How to Kill Bed Bugs – About.com Student Travel | World, Bed Bug Registry Map

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It's tough to kill bed bugs on your own; learn some tips on how to avoid and kill bed bugs while traveling, and how to uninvite them permanently if they want to stay for dinner once you get home. Key: think professional exterminators before spending big bucks battling the buggers with sprays. Let's look at some of the bugs' habits before learning about how to kill bed bugs.

And they're tough customers. According to the National Pest Management organization, they can live more than a year without eating; taking a vacation in hopes the bugs will then move out won't work. They can take the temps, too; the bugs are okay with freezing to Fahrenheit 113.

Even if you don't see sign, don't put your backpack on the bed or other furniture in order to lessen chances of the bugs hopping on. If the room has a suitcase stand, use it.

If you've got bites, or you know you've spent time in a room harboring the bugs, vacuum your suitcases, backpack, camera bag -- leave no seam unsucked. Wash everything you own in the hottest water possible to boil the little biters.

Baumann points out that people pay plenty trying various home remedies that don't go so well, and recommends that you bite the bullet and foot the bill for an exterminator to begin with.

The exterminator will have instructions regarding jobs you should complete prior to his arrival.

- Pile up furniture. - Remove light switchplates (the bugs hide back there).

- Toss mattresses. - Caulk wall and wood cracks (they hide there, too) -- get caulk and a caulking gun at a hardware store and practice using a finger to smooth the goop flat against surfaces (easy).

- Completely strip all bedding (get to bare mattress). Craft says to fold bedding in on itself to contain the bugs; wash it or dry clean at high temps. Interesting factoid: Craft says that in hot desert areas, folks with infestations often hang bedding and clothes in the blistering sun -- remember that temps over 113 kill bed bugs.

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How to Kill Bed Bugs - About.com Student Travel