Bed bugs do it yourself control

Although over-the-counter pesticide products that have bed bug control written on the label can be found on store shelves, they aren’t generally recommended. Performance of these products under actual field conditions isn’t known. The best bet is to hiring a licensed professional pesticide applicator with experience in treating bed bugs.Once professional treatment has occurred,Residents do have an important role to play when their homes are infested with bed bugs.

Bed bugs are one of the most difficult pest problems to eradicate quickly. By far, the best solution for bed bugs is to hire a pest control company with experience successfully controlling bed bugs. Unfortunately, this can be expensive and beyond the means of many people. Not being able to afford to hire a professional, and want to attempt do-it-yourself bed bug control, there are some guide to follow. With diligence and patience and some hard work, there is a fighting chance of getting rid of bed bugs.

In buildings, apartments or condominiums, it’s best to alert the property manager. A coordinated bed bug control effort using a pest control company is generally needed in such situations. Bed bugs readily move from apartment to apartment, with many people unaware that they have a problem. If one apartment is infested, adjoining units should be assumed to be infested unless shown otherwise through inspection or monitoring by a bed bug K9. Simply asking tenants whether they have bed bugs is not enough. In one recent study only half of residents in a large apartment with bed bugs knew or admitted to bed bug problem.

Pesticides alone are not the answer to bed bugs. Most of the commonly used pesticides today, including professional products and consumer products advertised for control of bed bugs, are at best moderately effective at controlling these pests. Pesticides must be used with care for safety and with attention to proper application to work well. Aerosol “bug bombs” or “fumigators” are also mostly ineffective in eliminating bed bugs. Aerosol insecticides mainly kill insects that are exposed, and out of their hiding places, not those hidden behind baseboards, in cracks and crevices of the bed, under carpet edging and in walls.

Steps for do-it-yourself bed bug control

Determine which rooms are infested. Bedrooms are the principal locations for bed bugs; however, any room where people sleep or rest in the home may provide harborage for bed bugs. Living rooms with sofas and sofa beds are the next most common sites for bed bugs. Typically an infestation starts in one room and spreads slowly to other places where people sleep. Finding and treat for bed bugs the easier it will be to get rid of them. Wait too long and bed bugs may be found throughout the home or business office building.

It’s generally unnecessary to throw away beds or bedding. It is expensive to replace bedding, and chances are that any new mattresses, box springs or beds you bring into the home will quickly become re-infested. The money to replace a bed or mattress might better be spent on hiring a professional.

Create a safe area to sleep.

This is critical because staying in a bed will reduce the risk of bed bugs spreading throughout the home. If you move to another room to sleep, the bed bugs will eventually follow. Then you’ll have bed bugs in multiple rooms.

Make your bed a safe place to sleep by:

Stripping and vacuuming the mattresses and box springs, and encasing them. Double bag your bedding and wash in hot water and dry for at least 60 minutes . After vacuuming suspected bed bugs from the bed, take your vacuum cleaner outdoors and remove and discard the bag. Purchase a good quality set of bed-bug-proof encasements for mattresses and box springs. Bed bug-proof encasements are fabric sacks into which you slide your mattress or box springs. The zippers on bed bug encasements are designed to be tight enough to prevent even the smallest life stages of the bed bugs from escaping. Also, good bed bug-proof encasements are woven to prevent bed bugs from biting the through the encasement. A good encasement will trap all bed bugs in the mattress and box spring inside, and will be smooth on the outside, providing few places for bed bugs to hide.

Keep the Bed bug Infestation from Spreading

Anything removed from the room should be placed in a sealed plastic bag and treated.
Items that cannot be treated should be placed in a sealed plastic bag and left for an extended period of time to ensure any active bugs are dead.

Empty the vacuum after each use.

Seal the bag and throw it out in an outdoor trash container.
Don’t discard furniture if you can eliminate the bed bugs from it.
If furniture cannot be salvaged, discard it responsibly. Destroy it so someone else won’t be tempted to bring it into their home. For example:
Rip covers and remove stuffing from furniture items.
Use spray paint to mark furniture with “Bed Bugs.”
Take steps to have infested items picked up as soon as possible by the garbage collection service.

Prepare to Treatment for Bed bugs

Jumping straight into control is tempting, but won’t work. Preparing for treatment is essential to getting successful control. It will also help by making it easier for monitoring for bed bugs that haven’t been completely eliminated. This preparation should be conducted whether treatmented by a home or business owner or hiring a professional.

