Where do bed bugs come from, and how do I find them?
Here are some signs that will help you determine the presence of bed bugs:
- The first sign is more obvious. If you have seen a bed bug, it is more likely that there is more than one.
- If you see blood stains on your bedding, there is a likelihood of their presence. It is likely that you crushed them while they were feeding.
- Brown or reddish-brown spots on your clothing or bedding might also indicate their presence. These are their fecal matter. You may find them on bed frames, sheets, mattresses, walls, etc.
- The presence of eggshells or shredded skin on the floor, bed, or mattress is a sign of bed bugs.
- A large infestation will be followed by an unexplained odor in your house. This smell will be sweet yet musty. Generally, this odor is offensive and noticeable.
- Generally, three bite marks in a row indicate bed bugs. They move in a line as they look for the same blood vessel they used before.
- An effective way to identify their presence is by switching on the light without moving much. This should be done in a few hours or so before dawn. Use a flashlight during this time to identify them.
Related post: How To Keep Bugs Away From Your House?
Where do bed bugs come from?
If your home were not messy, it would not invite bed bugs. Lack of hygiene is also not a factor. However, sanitation is essential to prevent bed bugs.
Proper sanitation ensures better prevention. It is also necessary to prevent bug penetration in your house.
Avoiding further infestation is a very important task. Here is a checklist of the things you can do to keep the bed bugs away from your bed:
- Ensure cleanliness of your bedding and clothing. When they are laundered, ensure this is done at the hottest temperature permissible. Make sure that they are in the dryer for at least 20 minutes on medium to high heat. This will kill any bed bugs that may be hiding.
- Vacuum your mattress and other places regularly. I would recommend you to do this monthly. Remove coverings and vacuum the mattress, bed frame, crevices, and carpeting. Dispose of the container with the waste outside the house.
- Do not steam your mattress completely. It is hard to dry it. You may have problems such as mold and mildew.
- When cleaning your mattress, wrap it tightly. Use plastic to encase it. Do the same with box springs.
- You may also use high-quality dust mite controlling cotton covering. Wrap it with the dust mite. This will enable you to keep anything from getting in or getting out.
- If you do not remove this covering for a full year, the bed bugs will perish. If you have bed bugs in other places, they will not be able to penetrate the mattress.
- Use a vacuum to keep the carpeting clean. Vacuum your house frequently.
- Use the different attachments with the vacuum to reach crevices, cracks, and other places ideal for the bugs.
- You may find bed bugs in your car, furniture, or places where you spend a lot of time. Use necessary treatments in such places.
- Keep your house clean, vacuum, and monitor regularly.
- Monitor your kids as well. They may meet other kids or people who have bugs in their clothing.
How to get rid of bed bugs?
If you have bed bugs and don’t want to spend a few hundred dollars on pest control service, there are two simple ways to get rid of them. The first one is by using their natural nemesis, your first weapon of choice, the vacuum cleaner.
By vacuuming their dirt and bed bugs along, you will be sure to get rid of them as they will have no place to hide. Bed bugs treatment focuses on their hiding place as they hide in filthy places; by removing such places, you are limiting their options. The first place to start is the furniture, turn everything upside down and vacuum the light of it. Mostly focus on creases and tufts, and do that with every single piece of furniture you have.
In fact, vacuum every single crack in your home. Check the folds, the drapery, drawers, dressers, back of pictures and posters, floors, under the carpet, or any place that seems like something small might be hiding there. One thing you need to do is empty the vacuum right away. You can be extra cautious and put the vacuum bag in a plastic container and place it in the freezer to freeze before you get rid of it.
Since they react poorly to high temperatures, in fact, they die from high temperatures; the second bed bugs treatment is washing with hot water or, even better, steam cleaning. The process is basically the same as it is with vacuuming; only this gets rid of them much faster. The ultimate bed bugs treatment would be a combination of both, first vacuum the apartment leaving no stone, or in this case furniture, unturned and after that steam clean the furniture and every other place in your apartment. That will ensure a 99% probability that you got rid of these pests once and for all.
Do I have bed bugs?
