Pest Control for Bed Bugs

Bed bugs are small insects, about 1/4 inches in diameter with brown bodies and darker heads. These pests feed on the blood of humans and animals. Often, people have bed bugs and don’t even know it. Since these insects are so small, it’s common for people to blame the itching, allergies, sleeping problems, and other effects on something else. However, if you know how to identify and prevent them, you can reduce the chance of bed bugs entering your home.

Even though bed bugs are tiny, the easiest way to detect them is to know what they look like. Bed bugs have the following characteristics:

• Small, about 1/4 inch in both directions
• Brown, either dark or light, and they can turn red after biting someone
• Small heads with much larger bodies
• Eggs that are about 1 millimeter long and pale white
• Ridged shells like that of tiny brown beetles
• Bed bugs leave blood marks on sheets or cushions
• Bed bug bites are grouped in clusters, a line or a zigzag pattern mosquito bites are different because they usually aren’t grouped together
• Shed skins
• Bed bugs leave fecal spots on mattresses, sheets, or walls

Pest control experts understand bed bugs as opportunistic travelers. These insects love to take any chance they can to catch a ride into your home or business. The easiest way to protect your workplace or home is to prevent them from catching a ride on your clothing or in your luggage. In addition to coming back with you as you return from a trip, there are other ways bed bugs can try to move into your business or home. Here are some professional tips that can help you prevent bed bugs:

• When you stay at a hotel, check the luggage rack to see if any bed bugs have made it a temporary home. If the rack has hollow legs, you can take a look inside. You should also check where the supporting straps meet the frame.
• Check all the furniture you buy for bed bug signs, especially used items. To properly check, look in the crevices between cushions and along any fluting. Also, check the joints, such as where the back or the legs meet the seat.
• Cover your mattresses and box springs with protective layers. Light-colored covers both shield your mattress and make it easier to spot bed bug signs.
• Vacuum frequently to suck up stray bed bugs. It’s important to immediately dispose of the vacuum bag to avoid an infestation.
• Check your clothing after visiting high-traffic areas like movie theaters, arenas, or any place where a bed bug may have hitched a ride.

Chances are, you got bed bugs from somewhere or someone else. You can also get them from a furry pet that has been exposed. Bed bugs are common in hotel rooms, movie theaters, airports, or anywhere else hundreds of people pass through. You have a higher risk in these areas because each room creates an opportunity for exposure to a series of guests that come from a variety of homes. Every home or business in Atlanta, Augusta, Fayetteville, