[Guide] How to Get Rid of Bed Bugs

Bed bugs! The mere mention of these tiny pests can strike fear for you. This is especially true when you had a past encounter with them. Their reputation is difficult to get rid of, quick to reproduce such as one female can lay six eggs a day and leaving many bites on their victims – each bug feeds three times over five minutes.

But how do you know if you have bed bugs? How can you detect them before they become an infestation within your sleeping quarters? This guide aims to answer both of these questions. You will also have some basic information on how to treat this troublesome pest.

Are Bed Bugs Hard To Get Rid of?

No, they are quite easy to get rid of. The reason infestations can get difficult is because of a lot of misinformation on how to combat it. You might believe that you need some special solution or chemical insecticide. This may not always work as well as advertised. A better way is for you to understand how bed bugs behave. Learn how to encourage them into leaving your home instead of staying put.

As mentioned earlier, one female can lay six eggs a day. These babies can grow up and spawn more new ones in less than a month without proper attention. Not only will the population swell without checking. An infestation increases over time due to their huge reproductive rates!

Where Do Bed Bugs Hide?

You might get surprised how these insects will take shelter in the most unlikely of places. Bed bugs are not meticulous about where they live or breed at all. They are also nocturnal, making their presence even harder to detect early on.

Here are some typical examples of how they will find a home:

·      Inside common household appliances like coffee pots and microwaves

·      Behind wallpapers

·      Within bedside tables, behind wooden furniture pieces, or under baseboards

·      In electrical sockets or outlets

·      Anywhere that can provide safety from sunlight is fair game for them to settle down

When Do Bed Bugs Bite?

You may hear how they usually come out at night to feed. This is true, but there are more reasons for this. A hungry bug will search for any nearby source of food during both day and night.

As mentioned earlier, bed bugs do not limit how often they eat or how much they can drink in total. Your blood is their main source of nutrients. They can bite you even while you sleep soundly under your sheets.

Signs of Infestation

When you have a hunch that there is trouble with how your home is faring, here are a few signs of bed bug infestation to look for:

·Red bites on the skin. These marks may feel itchy and inflamed. They can also have a small bluish spot in their center or around the lesion. You should go to see a doctor as soon as possible if this occurs.

·Bloodstains on bed sheets from how they feed at night.

·Dark spots from their waste products near their hiding places. These will eventually turn into dark patches over time.

Steps in Removing Bed Bugs

Seeing bed bugs can distract you from doing activities. Learn how to make them disappear with many steps to guide you:

Identify All Infested Areas

You have to know how far their habitat extends to how safe it is for you to use your home. Look for where they populate.

·Check if the bugs are present within electrical sockets, outlets, or cords plugged in

·Inspect the location of your appliances and how easily accessible they are without much effort

·Sight of dark spots near their hiding locations can come from bed bugs

Contain The Infestation

If you are certain how far the extent of your bed bug infestation goes, make sure to contain it first. A big step in how to get rid of them is how you manage their spread. Here are a few guidelines on how to do this:

·Remove drawers from desks and dressers for inspection

·This is especially important if they tend to hide within furniture pieces

·Fold clothes properly after taking them out from the washing machine

Develop a Strategy

If you successfully contained how big the problem is, it is time to develop a plan of how to do away with them. There are different options that you can consider:

·Cleaning your home with bleach will get rid of how much they live within your household. You have to pour it into all of their hiding locations and surfaces. These are both inside and outside the house. Let it sit for about 15 minutes before rinsing.

·Only do handpick with mild infestation. It will take too much effort to remove how many bugs there are in total. Do not rely on this step primarily.

·Steamers are better alternatives since they will kill many bugs there are at once.

Prep for Bed Bug Treatment

There are certain preparations that you need to take when you already know how to get rid of bed bugs. These will improve how effective your treatment is:

·Use protective clothing like gloves and long sleeves for extra protection. You should also wear eye goggles and a mask.

·Seal off as many rooms as possible by covering doors and windows with plastic sheets or tape.

·Remove electrical appliances from the room before they start to do away with the bed bugs.

Monitor The Affected Areas

You have to keep effective methods of how to get rid of them. Make sure that you check their hiding places often.

·How many bugs do you find? If they remain, how long will it take for them to decrease in number?

·It is helpful to seal the room again after a few days. This may catch how much they reproduce in numbers in one place.