It can be difficult to detect and locate a bed bug infestation, but there are a few ways that will help you figure that out.
Bed Bugs Infestation
So how do you determine if you have a bed bugs infestation? Here are some signs that will help you to determine if it’s a bed bug infestation.
One of the easiest ways to notice bed bugs is by the waste that they leave. They are good at hiding but are detectable by the droppings they leave behind. Look for dark spots on your sheets, mattress, or other pieces of furniture.
One of the most obvious ways to know that you have bed bugs is from bites. It is hard to catch them in the act, but their deeds will show on you in the form of red marks or even swellings followed by itching if you have allergies. It is important to note that these bites can also resemble other bug bites, so other methods of detection may be needed.
Make sure you read our article: “Can bed bugs bite thru clothing?”
If you suspect to have bed bugs, then you can look in the major spots where they hide, like mattresses, sheets, seams, linens, curtains and furniture. There are slim chances that you will find a live one, but you can certainly find dead ones.
You can always try to catch them in the act, which can be really hard. What you need to do is try and wake up about an hour before dawn as this is the time when they are most active and try to catch them, but if you move too much, they will hide. This can be really hard if you only have a small number of these bugs because they feed about once a month.
The easiest way to find out if you have bed bugs is by setting up a trap. Buy a double-sided carpet tape and lay it around the bed. If after a few nights there are no bugs on the tape, you are safe. If you have them, a few will surely be caught on the tape.
Why do I have bed bugs?
The most common question that follows up the infestation of bed bugs is “why are there bed bugs in my house”? Where did I get them? Most people wonder about this mystery, and some are even ashamed by the fact, but getting a few bed bugs in your apartment is not as hard as it may seem. Here are just a few ways they can get into your house.
- If you are in a building apartment, the most probable cause of your infestation is your neighbors. Bed bugs can crawl through wall cracks and get into your apartment, so until all of your neighbors get rid of them, you might have to deal with them biting you every now and then.
- If you travel a lot, this is not unusual, as they will crawl into your luggage, and you will carry them safely to your home.
- You can get them from any place, so you might as well have them in your clothes and lead them straight to your home.
- One of the common ways to get bed bugs into your home is by buying used furniture. In most cases, old houses with old furniture are full of them, so you might want to check the furniture and get it disinfected before moving it into your home.
- If your job is sending you into other people’s homes or hotels, it is not hard to pick them up and get them to your house. So all occupations pose a certain hazard.
- Of course, maybe one of your guests brought them along. Every person that comes into your home may be bringing them along, but that is not something you can control.
- You can also get a few from wild animals, such as rats, birds and bats. This is a bit rare, but it happens.
These are a few common ways anyone can get bed bugs. As you see, this is nothing to be ashamed of as you are definitely not in control and not to be held responsible.
How to kill bed bugs?
Killing Bed Bugs is, unfortunately, a daunting task. They can be easy to kill once located. However, the hardest part is locating the infestation. If you miss even a few, they will multiply faster than rabbits, and you will have a full infestation again in a matter of weeks. Once an infestation is found, it is of high importance to also utilize preventative measures to stop future infestations of bed bugs.
The best place to start the search for bed bugs is under the mattresses, floor, furniture, rugs and carpets and every single dark crack in your home. These are all a good starting point, as these seem to be the common hiding places. Any location in your home similar to these should also be searched thoroughly.
Once you find bed bugs, you will need to clean your entire home. Vacuuming and steam cleaning does the trick as they are very sensitive to heat, so steam cleaning will kill them instantly. It is also important to wash everything you may suspect to have harbored bed bugs. Drying with extreme heat for extended periods of time will also terminate any bed bug or larvae still alive.
Other ways to kill bed bugs involve insecticides and alternative sprays and oils. You may be hesitant about using these insecticides as they are toxic. Alternatively, you can also try things like cedar oil. Once you get rid of them, it would be wise to purchase a bedbug cover mattress to prevent them from returning.
Getting Rid of Bed Bugs Naturally
Most people are worried by the fact that not only will they have to deal with bites from irritating pests, but from the fact that they will have to deal with insecticides that come with getting rid of bed bugs. Well, there are different methods of getting rid of bed bugs naturally. Let’s take a look.