Kill the Bed Bugs

Killing all bed bugs on your bed frame and headboard. Normally this would be done by a pest control professional. Approximately 80% of all bed bugs in the typical infestation are located on the mattress, box spring and bed frame. You’ve encased the mattress and box spring and taken care of that problem. Make sure the bed frame is bed bug free. Vacuuming alone won’t do this. Vacuuming can remove many bed bug adults and nymphs, but it isn’t very good at removing eggs. For this job insecticide sprays and possibly dusts to treat every crevice and void in the bed. For insecticide spray and dust options. Remember that insecticides can be hazardous Read and follow label directions. Read the whole label before spraying or dusting. The label directions are the law and failure to follow the label not only puts the family at risk, it is against the law. Homemade sprays, by the way, are usually less safe than commercial insecticides. Stick with the legal stuff.

Bed bug protected bed after the process of treating the bed

A bed that has been treated, encased and isolated from the rest of the room with Climbup Interceptor cups is a safe place to sleep if they are not carried by the person who is sleeping on the bed.interceptors under all feet of the bed frame to keep bed bugs off. Interceptors are special platforms or cups that are purchased to prevent bed bugs from climbing on to the bed. An interceptor can be as simple as a sticky card placed under a bed post. Better are one of the commercial pitfall traps made specifically for this purpose.

Treat other areas of the home or building

This is perhaps the most challenging part of do-it-yourself bed bug control. If an infestation is early there might not be a need to do anything more than treat and isolate the bed. But if an infestation has spread to other parts of the home, bed isolation may not be good enough. Here is where professional pest control for bed bugs help may be needed.

Still determined to do-it-yourself pest control?

Here are some tips that may improve your chances of success:

Prepare the room by separating treated from untreated furniture. This will involve moving all your furniture to one side of the infested room. The process is important because if you treat half of the items in a room and leave other areas untreated, bed bugs may return to the previously treated areas from untreated sites. Take all clothes from drawers, infested closets, etc. and bag them in clear plastic bags are easier to see where things are. Also bag all personal items for example toys, papers, books, electronics, CDs, or anything that could serve as a hiding place for bed bugs and set them aside until they can be carefully treated, cleaned or inspected.

Make sure the method selected is safe, effective and legal.

Consider non-chemical methods of killing bed bugs. Some will be more useful than others.

Heat treatment using a clothes dryer on high heat, black plastic bags in the sun. Pest control professionals have other methods that are not suitable for non-trained individuals to use.

Cold treatment can be successful in the home environment if the freezer is set to 0○ F. You must leave the items in the freezer at that temperature for four days. Reducing the numbers of bugs with these and other non-chemical methods is helpful, but is unlikely to entirely eliminate the infestation.

Systematically treat the room, all cracks and crevices around windows, outlets, blinds, pictures, posters and clocks on walls, baseboards, under edges of carpets and any other crevices or void areas in the room. Remember that immature bed bugs are very tiny. Dozens of bed bugs can hide in a recessed screw hole in a bed frame or dresser. Therefore it’s important that no hiding place be overlooked. Treatment can include vacuuming, but should not be limited to vacuuming only. Vacuums do not remove eggs, and will likely not remove all bed bugs from deeply infested cracks and crevices. Vacuums can remove many bed bugs from mattresses and the exterior of box springs. Sticky tape is another method of picking up bed bugs from furniture, walls, etc.

Examine and treat all furniture: beds, bed frames, dressers, chairs, couches, night stands, etc. following the same procedures. As a piece is treated it can be returned to the parts of the room that have been treated. Note that furniture should be taken apart, drawers and cushions removed in order to inspect and treat every nook and cranny. When treating upholstered furniture, pay attention to each welt, button and fold. stuffed furniture that is infested and too difficult to treat may be discarded. After spraying, return each article of furniture to the part of the room that has been treated. Do not reintroduce any furniture or other items to the treated room until they have been thoroughly cleaned, inspected or treated.

Treat or isolate bagged items:

For washable items research shows that dry cleaning, washing in hot water for 30 minutes, or tumble drying for 60 minutes on high will kill all stages of bed bugs. Non-washables are a little trickier. Items that aren’t needed for a while can just be stored. It takes 2-5 months to kill bed bugs by isolating them in bags,the warmer the temperature, the shorter the survival time for starving bed bugs. Heating bags by placing in direct sunlight is one of the most effective methods during the warm summer months. Seven pounds of items placed in clear bags in direct sunlight on a 95 degree day will get hot enough to kill all bed bug life stages in one afternoon. Also, placing bagged items in a chest freezer (0 degrees F) for 8-10 hours is lethal for bed bugs and their eggs.

Insecticices application treatments:

Select and use insecticides safely. There are no magic sprays that kill bed bugs very well. Most commercial insecticides will kill bed bugs if applied carefully and directly to the insects and their hiding places. An exception is “Bug bombs”, or aerosol foggers. Foggers are mostly ineffective in controlling bed bugs. Because bed bugs hide in crevices and voids where aerosols do not penetrate, they are able to avoid contact with these insecticides. Their use is not recommended.