Author Archives: Pest Controller

Bed bugs are small insects that feed on human blood. They are usually active at night when people are sleeping.

Adult bed bugs have flat, rusty-red colored oval bodies, no wings and are about the size of an apple seed. They are big enough to be easily seen, but hide in mattresses, box springs, bedding, cracks in furniture, floors, or walls. When bed bugs feed, they swell and become brighter red. They can live for several months to over a year without feeding. They don't jump or fly, and they crawl and move about the same speed as an ant.

Be aware that other insects, such as fleas, ticks, and mosquitos, can leave bites that look like bed bug bites. Bites alone cannot prove you have a bed bug infestation.

Important note: The only way to be sure you have a bed bug infestation is to find and positively identify a live bed bug.

If you suspect you have bed bugs, you will have to conduct a thorough search of your home. Bed bugs are hard to find because they hide in, under, and around beds. They also hide inside, under and behind furniture, and in small cracks or corners in furniture, floors or walls or in carpeting close to where they feed at night.

Newly hatched bed bugs are about the size of a poppy seed, pale yellow in color, almost transparent, and very difficult to see. Once they have fed, they become larger and are red or brown in color which makes them easier to see. Bed bug eggs are white and about the size of two grains of salt. When laid, they are cemented to surfaces making them difficult to remove.

A bed bug bite is painless and some people have no reaction to the bites at all. Most people have itchiness, red spots, or welts that look like mosquito or flea bites hours later. There may be an itchy bump but the tiny bite mark may not be visible. These usually fade after several days. A few people have severe allergic reactions.

Remember: Bites are only a clue that you may have bed bugs, but you can't tell from bites alone that you have a bed bug problem.

Bed bugs usually bite at night while you are asleep. If you wake up in the middle of the night and find a bug on your bed, don't squash it - instead, completely seal a live sample in a clean zip-style sandwich bag and have the bug identified by a pest control operator.

Bed bugs are not a result of poor housekeeping. Anyone can have bed bugs. People bring bed bugs into their homes unknowingly in infested luggage, backpacks, purses, furniture, bedding, shoes or clothing. They can also travel between apartments through cracks in walls and floors.

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Bed bug fact sheet - King County, Washington

You can do a much better job than exterminators. As an example, if bed bugs can crawl from your neighbors to your room and only you want to hire an exterminator, exterminators cant help you with any methods they know, but you can completely stop bed bug bites after 2 hours of easy effort. The video and attached texts describe how to build sticky barriers to protect top of bed, tables, chairs, clothes, and shoes. It stops bed bug bites immediately even for the worst case in which bed bugs continually crawl from your neighbors to your room. In other words, you solve the bed bug problem immediately because bed bugs cant bite and your daily effort to keep barrier function is negligible.

Traditional methods have extremely low efficiency. Chemicals kill bed bugs on contact. The residue is not active. Fogger bomb has been reported as useless. DE powder slowly kills bed bugs which bite and lay eggs before they die. Bugs lay eggs fast after meal. Those behind wall and under carpet are hard to find. The killing speed may be slower than the egg laying speed even though you wash, vacuum, and spray every day. The mattress encasement was developed from one of the worst ideas because a minor change on product design will seal all of bed bugs in a bedroom instead of sealing mattress only as shown in the video.

Why do experts never think about the sticky barrier method? The special sticky tape is patent pending; experts never had a chance to try. You can confirm this because ants can crawl on any well known double sided sticky tapes. To test how long bed bugs can live without food. I caught bed bugs into a glass bottle. The last one died in 3 months. Bed bugs may live one year at low temperatures without any activity. Bed dugs should die quickly at room temperatures if they actively crawl every night for seeking food when they can feel the smell of sleeping people.

As a conclusion, you can solve the bed bug problem by 2 hours of easy effort. Because even thousands of bed bugs in your room can't hurt you after you build sticky barriers, it is not important how many bugs will be trapped or how long the last bed bug will be starved. Many people have proved that barrier method works well when they sleep in a bathtub which is too slippery for bed bugs to crawl.

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Make sure you really have bed bugs, not fleas or ticks or other insects

You can compare your insect to the pictures on our bed bug Web page or show it to your local extension agent.

Eliminating bed bugs is difficult, but its not impossible. Dont throw out all of your things because most of them can be treated and saved. Throwing stuff out is expensive, may spread the bed bugs and could cause more stress.

Be comprehensive in your approach. Try other things first. Integrated pest management (IPM) techniques may reduce the number of bed bugs and limit your contact with pesticides. If pesticides are needed, always follow label directions or hire a professional. There is help available to learn about treatment options. (4 pp, 480k, About PDF)

A cluttered home provides more places for bed bugs to hide and makes locating and treating them harder. If bed bugs are in your mattress, using special bed bug covers (encasements) on your mattress and box springs makes it harder for bed bugs to get to you while you sleep. Leave the encasements on for a year. Be sure to buy a product that has been tested for bed bugs and is strong enough to last for the full year without tearing.

This reduces the number of bed bugs. Bed bugs and their eggs can hide in laundry containers/hampers, so clean them when you do the laundry.

While freezing can kill bed bugs, temperatures must remain very low for a long time. Home freezers are usually not cold enough to kill bed bugs. Putting things outside in freezing temperatures can kill bed bugs, but it can take several days when the temperature is 0 F and almost a week when the temperature is 20 F.

Raising the indoor temperature with the thermostat or space heaters wont do the job. Special equipment and very high temperatures are necessary for successful heat treatment. Black plastic bags in the sun might work to kill bed bugs in luggage or small items, if the contents become hot enough (about 110F for at least 3 hours).

Bed bugs are good hitchhikers. If you throw out a mattress or furniture that has bed bugs in it, you should slash or in some way destroy it so that no one else takes it and gets bed bugs.

Thorough vacuuming can get rid of some of your bed bugs. Carefully vacuum rugs, floors, upholstered furniture, bed frames, under beds, around bed legs, and all cracks and crevices around the room. Change the bag after each use so the bed bugs cant escape. Place the used bag in a tightly sealed plastic bag and in an outside garbage bin.

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Top Ten Bed Bugs Tips | Pesticides | US EPA