Getting rid of bed bugs naturally, the number one method, is time-consuming and not so effective, but most people go for it because of fear of the harmful effects that most insecticides have. The method is detailed vacuuming and steam cleaning. This is definitely a 100% natural way to get rid of these pests, but it will take an entire day at least to vacuum every crack and dark place in your home, and to steam clean everything there is, so you might need more people to accomplish this task depending on the size of the home and the quantity of your furniture.
Well, if you don’t want to spend that much time and want something more effective, there are different ways of getting rid of bed bugs naturally, like prevention methods and bug stoppers. Bug stoppers are not so effective, but they are cheap, and they might work if your house is not fully infected. Prevention is simple. There are two things you need to do. The first is to use a plastic mattress cover, which will prevent them from hiding in your bed. On top of that, you can get rid of all extra furniture and eliminate every other hiding place in your bedroom, but this method is also not fully effective.
How to get rid of bed bugs naturally?
How to get rid of bed bugs naturally is certainly a question for any person that has to deal with these pests and does not want to expose themselves or their family to the toxins in insecticides. This is not an easy question to answer, but the bottom line is that it can be done, so here are some ways to get rid of these bugs naturally.
First of all, you have to decide if you can endure these pests short-term, or you want to get rid of them immediately.
If you want to try some of the do-it-yourself methods to get rid of bed bugs, naturally, you have to start with relentless and detailed cleaning and vacuuming of your house and your furniture.
You have to be able to find them in order to kill them, but even if you don’t see all of them, just make sure that every single square inch in your home is vacuumed and steam cleaned; after that, you can use cedar spray, for instance, it is 100% organic, and it kills these bed bugs instantly. You can also use special anti bed bug mattress covers that will prevent them from hiding in your bed and make it easier to spot them and find them. There are also several nontoxic organic insecticides that you can use to get rid of them.
In review, the most important thing is to find bed bugs. Once you find them, the rest is not hard, but again, you have to find them first.
How to get rid of bed bugs?
If you ever had to deal with bed bugs and their annoying bites and the scratching that comes afterward, you probably want to find an effective way to get rid of bed bugs, but that is not as easy as it sounds, is it?
They are very elusive and very good at hiding, so the best option is to get well informed and figure out exactly what needs to be done.
Home methods rely on one thing and one thing only, and that is finding them. If you manage to find them, you can get rid of them in several ways, but again, they are very good at hiding.
Anyway, if you want to try on your own, here are a few ways to get rid of bed bugs:
- You can purchase an effective insecticide that will kill them instantly. The only problem is that natural insecticides as very expensive, so you might be better off with a different strategy.
- If you don’t mind a bit of poisoning, than you can go with any pesticide or even be creative by using alcohol, paint, hair spray or even toilet cleaner
- Burn them, well, not quite, but they are very sensitive to heat, so if you have a steam cleaner, that will do the trick.
- The last method to get rid of them is to vacuum them, but this is very hard and time-consuming, and if you miss a single one, they will be back.
Bed Bug Prevention
Now that you have spent a lot of time and energy in getting rid of the bed bugs, it is necessary to prevent them. While there is no guarantee that you will prevent them from coming forever, you can prevent a future infestation in several ways.
Here is a checklist that can help you to ward off bed bugs:
- It may be hard but try to keep bed bugs from returning by staying away from infested homes, hotels, motels, dorms, and other potential breeding areas.
- Check your clothing, luggage, and other products. Look for signs of bed bugs, blood stains, fecal stains, etc.
- If you bring a second-hand item to your house, inspect it for a bed bug infestation. This includes things such as furniture, bedding, mattresses, and box springs. Do this before it enters your house.
- If you stay in an apartment complex, talk to the proprietor about bed bug infestation. Ask them about their efforts to prevent any infestations. If you are shifting houses, ask about infestation and what is done to prevent it.
- Check crevices, holes, cracks, and pathways for openings. If so, check them regularly to ensure they are sealed.
- If you have pets at home, make sure that you treat them as they can be used as potential hosts.
All of these tips are essential for bed bug prevention.