·You can also conduct another inspection when you are sure how effective the treatment is.

Get The Pros

When your effort is not working, try bringing in the hands of First Response Bed Bug Dogs serving NYC, New Jersey, Long Island, and Connecticut.

You need professional pest control services who can help in solving your problem. They also need to address how worse it becomes or how much there is.

Kill The Bed Bugs

Making bed bugs go away is through home cleaning and treatments. Know about them below:

Home Cleaning Methods

Remove clutter and clean dirty space.

Vacuum daily to remove many bugs or waste products they leave behind. You can use a special attachment to suck how much dirt they put on your furniture, floors, and carpeting.

Wash all curtains, sheets, and pillowcases with hot water and dry them in maximum heat.

Get rid of clutter that you can within the house, especially furniture pieces that contain bed bugs.

Non-Chemical and Chemical Treatments

The absence and presence of chemicals in removing your bed bugs come from some treatments such as:

Pyrethrins and Pyrethroids

It is a mixture that kills bed bugs and how effective the treatment is. You can buy it in stores and pharmacies without a prescription.

Use all of it in hiding locations to get rid of them everywhere. Just make sure to follow directions thoroughly.

Do not use this kind of treatment when you are sensitive to its ingredients.

Pyrroles

Use these treatments when you want to get rid of bed bugs. You can find them in hardware stores, supermarkets, and home centers.

It is effective in killing them immediately when they come into contact with piperonyl.

Keep away when you are sensitive to it.

Desiccants

This treatment can get rid of bed bugs near your home outdoors. You can choose from dry ice, silica gel, or diatomaceous earth.

It is useful in dehydrating many bugs and their eggs.

These are not harmful to animals and to you when it stays in the environment.

Foggers or Bug Bombs

It is a term to get rid of bed bugs with aerosol sprays.

This will affect how many lives and how much they reproduce in the cracks and crevices.

You can use it at night when you sleep because of its odorless formula. However, do not spray them in locations where you store food and how much it consumes.

Use this treatment when you do not mind its effectiveness and how much water damage they cause.

How Long Does It Take to Get Rid of Bed Bugs?

Satisfy your interest in knowing the duration of removing bed bugs through a few treatments:

Traditional Insecticide Treatment

You should exert much effort to remove the bugs through this treatment. It may take many days to eliminate them depending on how you use them. You can do it yourself or ask the help of professionals.

Heat Treatment

The effectiveness of this treatment takes time.

You can put mattresses and furniture in the dryer to raise its temperature for many minutes.

Turn up your home’s heating and cooling systems for many hours because of hot temperature settings.

You can also use steam cleaners to heat your things for about an hour.

This treatment helps get rid of bed bugs that live near the surface like carpets. They crawl into tiny cracks and crevices.

Do-It-Yourself (DIY)

The methods below will help you get rid of bed bugs:

Remove clutter in your home to clean the space.

Use a vacuum cleaner to collect as much dust and dirt from where bed bugs hide.

Purchase insecticides that do not contain pyrethroids and how long they remain effective.

Use hot water to clean bed sheets, curtains, and pillowcases. Leave it for 20 minutes before washing them. Ensure there is much heat from your washer’s setting.

Place the items for treatment in a large drying machine or in maximum heat for 25 minutes.

Put your things in a freezer for many days as necessary to remove bed bugs.

Can You Get Rid of Bed Bugs on Your Own?

The question of how to get rid of bed bugs in your home can get difficult. It depends on how professional you are with home improvement and how frequently they infest your place.

It is an option when you are in a hurry and when there is no pesticide resistance in your home.

Perform it only if the chemicals do not affect how healthy you are.

Use heat treatments for many hours it remains fresh.

Home Remedies for Bed Bugs

Familiarize yourself with many remedies for bed bugs that you can do at home. Below are several:

Vacuum

Do this at home to collect as much dust and dirt where bed bugs stay. Vacuuming helps reduce the number of bed bugs but is not 100% effective. These cleaners can capture these annoying insects when you are careful with how often you use the vacuum. This activity is for certain areas or groups on your property. Just keep these tips in mind to avoid spreading infestation elsewhere.

Steam

You should use hot water to clean clothes, sheets, curtains, pillowcases, and linens. Leave it at high heat for 20 minutes before washing. Ensure the machine’s highest setting gives as much heat it provides when you wash them. The steam will kill anything hiding in small cracks where bed bugs hide.

