How to get rid of bed bugs from home?

If you are irritated with bed bugs in your home, then this article is for you. Today’s topic is how to get rid of bed bugs.

The bed bug is very annoying. When it attacks the house, there is no end to the unrest because beetles eat blood and forbid you to sleep at night. Insects feed on the blood of other warm-blooded hosts. Although the insect’s nest at one end of the bed, mosquito net, pillow, they also live in train or bus seats. Usually, bed bugs are one of its favorite habitats – mattresses, sofas, and other furniture. Let’s know some of their activities:

• Usually, they are mainly active at night, sometimes during the day when they increase.
• They can live up to 9 months while being active and more than a year and a half when they “hibernate.”
• They measure between 4 and 8 millimeters and have an almond shape.
• The bug’s size and relatively slow movement speed makes it easy to spot with the naked eye.
• They can increase very quickly if nothing is done to eradicate them.

Although not wholly nocturnal, beetles are generally more active at night and invisibly suck human blood. They leave the place with small mosquito bites. That’s not to say you won’t bite during the day. Some methods can help you to get rid of bed bugs. 

How to get rid of bed bugs?

It was previously possible to use DTT, a powerful insecticide, now banned because it is also dangerous for humans and the planet. How to treat bed bugs? 

Bed bugs are challenging to eradicate. The problems for elimination are numerous. Such as:

• The bedbug is increasingly resistant to conventional chemicals that you can find in the store.
• The eggs are laid in inaccessible places, and they may hatch after your treatment, and the problem remains.
• You cannot evacuate the furniture and belongings in the invaded room without risking dispersing them in the other places.
• Throwing them out by shaking the bedding and bed linens will not prevent them from coming back inside later. 
• Total eradication of bedbugs takes weeks, don’t expect to get rid of them in a few hours.

Some reflexes to adopt to fight against bedbugs

• Wash your bed linen very regularly at high temperatures to kill bed bugs. In general, it can withstand washing at 90 ° but check before! If you have a tumble dryer, run it with the washed clothes, it increases efficiency.
• As previously announced, keep the room tidy and clean with no laundry lying around.
• Thoroughly vacuum the entire room, passing everywhere.
• Provide yourself with an anti bedbug cover. There are some for the box spring, mattress, cushions. It will prevent bed bugs from settling in or out of bed, which will cause them to die in a matter of days due to a lack of food available.
• Set up homemade or store-bought bed bug traps; they are useful in capturing but do not solve the problem independently. That can help you to get rid of bed bugs.

 

To get rid of bed bugs, it is necessary to call in professionals to obtain efficient results. Several types of treatments are available:

• Fumigation (a fumigant for bedbugs diffuses the product to kill pests) allows better results to be obtained, especially on the larvae and eggs of bedbugs. the downside remains the chemical aspect
• The steam treatment kills the bedbugs by heat by diffusing with special equipment scorching water vapor on the bedding. That is effective only on the bedding impossible to treat all areas. 
• The purpose of the chemical treatment is to spray a toxic product throughout the affected room to eliminate the bugs and let it act. However, this treatment seems ineffective against eggs, which are in places impossible to treat effectively.
• The diffusion of dry heat causes the room temperature to rise above 60 °, a kind of deadly sauna that will kill eggs, larvae, and adult bedbugs. This method is healthier but only has an immediate impact, and it is not enough to completely stop the invasion. It has the advantage of being natural and ecological.
• The ideal is to combine several methods to obtain an optimal result. Do not forget to treat the objects in the room, such as lint, rugs, curtains, curtains, and other items that may harbor the pest of bedbugs. To do this, you can wrap them in a waterproof bag, spray with insecticide, and leave to act for a few hours. 
• Proceed in the same way to treat the furniture by covering them, and if you want to be complete, disassemble all your sockets and switches, inspect them and vacuum them after having first cut the power.

 

Recognize a bedbug or Cimex lectularius egg

Bedbug eggs are whitish the size of a grain of semolina but elongated like a grain of rice. You can find them in interstices and inaccessible places (baseboards, hollowed joints, and others) by the cluster. The incubation of eggs lasts from 10 days to 2 weeks. The bedbug larvae are white and will only gain color when they eat. Avoid recovering box springs, mattresses, or sofas.

During your stays in hotels or clubs that can be affected by bedbugs, avoid leaving your personal effects lying around on the floor, storing them in the bedroom cupboards, for example. Many hotels offer suitcase racks. Use them. Otherwise, leave your suitcases in the bathroom.

If you notice the presence of bedbugs in your room,

avoid bringing back unwanted vacation memories. When you get home, remember to deal with all your belongings, your vehicle, if you left with them before returning anything. It’s a bit extreme, but it avoids problems afterward. Inspect your belongings in the garage or the bathroom.

If you wash your laundry in a laundromat, do not leave the laundry lying around, a machine wash is not always enough to eradicate the bedbug. These few precautions can prevent you from ending up with a bedbug invasion.

