Don’t freak out if you have bedbugs or suspect you could. While bedbugs can overwhelm us, they are defeatable.
Hiring a professional pest-control company and carefully adhering to their recommendations are the initial steps in dealing with a possible or confirmed bedbug infestation. In addition, we’ll demonstrate bedbug detection and identification. Also, we’ll explain how to remove bedbugs from furniture, clothing, and bedding as well as how to prevent the bugs from returning in the future.
What is required to remove bedbugs
- Flashlight: You can find bugs in their hiding spots by using a small, bright flashlight.
- Lint Roller: Use a lint roller to collect any insects, eggs, or cast skins you come across.
- Vacuum cleaner: You can remove bedbugs from your mattress and carpet by using a vacuum with powerful suction and cleaning attachments. A bagged vacuum can simplify the task because any live bugs will stay packed in the bag. Purchase extra bags and dispose of them after each use.
- Trash bags: To prevent further spreading of bugs throughout your home, gather up bedding, clothing, and other objects from an affected area in heavy-duty rubbish bags.
- Dryer: To kill bugs and their eggs, run contaminated bedding, towels, and clothing through the dryer on the hottest cycle.
Encasing your mattress in a bedbug-proof mattress cover will trap any bedbugs inside and prevent them from spreading. Moreover, doing this makes it simpler to later check your bed for bugs, and a cover will shield your mattress from spills and other harm. We usually advise employing one. The Protect-A-Bed AllerZip Smooth Mattress Encasement, which features incredibly strong seams and a zipper that won’t easily open, is the choice of Wirecutter.
How long will cleaning this take?
To eradicate a bedbug infestation completely, it may take days, weeks, or even longer. Until the bugs are completely gone, you’ll probably need to repeat the methods listed here. A professional bed bug exterminator can eliminate the bed bugs in one simple step by using a proven bed bug exterminator bed bug heat treatment process to eliminate bed bugs. Contact Pest Buster’s The Bed Bug Company to eliminate your bed bug infestation.
Verify If You Have Bed Bugs.
Check the corner of a mattress with a flashlight for bedbugs. Blood stains on linens, bite marks, or itching are not absolute indicators of bedbug presence. (Bedbug bites don’t have a distinguishing appearance, and some people don’t respond to them or bleed.) And just because you noticed a strange bug (even on your bed!) or slept the night in a shady motel or because your cousin’s boyfriend’s neighbor had bedbugs doesn’t mean you automatically have them. Instead, search your bed, mattress, box spring, or adjoining baseboards for the bugs’ distinctive brown-black, dot-like fecal stains (digested blood). If your mattress isn’t already enclosed, thoroughly inspect the seams and crevices of the mattress, paying special attention to the folds of a pillow top. Cast skins, which resemble empty bedbug shells or fragments, are another thing bedbugs leave behind.
It’s rare that you will notice live bedbugs during the day because they normally hide in or around the bed and only emerge at night. When it is already dark, take out your flashlight. Examine your bed, any neighboring furniture, and any crevices and nooks in particular. Pay specific attention to any tiny spaces like screw holes or joints.
Also, be aware of what you’re looking for. Carpet beetles, spider beetles, roach nymphs, and bat bugs are just a few of the many creatures that resemble bedbugs. Study materials that depict the size and appearance of bedbugs at various stages of their life cycle as well. Any evidence, such as bugs, cast skins, or eggs, can be collected with a lint roller or tape and put in a plastic bag to be shown to a service technician.
Make A Call For Assistance
You will require expert assistance if bedbug evidence has been discovered. An underlying bedbug infection cannot be eliminated on your own. As many bedbugs are resistant to pesticides, spraying them with something you buy at a hardware store or online would only kill part of them and disperse the others, escalating your problem. Steam, heat, and professional-grade chemicals like pesticides, powders, and other agents can all kill bedbugs (and their eggs), but all of these methods must be used by a certified service technician over the course of several visits and inspections. The service technician can also locate the source of the infestation, such as if the bedbugs are coming from a nearby apartment, and treat bedbugs that are buried deep within walls or floorboards. A service technician will provide detailed directions for cleaning, organizing, and getting ready your house for therapy. Observe them closely.
Don’t panic, despite how difficult it could be. Before or during treatment by a service technician, you shouldn’t remove the mattress, rearrange the furniture, or rip up the carpet, according to all of the bedbug experts we spoke with. By doing this, bedbugs might infest more areas of your house. According to Jeff White, chief product officer of SenSci, a manufacturer of pest management solutions, “Treating 500 bugs in one room is easier than treating 50 bugs in numerous rooms.”
Kill and Purge
Cleaning infested areas and eradicating any bedbugs you uncover should be done in addition to any professional treatment. Vacuum your mattress and box spring completely, paying special attention to seams, crevices, and folds. Vacuum the area around and beneath the bed, the headboard, and any other nearby furniture where bedbugs might hide. After vacuuming is complete, carefully take the vacuum bag out and place it right away in a rubbish bag to be thrown away.
The bedbug experts we spoke with offered this tip for those who use hose vacuums and want to save money on pricey vacuum bags: Pull the opening of a knee-high nylon stocking over the hose attachment while leaving the stocking dangling over the end. Turn on the vacuum while carefully fastening the stocking with a rubber band. The fabric will become trapped with the bugs, cast skins, and eggs as the suction pulls the stocking into the hose (eggs are often sticky, and may require strong suction to remove). After gently removing the stocking, tying the end, and discarding it, turn off the vacuum.
Once the bedbugs have been exterminated, a mound of bed sheets in a waste bag.
Sheets, pillows, and any clothing, towels, stuffed animals, or other textiles that may have come into contact with bedbugs should be carefully sealed in heavy-duty garbage bags. When you’re ready, take these things out and place them loosely in the dryer. To get rid of any bugs or eggs, run it for 30 minutes on the hottest cycle. (You don’t have to wash the objects first if they aren’t already dirty.)
To prevent recontamination after heat treatment, you might wish to keep some of these goods in airtight plastic containers like the Iris Weathertight Totes until the infestation is finished.
It will be simpler to treat your infestation if you clean up and declutter the area in question. Trash should be bagged completely and removed as soon as the bags are removed. If you have bedbugs, experts advise against throwing away your furniture or beds. This can also transfer bugs across your house or to other people. If you do decide to get rid of your mattress (after consulting with your service technician first), completely enclose it in a tear-resistant plastic cover (many cities require this).
Use A Mattress Cover
The Protect-A-Bed mattress protector is displayed on a mattress with the zipper slightly open.
Use a bedbug-proof encasement, such as the Protect-A-Bed AllerZip Smooth Mattress Encasement, after vacuuming and cleaning your mattress and box spring. Any insects or their eggs that may still be on the mattress (or inside it if it is broken) will be caught by the encasement.
Eventually, those insects and their eggs will perish if you leave the cover in place and zipped. Our specialists advised you to leave it on for a year; however, before unzipping it, seek advice from your service technician. Also, the encasement prevents any new pests from entering. Also, due to the smooth, white surface of the encasement, subsequent bedbug evidence will be simpler to detect. Also, you might wish to cover your pillows. The Protect-A-Bed Originals AllerZip Smooth Pillow Protectors are what we advise for that.
Halt The Spread
Contact Pest Buster’s The Bed Bug Company to discuss your options related to eliminating bed bugs.