Another option is to use a steamer to raise how much heat and pressure it provides in your home. This is how to get rid of bed bugs when they infest carpets and furniture.

Protect Your Bed

You should know how to get rid of bed bugs in your home immediately. These include:

Add a layer of protection on top of your mattress and see how it works. This is what people often call bed bug proof or encasement. It traps them inside the cavity and forces them to die from dehydration.

Encase your box springs and pillows as well. These contain bed bugs that live near the surface areas like carpets.

Dryer Sheets

They keep bed bugs away from your linens and clothes. Placing dryer sheets inside your laundry basket prevents them. You can also put these under your mattress, pillows, dressers, and nightstands.

Combine the dryer sheet with borax for how to get rid of bed bugs in your home. You can use the liquid solution to wipe down surfaces where they stay because it dehydrates them.

Mix it with other ingredients like lavender, lemongrass, thyme, mint, and eucalyptus oil. Use these ingredients mixed with water to clean your home.

Essential Oils

Use lavender, lemongrass, thyme, mint, or eucalyptus oil to get rid of bed bugs. You can buy these oils at your local grocery store. Mix them with other essential oils like olive oil and place them in small jars. When you use the mixture as a cleaner, place several drops on the affected areas. Keep it as how to get rid of bed bugs in your home at night and leave overnight. The mixture will keep away these insects from their hiding places.

Alcohol

Alcohol kills bed bugs. Combine water and alcohol into a 50:50 mixture to clean them. You can use a spray bottle to apply this solution to the affected areas. Use it in your home at night. Keep the solution on the carpet and linens before you leave overnight. This kills them without using any chemicals or poisons.

Ultrasonic Pest Repellers

In looking for a clean and safe way to keep the bugs and mice away from your home without having expensive pest control or dangerous chemical traps, an ultrasonic repeller seems perfect! These devices only work on pests who can hear sounds at frequencies over 20KHz. They will not hurt you even without sound. You can use these devices for rooms or entire houses.

Natural Pesticides for Getting Rid of Bed Bugs

Your search for a few natural pesticides is below to let bed bugs disappear!

Silica Dust or Diatomaceous Earth

This powder gets rid of them from the carpeting, floors, and even on furniture. You can use a special duster to apply it directly onto their hiding places.

Diatomaceous earth kills them with its sharp edges! It cuts through their exoskeleton and causes them to dehydrate and die.

Natural or Botanical Pesticides

Use pesticides to get rid of bed bugs from your home as well as from the environment. These products come from various kinds of flowers, plants, and other botanical extracts. They kill the pests in your home without chemicals or poisons that harm you.

Insecticidal soaps are effective to get rid of bed bugs at killing them on contact. It is safe to touch but not to eat.

Aprehend™

Aprehend® is composed of Beauveria bassiana fungal spores applied in a proprietary formulation with a pending patent. Spray a pre-determined amount onto your infected surfaces. You can begin noticing an improvement after they dry for 12 hours.

The long-term activity means that no matter how many times these pests come back when there are any left by then, they will not survive due to carrying mycelium all over their bodies.

Natural Bed Bug Control with No Pesticide

Discover how these two natural treatments can help you eradicate bed bugs in your NYC home.

Cryonite Treatment

Cryonite treatment uses amorphous carbon dioxide from the atmosphere that is commonly known as dry ice. It can get rid of bed bugs on your mattress by placing this technique over the entire surface. As a repellent, it has a cold temperature that penetrates quickly through their waxy shell and kills them within several minutes!

Heat Treatment

Doing this heat treatment has a maximum temperature of 1,472 degrees Fahrenheit to kill bed bugs. You can use a professional kiln within your home. Another option is to hire a NYC pest control company for this purpose.

How to Get Rid of Bed Bugs at Home

Boric acid is one of the most effective home remedies on how to get rid of bed bugs. It contains certain properties that act as a natural insecticide even against harmful insects. You can use this material to kill them. It is useful to get rid of them at home without using any harmful chemicals or pesticides.

This treatment might take time, but it does work against these pests. It gets rid of their eggs and kills them at the same time. You can use borax powder mixed with water to spray it on your carpets, couches, beds, and other infected surfaces.

The best tip on how to get rid of bed bugs is to prevent infestation in the first place. Ensure that no creatures appear near or around your home. Keep your house clean at all times and vacuum carpets to get rid of debris or any pest eggs remaining in between floorboards.

