How To Get Rid Of Bed Bugs | How To Kill Bed Bugs

Prepare the area : Pretreatment Procedures Reduce clutter to make bed bug inspection easier. Be careful when removing items from the infested area to other areas because you may transfer the bed bugs. Personal items (stuffed animals, soft toys, blankets) should be removed, cleaned with a vacuum cleaner, and bagged in plastic for a couple of days with Nuvan Strips. You can also bag laptops, phones and radios as well. The insecticide in Nuvan strips will not harm these items, and is non-residual, so you don't have to launder them after using the Nuvan strips Dismantling bed frames in infested areas may expose additional bedbug hiding sites. Remove drawers from desks and dressers, and turn furniture over to inspect and clean all hiding spots. All furniture should be pulled away from the walls. Stand up the box spring and shine a flashlight through the gauze fabric to expose bed bugs. If the fabric is torn (possible hiding place), remove fabric to prepare for spraying. If the mattress and or box springs are infested, you may want to consider Bed Bug Certified Encasements by Mattress Safe. Once covered with these encasements, bed bugs can not enter or exit. There is no need to treat the mattress or box spring when using these encasements. Keep them on for a year. Caulk and seal all holes where pipes and wires penetrate walls and floor, and fill cracks around baseboards and molding to further reduce harboring areas. Since infested garments and bed linen can't be treated with insecticide they will need to be laundered in hot water (120 degrees fahrenheit minimum). If washing is not available, sometimes heating the garments or bed linens for several minutes in a clothes dryer may work. Thoroughly clean the infested rooms. Scrub infested surfaces with a stiff brush to dislodge eggs. Vacuum areas of bed bug infestation with a vacuum attachment. Vacuum along baseboards, furniture, bed stands, rails, headboards, foot boards, bed seams, tufts, buttons, edges of the bedding, as well as the edges of the carpets (particularly along the tack strips). A good vacuum cleaning job may remove particles from cracks and crevices to encourage greater insecticide penetration. Bed bugs cling tightly to surfaces, so it is best to repeat vacuuming by scraping the end of the vacuum attachment over the infested areas to pull out the bed bugs. It is not good to use a bristle attachment, because you may transfer bed bugs to other areas since they cling to the brush. Dispose of vacuum cleaner bags after you are finished. Caulk cracks and crevices in the infested building exterior, and also repair openings to exclude birds, bats, and rodents that can serve as alternate hosts for bed bugs. Monitoring devices such as the BDS bed bug detection system should be placed around the infested area to help determine where the bed buge population resides. It is important to know that these devices are for monitoring only. Lack of trapped bed bugs does not necessarily mean that you are bed bug free.

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To inspect properly, it may be helpful to understand Bed Bug Diet and Bedbug Habits Since bed bugs are difficult to see, we recommend using an industrial powered magnifier such as Carson's Dual View Magnifier. and a flashlight.

Dual View Industrial Magnifier

Bedbug Pictures: What does a bed bug look like?

The common bed bug is visible to the naked eye. Adult bed bugs are brown to reddish-brown, oval-shaped, flattened, and about 1/4 to 5/8 inch long. Their flat shape enables them to readily hide in cracks and crevices. After a blood meal, the body elongates and becomes swollen. Eggs are not placed on the host's body, but are found on surfaces near where the host sleeps.

Look in any place that offers darkness, isolation and protection. These bugs will often wander. Inspect adjoining rooms where an infestation is found. Even when the bed bugs themselves cannot be found, their hiding places can be located by looking for the spots of fecal material they often leave. Aerosols like CB-80, PT 565 and V-One have pyrethrins as an active ingredient. Pyrethrins help flush out the bed bugs for easier inspection. These aerosols kill on contact, but the idea is to flush them out for inspection. Simply insert the crack and crevice tip of the aerosol in the hiding place to see if any bed bugs are flushed out.

Fecal and bloody spots (look like rust) are left on sheets and pillowcases when the engorged bed bugs are crushed. These indicators serve as sure signs of infestation. Adult bed bugs are about 1/4-inch long and reddish-brown, with oval, flattened bodies. Bed bugs prefer to hide in cracks and crevices during the daytime and come out to feed on the host's blood at night, usually while the host is sleeping. Since bed bugs can flatten their bodies, they fit in very small crevices, specially around the bed area. They are found in habitual hiding places, preferably close to a blood meal. Even though the their preference is to be close they can travel several feet for a blood meal. Initial infestations tend to be around beds, but the bugs eventually become scattered throughout a room, occupying any crevice or protected location. They can also spread to adjacent rooms or apartments.

Look for areas near where the bed bugs are biting. Main areas of inspection are cracks and crevices in head and foot boards and attached side railings and supports. Look for any cracks or crevices where bed bugs may crawl into to hide. If the top of the mattress has any rips, the bed bugs may hide there as well. Look in your boxsprings also, both top and bottom for any rips that might shelter these bugs.

Inspection Check List:

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How To Get Rid Of Bed Bugs | How To Kill Bed Bugs