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If you have bedbugs in your home, professional extermination is recommended. And remember, if you see none of the above in your home and your only worry is bite marks, the problem could be something else. It doesn’t matter if your home, the hotel, or other place you’ve stayed is immaculate or grimy. Bedbugs can make their homes in any space if they’ve tagged along on something you’ve brought indoors from a place where they got into your belongings.
Here's how to check for bed bugs so you can avoid an infestation in your home this spring - The News Journal
Here's how to check for bed bugs so you can avoid an infestation in your home this spring.
Posted: Fri, 12 Apr 2024 12:18:41 GMT [source]
Reduce Clutter--a Great Hiding Place for Bed Bugs
Why are bed bugs so difficult to deal with? - BBC.com
Why are bed bugs so difficult to deal with?.
Posted: Thu, 19 Oct 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]
This dietary constraint means that general domestic cleanliness bears little influence on deterring or encouraging bedbugs. Bed bugs appear wherever they find accessible human blood and good hiding spots. Close-quarter living situations like apartments, dormitories, and shelters often magnify infestations due to easy movement between units or rooms. Furthermore, bed bugs breed explosively under favorable temperatures (70-80°F) which is common of indoor living conditions.

bedbugs
But most bed bugs spread from place to place when they get onto people’s clothes, linens, or furniture and into luggage. People will then move the bed bugs from place to place much quicker than the bed bugs could infest new areas on their own. Because they don’t have wings, bed bugs move around by crawling. But in many cases, people carry bed bugs from place to place, often without realizing.
Foundation Cracks
Bed bug interceptor traps can be placed under the legs of furniture to catch bed bugs and keep them from climbing the legs. Both commercial and do-it-yourself interceptors are options. Follow the directions below to create your interceptor traps. Before the pest control company arrives, they should give you instructions for prepping your home.
These allergic symptoms can include enlarged bite marks, painful swellings at the bite site, and, on rare occasions, anaphylaxis. Textiles aren’t the only go-to surface for traveling bed bugs either — cardboard boxes can provide a cozy solution too. It makes for the perfect hideaway for bed bugs because it’s dark, sheltered and often undisturbed. It’s an ideal sanctuary for alternative pests for the same reason, including roaches.
Regularly wash and heat-dry your bed sheets, blankets, bedspreads and any clothing that touches the floor.
Once you identify and contain all infested areas, you can combine chemical and non-chemical treatments to kill the bugs. Houseplants breathe life into an indoor space, but unfortunately, they can also attract a variety of pests. Many houseplants attract aphids, which may seem like an isolated issue, but aphids, in turn, attract ants.
According to the EPA, bed bugs give off a musty and slightly sweet odor. It’s not surprising that half-truths and downright magical thinking come into play where bed bugs are concerned. There are few things that make us feel so powerless in our own domain as the specter of a visit from these creatures.
Bed bugs can enter the home from other infested areas. They can hitch a ride on furniture, luggage, and backpacks.
That’s because they produce a sweet substance known as honeydew that ants love. Stacked firewood attracts a variety of insects who live in and feed on the organic matter, and it can even attract rodents. To keep the woodpile dwellers out of your home never store firewood indoors, even for a few hours.
How to prevent bed bugs
If these pests have invaded your property, here’s how to get rid of bed bugs for advice on what to do next. If you don't want to handle these pests yourselves, you can always call in a professional. To give you an idea of their size, the EPA indicates that if you can fit a credit card in a crack, there’s room for a bed bug. If you spot the signs of bed bugs, immediately inform your host or hotel management. They don’t spread disease but are a nuisance and their bites can be itchy and irritating. Once you find a bedbug, put it in a sealed jar along with 1 teaspoon of rubbing alcohol.
Instead, look for the bugs’ characteristic brown-black, dot-like fecal stains (digested blood) on your bedding, mattress, box spring, bed frame, or nearby baseboards. If your mattress isn’t already in an encasement, look carefully along the mattress’s seams and crevices—especially the folds of a pillow top. Bedbugs also leave behind cast skins, which look like empty bedbug shells or fragments. They hide in the cracks and crevices of beds, box springs, headboards, bed frames and other objects around a bed and come out at night to feed on their preferred host, humans.
Once cleaned and vacuumed, it’s advised to throw the infested bedding in the laundry to wash and dry it on the hottest possible setting. Finally, the resident will want to repair all cracks and fissures in walls and floors where the bed bugs could hide. This will ensure they have no way to come back into the home. However, it’s wise for a resident to consult a professional at the first sign of a more significant problem, as infestations can be challenging to mitigate alone. Bed bugs can be carried in all sorts of items including curtains, chairs, box springs and mattresses.
Bed bugs are an oval shape and only grow to about 3/16th of an inch in length. After feeding, bed bugs become more red in color, swollen, and elongated. Despite having reduced “wing pads,” bed bugs do not have wings and cannot fly. You might also consider using mattress encasements which can trap bugs already inside and prevent new ones from finding hiding spots in your bed. Regularly vacuuming your bedding and around your bed can also help significantly reduce their numbers.
We use garages and basements as storage spaces, workshops, studios, and potting sheds, but pests use them as a warm and welcoming home. These unwelcome guests often find their way inside when homeowners leave garage doors open for hours at a time. Garages and basements make outstanding entry points for all sorts of creatures. Always close garage and basement doors when they don’t need to be open. Outdoor cooking and dining attracts ants, flies, and wasps, but the grease and residual food left on the grill after a cookout can bring even more pests, including mice and rats. When the picnic is over, don’t forget to clean the outdoor cooking area.

The proximity to their host makes it easy for them to feed and reproduce, leading to quick, aggressive infestations. They can move from an infested site to a new home by traveling on furniture, bedding, luggage, boxes and clothing. If you have a bed bug infestation, it is best to find it early, before the infestation becomes established or spreads. Treating a minor infestation, while an inconvenience, is far less costly and easier than treating the same infestation after it becomes more widespread. Furthermore, bed bugs also leave a rather unpleasant odor that secretes from their scent glands. Exterminators can help get rid of bedbugs, though you may have to launder fabrics at high heat and remove hiding places.
If you’re suddenly experiencing signs of a bed bug infestation in your home for the first time, they likely snuck their way in as a stowaway on a purse, luggage, or clothing. You can use a lint roller or tape to pick up evidence and place it in a plastic bag to show a pest control operator (P.C.O.). So you can still have bed bugs in your home and can still get bitten.
It can take days, weeks, or longer to fully vanquish a bedbug infestation. You will likely need to repeat the steps outlined here until you’ve gotten rid of the bugs entirely. They can’t fly, so they rely on transporting with their host to get from place to place. This movement may occur on suitcases, furniture or clothing in transit. Prevention and vigilance are key to preventing a bed bug problem. “It’s much easier to control them if they are found early, [when there are only a few of them], as opposed to when they grow to number in the hundreds,” says Gondhalekar.