Discovering you have bed bugs in your home or business can be an unwelcome and nasty surprise. However, with these expert tips, you can eliminate bed bugs and ensure that you get a good night’s sleep once more.
Bed bugs – what exactly are they?
Bed bugs are small flat-bodied insects that feed off the blood of animals and humans. They are about the same size as an apple seed and brownish in colour, though they appear red and swollen right after feeding. Bed bugs multiply fast, and females can lay hundreds of tiny eggs, which are almost impossible to spot with the naked eye. This makes getting rid of bed bugs quite tricky. Bed bugs can enter the home in a number of ways – through luggage, on clothing, by bringing used furniture into your home, and on animals such as pets. They love to hide in beds and headboards and are usually most active at night when they come out to find food.
Contrary to popular opinion, the arrival of bed bugs in your home doesn’t mean it’s dirty. Bed bugs don’t care whether your home is spotless or filthy, as long as they have a food source.
How to know if you have a bed bug infestation
Signs of an infestation include:
- Waking up itchy
- Bloodstains on sheets or pillows
- Dark, rusty spots on mattresses and bedclothes which are signs of bed bug excrement
- A musty unpleasant odor
- Bed bug eggshells around the area the bed bugs are hiding
If you think you might have a bed bug infestation, you should further investigate by inspecting bedding for signs of the bugs. You can also check around the bed, in books, around radios or lampshades, and even in closets to help find further evidence that bed bugs have arrived.
Bed bugs – how to treat them quickly and safely
There are several steps you need to take to eliminate bed bugs from your home.
Step 1: Strip and wash bedding and other soft furnishings
Strip back bed linen, including undersheets, valences, and mattress protectors. Remove cushion covers and curtains. Wash anything you can in a very hot wash and then tumble dry everything you can on a hot setting in the tumble dryer. Soft items that can’t be washed, such as teddies and toys, shoes, and any other items, should also be put in the tumble dryer for at least 30 minutes as this should kill off any bugs.
Step 2: Scrub your mattress
By using a stiff brush, you can try to scrub the bedbugs and eggs from your mattress and dislodge them from any seams or crevices. While doing this, vacuum thoroughly- both the mattress itself, the carpet, and surrounding areas to ensure you suck up any bugs or eggs that have come loose.
When you have finished vacuuming, make sure you empty your vacuum cleaner outdoors, placing any dirt or debris collected directly into a bin outside to prevent the bugs from spreading further about your home.
Step 3: Cover your mattress
Invest in a tightly woven mattress cover that can completely seal the mattress in. This will prevent any remaining bugs from escaping or entering. You should keep this cover on for at least 2 years as bedbugs can survive without food for 18 months.
Step 4: Do some DIY
If there are any cracks in plaster or peeling wallpaper in your bedroom, now is the time to tackle them. Bedbugs love to hide in these little nooks and crannies, so by sealing them up or removing them, they’ll have nowhere to escape to. You should also clean up and declutter your room to reduce the number of places bed bugs could hide.
Step 5: Kill the bed bugs
After you’ve followed steps 1-4, you’ll want to ensure that you get rid of any lingering bed bugs. High heat is a great way to do so, so use a steamer on your mattress and other areas where bed bugs could be hiding. Any items that cannot be washed or steamed should be gathered in a black bin bag and place bags of items in the freezer and leave them for four days, this should also kill any lingering bed bugs from those items.
There are also various chemical and non-chemical treatments to try. HSE-registered insecticides can help – make sure that you search for products listed as explicitly tackling a bed bug problem. Pyrethrins and pyrethroids are typical chemicals used to destroy bed bug infestations. However, some resistance has occurred, which means they may not be effective.
Other chemicals used to kill bed bugs include:
- Desiccants, such as diatomaceous earth which destroy the bed bugs’ protective outer coating, causing them to dry out and die
- Foggers or bug bombs, don’t infiltrate every crack crevice, can be toxic if misused and are proven to disperse bed bugs.
- Plant oil-based products such as Oa2Ki clog up the insects breathing tubes.
- Silicon based physical encapsulants such as Vazor Provecta suffocate bugs and insects by covering them in a fine oil film.
Step 6: Monitor the area
Bed bugs may not disappear overnight, and it is through following the above processes carefully and thoroughly, you will give yourself the best chance of success. To know for sure that the bugs have all gone, you should check the affected areas once a week to make sure there are no further signs of activity. It’s a good idea to continue scanning for up to a year to have complete peace of mind that the bed bugs have been eradicated.
Step 7: Repeat as and when required
Bed bugs are pretty robust, and so you may find that you need to repeat the above steps more than once to eliminate the infestation. If they still won’t go away, calling a professional exterminator might be the only solution.
Calling in the pros – when is it necessary?
Many homeowners may wish to try and tackle a bed bug infestation of their own accord. However, if you have a stubborn infestation and the bugs won’t shift, a professional exterminator will have the knowledge and equipment to ensure your bed bugs are a thing of the past. If you are a business owner such as a hotelier, you’ll undoubtedly want to ensure the bed bugs are gone for good as quickly as possible. You can’t risk your reputation waiting a whole year in the hope that your self-applied methods worked.
A professional exterminator is the only way to go for business owners who need to eliminate bed bugs quickly and reliably. At Merlin, we specialise in eliminating bed bug problems for businesses across the UK and Ireland. Learn more about our commercial bed bug pest control service.
Bed bug prevention
Once you’ve gotten rid of your bed bugs, make sure they don’t return. To minimise your chances of the room becoming re-infested, you should make sure that you keep your home clutter-free. Don’t leave clothes, magazines, books, or papers on the floor for any length of time. Ensure you wash your bedding and other soft furnishings frequently. Cover your mattress with a bed bug cover and make sure the zip remains firmly closed. Most importantly, keep a look out for signs of bed bugs. Its always best to discover bed bugs early, before the infestation gets out of hand.
By following the above tips, you can both eliminate bed bugs as well as prevent reoccurrences. Remember, if in doubt, a professional service can be the best and most stress-free way to get rid of bed bugs for good.
At Merlin Environmental, we use specially trained sniffer dogs for detecting beg bugs and powerful heat treatments for eradicating them.
Our expertly trained Bed Bug Detection Canines are able to identify bed bugs with great accuracy. Using our dogs, we not only reduce the time it takes to find the bed bugs, but we increase the thoroughness of the detection phase, which will help get your business back to full operation quickly. Get in touch if you need help.
