Are you waking up every morning itching from bed bug bites? Do you get bitten every time you relax on the sofa or in an armchair? Are you finding bugs, tiny blood smears or lots of small, black faecal stains on or under your bedsheets? Are you finding bugs, translucent eggs about the size of a grain of rice, molt husks or faecal stains under your mattress or along the seams of your mattress? If you answered yes to most of these questions, you probably have bed bugs. As you may have read in the paper or heard on TV, a little pest has returned in force to make our lives miserable. While bed bugs do not cause serious illness, they are certainly more than capable of being a major nuisance. They can infest your house in large numbers and make you dread the thought of going to bed or sitting in your favourite armchair.
To help avoid a pest infestation you need to know what bed bugs look like. They are small, flat, oval and wingless. They are about the size of an apple seed when they are adult and fully fed. They vary from brown before they make a meal of your blood to reddish brown and swollen after they have fed. If you see reddish brown, flat bugs crawling on your bed sheets or under your mattress, you have bed bugs. Their bites can cause itching, rashes and blisters and leave behind small red bite marks, often in rows of 3 or 4 bites.
Once you determine you have bed bugs, how can you start getting rid of them without having to spend a fortune on a professional pest control specialist? While there are solutions, the worst thing you can do is to set off a commercial, all purpose bug bomb in your home. This will not kill all the bed bugs and will only drive them deeper into hiding. You will saturate your home with harmful chemicals and you may even cause health problems for family members.
There are many good products on the market that will help you deal with this bed bug infestation. There are non-toxic sprays, traps and ultra sonic devices that work quite well. Spreading a thin line of food grade Diatomaceous Earth around the perimeter of each room and on the floor around sofas and beds can be particularly effective. Be sure its Identifying Insect Eggs In The Garden food grade and not any other type or you can get seriously ill with Silicosis. What type of products you use on these pests is a matter of personal choice, I personally feel the more natural the better. The most important factor is that you study each product carefully and that you use products that are safe and best suited for your environment.
Before you use any products to kill these pests, you must take the time to do a major house cleaning and carefully inspect while also paying attention to other insects you may have. This will include vacuuming or steam cleaning your entire house including all bedding and furniture, carpeting, curtains or drapes, picture frames, inside drawers and inside cabinets. Be sure not to ignore appliances and pet bedding when you do your cleaning. You may even want to patch and seal all the cracks you can find in your home or apartment.
Of course you must pay extra attention to all bedding and cushioned furniture since they tend to live where you sleep or sit. Sheets, blankets, quilts and dust ruffles must be washed in hot water and sent through a hot dryer twice to get rid of them. Anything you can’t wash must be exposed to a day or two of direct sunlight and then dry cleaned. If your sofas or chairs have cushions with removable coverings, the coverings should be sent through the washer and dryer or dry cleaned just like bedding.
Many pest control experts suggest that while you are washing or dry cleaning all your bedding and furniture coverings, you should move your mattress, box spring, pillows and cushions in direct sunlight and evacuate the area for a day or two. Sofas and chairs can also be placed in direct sunlight. Be sure to vacuum or steam clean all bedding, sofas and chairs with extra care before placing them in direct sunlight and again before re-using them. Look at this
These are the basics of getting rid of bed bugs yourself. It is a 3 step process of detection then a total cleaning of your home followed by treatment with non toxic products of your choice. The key to a successful bed bug solution is to take the time to research the problem and Benefits Of Integrated Pest Management then to spare no effort in dealing with it. You can’t get rid of bed bugs in 15 minutes. It will take a few hours of study and a lot of elbow grease but with an honest effort and an informed choice of bed bug treatment products, it is possible to get rid of this bed bug problem?
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