How to check for bed bugs?

As said at the beginning of the article, bedbugs are nocturnal insects that will tend to hide during the day in dark places, away from light, and to move around at night when you sleep. They will settle near you, their source of food. Yes, I know that does not make your dream. It is even somewhat scary. They can pass through very narrow interstices because the beast is flat. The thickness of a credit card is enough for him to slip through. So you can find them in:

• Between the wooden slats
• in the box spring, the mattress
• Under the tapestry
• In the cracks in the wall, in the doors, in the windows
• Furniture including bed
• In the closet business that never moves
• Tables and frames
• Plinths
• In books, toys, alarm clocks, lamps,
• Wall electrical outlets
• clothes

etc …

As you can see, they can hide almost everywhere. A real scourge, but not inevitable.

How to check for bed bugs?

In addition to the bites that we will discuss in the rest of the article, Bedbugs produce excrement that looks like small black dots. Sometimes small spots of blood may also be present. To complete, you can also find corpses of bedbugs, eggs, molts in the bed, the box spring, or near you. You can even cross them, but it is less evident since they seek darkness. You have to be alert to get rid of bed bugs.

Proliferation of bedbugs

If the invasion is limited, they will stay in the room where you sleep, i.e., the bedroom in most cases. Remember that we spend a third of our life there! If the proliferation of bedbugs is more significant, they will gradually colonize the other rooms and will end up visiting your neighbors if you live in an apartment building. By infiltrating everywhere, they can arrive through pipes, air vents, electric cables, floors, ceilings. It is physically impossible to isolate your home to prevent their appearance. It’s not dirt or lack of maintenance that attracts bedbugs, it’s you!

Heat also promotes the development of Cimex lectularius. The hotter it is, the faster the bedbugs will grow. If the temperature of the room where you sleep exceeds 20 degrees, consider reducing it. That is an opportunity to save electricity or heating savings if you do not heat electrically.

Bedbug life cycle

As you can see, the bedbug loves heat and matches its activity according to the temperature. In winter, it generally tends to slow down its activity. Because of the presence of efficient heating systems in homes disrupting this natural cycle, the bedbug remains active even in the cold season. They reproduce year-round, and fertilized females can lay up to 500 eggs during their lifetime.

• From birth to adulthood, the bedbug feeds once a week on average, depending on the temperature. The hotter it is, the more often it will tend to sting.
• In a customarily heated room, it takes between 5 and 6 weeks for the larva to reach adulthood and reproduce.
• Five stages are necessary for the bug to reach adulthood. It will bite to feed at each location once.
• At 18 ° Celsius, it takes 13 weeks for this pest to become an adult. At 30 ° 4 times less time, or about three weeks.
• They go out to feed at the end of the night if the environment is favorable. Thirsty, the bedbug can go out to bite even during the day.

 

Bedbug bite and consequences

Bedbugs mainly bite people, rarely pets. It may sting only one of several people present sleeping in the room. The reactions are caused by the bedbug’s saliva, which has two components: an anticoagulant that prevents the blood from drying out to allow it to suck it in and the presence of an anesthetic to let it to bite you without causing you to bite. Here is the list of symptoms of bedbug bites:

• Numerous bites present on the skin in the same area
• Redness around the bite similar to a mosquito bite
• The bedbug bite is painless (the anesthetic)
• Severe itching may occur within hours of the bite. Over time this itching subsides.
• A bed bug pimple can appear where you’ve been bitten.
• The areas usually bitten by bedbugs are the arms, legs, and back. If the room is particularly infested, the whole body can be affected.
• 2 in 3 people have an epidermal reaction (redness, pimples, itching).

Finally, you can use some home remedies of bed bug spray to get rid of bed bugs.

 

FAQ

1. What does a bed bug look like?

Bedbugs are brown and may turn shades of red when full of undigested blood. Bedbugs get darker with age. Young bugs are paler. They have no wings, and you can see that they are striped on the abdomen. Microscopic hairs give the appearance.

2. How do bedbugs come from?

A few simple rules can significantly limit a bed bug invasion in your home. When you buy a second-hand piece of furniture or clothing, inspect it thoroughly before putting it in place. If in doubt, treat it before or more radical solution, drop it off in a recycling center, mentioning why you are throwing it away.

3. Do bed bugs fit in clothes?

The answer is yes, if the place is protected from light, clothes can be used as a hiding place for bedbugs.

Regarding the housing itself, repair, patch up, stop off anything that could serve as hiding places for pests. If they cannot hide, they will settle less efficiently, and you will be able to spot them more quickly.

4. How to prevent the invasion of bedbugs?

Precautions to take at home

It is essential to have accommodation and in particular the room tidy and not overcrowded. You reduce the opportunities for bedbugs to come in, and you can spot their appearance in your home more quickly. In your closets, avoid keeping clothes that you no longer put on for years. Nightstands don’t have to be tote bags or misery caches! It is essential to clean your bedding regularly or look at it to make sure everything is in order.

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