Have you spotted rashes on your skin or felt mild bite while watching TV or reading your favorite book in the living room? It may be bed bugs. Bed bugs are small little pests commonly found in your bedroom, living area and even under the carpet. Bed bugs can bite you while you are sleeping, watching TV in your living room or even in the movie theater while watching your favorite movie.
They are mostly active in dark and hence it is hard to identify or spot them. They feed on blood and hence when they bite, you will feel pain and red spot like a mosquito bites next morning.
Hence it is important to get rid of bed bugs as early as you find a symptom of its presence in your home or office. But the process for bed bugs removal is not easy at all. From inspection to eradication and stopping it from re-infesting requires lots of effort, especially when you plan to do it yourself. But thankfully you can hire professional agencies that can help you with bed bugs removal and control for a fee which is not much generally.
Like any other pests, bed bugs can be removed and eradicated when you know they exist. But when you don’t find a bed bug or its babies (nymph), then remember they can multiple very fast and a nymph can become a mature bed bug within a month or so. While sleeping at night in your bedroom, if you notice something’s biting you, you know what to do. Just switch on the lights and check if it’s bed bugs. They are very small (e.g. 1 to 7 millimeters) and light and brown in color like a cockroach. But after a few bites, they will appear darker because they have eaten blood.
Sleeping on a bed with bed bugs is a terrible experience I can say as I have experienced it. Not only it hurts, but bed bugs bite could cause terrible infection, red spot, swallowed skin etc. I hope you don’t have bed bugs at your home, but if you notice something or find symptoms of bed bugs in your bedroom then I insist you read through this post to know how to do bed bugs control and eradication at your home for long term relief using. Bed bugs control is not as complicated as finding the infestation and once you know there are bed bugs, you can remove them yourself by following a few simple techniques I am discussing in this post.
So are you with me and following? Let’s move forward.
Tips for bed bugs removal and eradication
Bed bugs removal and eradication is a complicated process not because they are hard to control, but because it’s hard to identify the infestation. Bed bugs don’t fly from one place to another and mostly they get carried through human being or through your clothes, curtain etc. When you know there are bed bugs in your bedroom, chances are they will be in the living area and other parts of your house where they can hide and feed themselves comfortably. So finding infestation of bed bugs is the first challenge you face. Once you know about their presence, you can easily hire an expert for bed bugs removal or try natural ways we will be discussing in this post.
Best way to do bed bugs control is to hire a professional pest control agency with experience and expertise in bed bugs removal from house. Professional pest control companies with adequate experience and right set of tools and techniques can identify the infestations of bed bugs in your home and eradicate them effectively for longer period of time.
But if you don’t want to spend any money on bed bugs removal and wish to do bed bugs eradication yourself then you can do so. All that matters, is to identify the affected area by find symptoms. Then apply various techniques to eradicate them followed by prevention to stop them from re-appearing.
Bed bugs removal: finding infestations and symptoms
As I said above, bed bugs are mostly active when its darker outside, so it’s going to be a challenge to determine whether there are bed bugs infestation or not. Some time bites of bed bugs may appear the next morning and at other times, you will notice in a couple of days. So if you notice something is biting you during the sleep, chances are it’s because of bed bugs.
Bed bugs are mostly found in bedroom under the bed, but they may be in the sofa in your living area. Also if you have bed bugs in one of your bed, chances are they are in the other room too because they spread very fast.
Take out the mattress from your bed and keep it aside while inspecting the bed. If you have a box bed, you have to work a little hard. Inspect every corner of the bed both inside and outside carefully. Depending on the level of bed bugs infestation, you should find a few of them running around. You will notice a few dead bed bugs, their nymph etc. Make sure to look inside and outside because bedbugs may be hiding inside other articles, pillow covers, bed-sheets etc that you have kept inside the box bed (Deewan as we call it in India).
Bed bugs may be hiding inside other furniture in your bedroom like chair, sofa, cupboard etc, check all of your furniture both inside and outside. Repeat the process to find out bed bugs infestation in other areas of your house.
Now when you have identified the affected areas, it’s time to get rid of them.
Natural ways to get rid of bed bugs at home
In my village, where you will hardly find any pest control agencies, they have a very unique idea of bed bugs control and it’s effective to a good extent. So once they notice there are bed bugs in a bed, they will simply remove the bed from the bedroom and leave it in the open sun during the month of May or June for a couple of days. Usually the month of May and June are very hot and they leave the bed outside because bed bugs won’t survive that kind of heat and temperature for long. After leaving their bed in open sun for a couple of days, they say more than 60% of bed bugs die. Then to get rid of remaining 40% of bed bugs, what they do it, put their bed in the pond again for a couple of days. This is the most common bed bugs removal technique that they have been practicing since long. It’s natural, cost-effective and it works well.