How To Get Rid of Bed Bugs In A Mattress

Get to know some ways on how you can make bed bugs disappear in your mattress. Below is a guide:

Eliminate Bed Bugs on The Mattress

You can hire a pest control company or use chemicals to get rid of these pests. But if you want to do it yourself, here are two suggestions on how to deal with bed bugs on your mattress:

Use borax powder mixed with water or vinegar for spraying onto surfaces that these pests infect.

Clean your mattress with hot water to get rid of them. This is without using any chemicals or pesticides. You should not worry about getting ill from their remains. These spores are harmless and only activate when there is the presence of humidity. Nevertheless, it will take time for them to become active.

Eliminate Bed Bugs from The Box Spring

It is also essential to know how to get rid of bed bugs from your box spring. You can follow these tips:

Deep clean the box spring using hot water. Put it inside your washing machine to get rid of them more quickly!

Preference to use chemicals means choosing sprays that you can purchase at local home improvement stores.

Spray borax powder over the surface of your box spring to kill them there as well. You have to wait for it to dry completely after application. It might take one day for this treatment to work properly.

Insecticide Dust

Insecticide dust treatments usually include boric acid powder and diatomaceous earth along with several others.

Use a sifter or a duster to apply the powder onto surfaces such as cracks, crevices, or any hidden areas where bed bugs can inhabit.

It might take several days for this treatment to work and kill them all. Make sure that you do not breathe in its particles when applying it.

Encasement

This is a type of mattress cover that can help you on how to get rid of bed bugs from your mattress.

Purchase high-quality encasements in protecting your entire bed and box spring from any potential invasion. These products have a special zipper that prevents pests from entering them.

You should allow some air to come out of the encasement to prevent suffocation and heat buildup.

How To Get Rid of Bed Bugs In Furniture

Practice a few ways to discourage bed bugs from getting in your furniture. Here they are:

Sofa and Chair

Sofa and chair covers are also effective on how to get rid of bed bugs in your home. Ensure that you buy them with zippers for added protection.

You should put the encasement over your sofa or chair before it gets infested. It is not advisable to use this method on your sofa when you have small kids or pets.

Make sure to seal the encasement properly to prevent them from eating through it.

Bedroom Furniture

Place all the drawers and cabinets of your dresser, nightstands, and any other pieces of furniture away from the floor. This ensures that they cannot find their way into it that easily.

Do not leave clothes or boxes near your dresser since they will attract these pests!

Bedroom Accessories

Bed bugs hide cleverly in your bedroom accessories. You can move the things around for an hour as needed to prevent their bite.

How To Get Rid of Bed Bugs in Carpet

The carpet in your home is also tempting for bed bugs to stay at. Follow this advice on how to get rid of them:

Vacuum

Vacuuming is one of the easiest tips on how to get rid of bed bugs. However, you have to do it every day for at least two weeks constantly. When you are still seeing some of these pests on your carpet after vacuuming, contact a professional pest control company for help.

Steam

You can also steam clean your carpet to make sure that they are all gone. Ensure that you hire a reputable company for the best results!

Insecticide Dust

Only use this option when you have concerns about how steam cleaning your carpet smells. It is also possible to use dust treatments on how to get rid of bed bugs in your carpet. You can make your own or purchase them at local home improvement stores.

Laundering

This is how to get rid of bed bugs through laundering. You should only use this option in being certain that your carpet does not have these pests.

Put all the clothes and linens inside the washing machine. Place them in hot water before turning them on for at least ten minutes. Make sure that you remove them immediately after completion.

How to Get Rid of Bed Bugs in Clothes

The best option is to simply throw them away. You should place your clothes inside a garbage bag before taking them outside.

How to Get Rid of Bed Bugs in Luggage

Pack a separate cleaning kit along with a pair of gloves. You can easily kill them when they come out after a week or two.

How Exterminators Get Rid of Bed Bugs for Good

They use different methods of how to get rid of bed bugs for good, depending on how severe they are. Spray insecticides around your home’s perimeter and rooms where these bugs come from.

Prevention Tips

The best way is to ensure that they cannot find their way into your home in the first place. Wash your clothes with hot water and dry them at high heat can go a long way.

All of these methods on how to get rid of bed bugs are effective. Do those that work best for your home!