spreading throughout your home. This includes laundering clothes, bedding, and linens on the highest setting allowed by the manufacturer and sealing them in plastic bags afterward. It’s also a good idea to vacuum regularly and clean all the clothing and storage areas in your home, as well as reduce clutter to limit hiding places for these blood-sucking insects.