Obviously, application of these kinds of bed bugs removal techniques is feasible in villages, but not in cities where you can’t find a pond and if you are able to find one, it will be far away from your place. But I told you about this technique because I wanted you to know that bed bugs won’t survive in extreme heat or extreme cold.
I am sure you got the idea, but before you get to it, let me tell you that most of the bed bugs will be hiding in the mattress and bed. Any crack and gap in the bed is the heaven for the bed bugs, so pay attention to those gaps and cracks if any.
If you can put your bed in the open sun for a day or two then do so because that’s a proven method for natural bed bugs control at home. But if not, at least, put the mattress in open sun after proper vacuum cleaning. You may also call a cleaning agency for mattress and sofa cleaning services, if you feel so. Also clean the bed cover, pillow cover, cushion covers in hot water and leave it to dry properly. Mattress, bed cover, pillow etc should be cleaned sing hot water and you should clean them frequently to get rid of bed bugs before they multiply.
Now it’s time to clean the bed and you can use the vacuum cleaner to clean the entire bed, both inside and outside of it properly. Once you are done with basic vacuum cleaning, you should use the heat technique. You may like to treat your bed with hot air and steam. If you don’t have a device for steaming, then may be try using the hair dryer, not as effective as steam, but good from heat treatment point of view. Do this treatment properly across all of the corners of the bed and mattress.
So now when you have done the basic bed bugs removal, time to move to the next level and that is to use pesticide for bed bugs treatments. There are exclusive pesticides available for bed bugs removal, but you should be very cautious and read the instruction carefully before applying pesticides. Before opening the box of the pesticide, please make sure that it can be used inside and understand the right ways of using such pesticides.
Bean leaves are also quite effective in bed bugs removal. All that you have to do is to spread lots of bean leaves around the infected area to trap the bugs. Leave it for a few hours and you will see bed bugs struggling on the leaves. Once you have trapped a good number of bugs, you can take those leave outside of the house and destroy carefully.
Pesticides if not used properly, could turn out to be terrible and hence I always suggest to not using them without reading instructions of use. Pest control professionals have special training and they know all about it, but same is not true for end consumers like us. Apply the pesticide as per the instruction and you will be free from bed bugs in a day or two.
Now when you have treated the key area that is your bed, mattress, linen, pillow covers etc, it’s time to vacuum rest of the areas in your house. Vacuum all of the furniture, furniture covers, carpets etc properly to remove bed bugs and its eggs. If you leave eggs, they will infest again and sooner. It’s important to remove bed bugs and its eggs from your house for long term relief, else they may reappear.
How to prevent bed bugs infestation?
They say “prevention is better than cure” and you can’t agree more on it, especially in case of pests like bed bugs. Finding and controlling pests is important, but preventing them from re-appearing is equally important. Even if bed bugs can’t fly, they can easily spread over from one bed to another and one room to another room. So if you are living in an apartment and your neighbor has bed bugs issues, chances are you will also have them soon. Similarly when you travel through a train and the birth was infested, chances are bed bugs will come through your dresses to your bedroom.
But listed below are some of the preventive techniques to prevent bed bugs from appearing and spreading in your house.
Bed bug interceptors are available that you can place on four corners of your bed.
Use bed bug traps in the bedroom to prevent bed bugs.
Put clothes, linens and pillow covers in the box bed only after thoroughly cleaning the bed.
Don’t keep treated and untreated clothes and items together, keep them at safe distance to prevent bed bugs from re-infestation.
Seal all the cracks in all of your furniture to ensure baby bed bugs don’t find a place to hide and breed in your house.
Get alert when you see a blood spot on the linen or pillow cover, it may be due to bedbugs.
Keep a bed bug spray at home and use it carefully when you spot a bed bug around.
Over to you
As I said, sleeping on a bed infested with bed bugs could turn out to be a terrible experience. Whenever you feel like there are bed bugs around, inspect the area properly and if needed book professional bed bugs removal service. Here’s a post you may like to check to learn about pest control agencies in India and how to hire one in your city.
But if you don’t wish to book a professional service, then follow some basic tips and techniques we have discussed above for bed bugs removal and control. Access heat and access cold treatment works well in bed bugs removal and you should try them. If you are using any pesticide for bed bugs removal then just make sure to read the instruction on the box carefully before applying for better results.
What else do you think will work in bed bugs removal at home?
