Your Emergency Action Plan For Eliminating Bed Bugs
Posted on: 21 September 2016
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In recent years, bed bug outbreaks have been cause for concern across the country. Bringing even a single bed bug into your home could result in an infestation. The key to curbing the unabated reproduction of bed bugs is to eradicate these pests as soon as you discover their presence in your home.
Here are three tips you can use to help create an emergency action plan for dealing with bed bugs in the future.
1. Toss any linens that are infested.
Bed bugs will look to create nesting areas as they establish a presence in your home. These nesting areas can often be found within the folds of the linens covering your bed. If you see visible evidence of a bed bug nest on your linens (either live bugs, reddish-brown excrement stains, or eggs), place the linens in a plastic bag and dispose of them properly.
It can be beneficial to burn the linens to ensure that no bed bugs survive and find their way into a neighboring home. Eliminating the nest will help you curb the bed bug population and make it more manageable as you work toward full eradication.
2. Use steam to preserve your mattress and box spring.
If you don't want to toss your expensive mattress and box spring, it's important that you eliminate any bugs living on these furnishings before encasing them in a bed bug-proof sack. A great way to kill off live bed bugs living on your mattress and box spring is through the use of steam.
A garment steamer or your clothes iron set to steam can be used to treat your furnishings. Be sure to thoroughly steam the area near the seams of your mattress and box spring, since bed bugs can hide within these crevices.
3. Get creative when searching for bed bugs.
The term bed bug can be misleading, since these pests can make their home in a variety of places. Any crevice that is large enough to slide a credit card into can serve as a hatching ground for bed bug eggs.
As you are treating your home for bed bugs, be sure that you look in screw heads, around electrical outlet plates, and along your baseboards for evidence of bed bug eggs. Treat these locations with a chemical spray designed to prevent the hatching of the eggs to help you eradicate bed bugs from your home.
Understanding how to handle an outbreak of bed bugs will help you prevent these pests from taking over your home in the future. For a severe infestation, seek professional bed bug treatment.