Bedbugs are very tiny and can be hard to spot- they are about 5 millimeters. In addition to being tough and smart, they reproduce quickly making it bard to eradicate them in your house. Also, bedbugs know where to hide to avoid been seen. Healthy female bedbugs lay at least 500 eggs in their lifetime.
These tiny bloodsuckers have caused havoc in many houses. After being in contact with them, they leave itchy and red welts all over your body. While getting rid of bed bugs is not easy, there are some tips that will help fasten the removal process.
Below are some tips that will help in the removal of bedbugs from your house.
Find out the infected areas in your house
After realizing hour house has bedbugs, look for them early enough before they start reproducing. Besides being cheaper, it is also easier to treat a small infestation of bedbugs. However, the drawback is that it becomes hard to detect small infestations.
You can hire a professional to inspect your house or look for them on your own. If possible, you should opt for inspectors who have trained dogs which look for bedbugs by smelling.
Since they have small bodies, bedbugs squeeze in unnoticeable areas like folds of curtains and the seams of mattresses or the coach. You can use a magnifying glass when going over these areas to ensure you don’t miss anything.
Containment
Now that you have already found out there are bedbugs in your house, you should contain them so you can eradicate them. One of the easiest and quickest ways of trapping bedbugs is by using a vacuum.
You should run the vacuum over places you think the bugs are hiding like the carpet, dresser, bed and electronics. Seal the content in the vacuum and throw away and clean the vacuum properly.
Collect the affected clothes and linen and seal them in a plastic bag until when they can be washed. After washing, put them in the highest temperature in a dryer or washer.
Prepare for the treatment
Before treating your home, carry some preparations to have high chances of success in eradicating the bedbugs. Ensure all the clothing drapes, carpets, linen and other common hiding places have been thoroughly washed or thrown out.
Dispose any places where bedbugs might hide in your house. Pick the items under your bed or floor like books, magazines, and shoes and dispose anything unnecessary. When doing this, do not move items from the infected room to a clean room- you will be spreading the bugs.
Kill them
For starters, you can do without chemicals. Bedbugs do not survive in conditions with low temperatures- lower than 00C- or higher temperatures- higher than 460C. Home methods you can use to kill bedbugs include washing clothes and bedding in hot water, using a steamer in mattresses and putting bags containing bugs in the freezer at 00C.
Insecticides can also help to get rid of bedbugs. Some of the common insecticides used for killing bedbugs in life desiccants, pyrroles and foggers. Each of these work differently to kill bedbugs. Desiccants, for instance, kill bedbugs by destroying their outer coating while pyrroles kill them by destroying their cells.
Assess the areas that are affected
Bedbugs take some time before they are completely gone. Therefore, you need to prove that your treatment has worked by checking the infected areas regularly. To easily spot bedbugs, use bedbug interceptors.
The interceptors are placed under the legs of beds and they trap bedbugs before they climb the bed. To declare your house bedbug-free, you should keep the interceptors for a year and confirm there are no bedbugs.
Retreat
Among the hardest tiny creatures, are bedbugs. You might think you are dine dealing with them only for you to spot one later on. You will have to try a variety of treatment methods before completely controlling the infestation. If you have used different treatment methods and they are still around, you can call a professional exterminator to help with the infestation.
Involve experts
If you have tried endless times and you still haven’t succeeded in getting rid of bedbugs, it’s time you involved experts. Pest control experts and companies have access to products and chemicals that are not available to everyone else. Some of the products owned by these companies can kill bedbugs over a long period like those found in cracks and cervices and some have the ability of killing them on contact.
Also, pest control companies have heating and freezing equipment. They can heat a room to high temperatures hence killing the bedbugs. Before the arrival of the pest control company, they will give you instructions on how to prepare your house.
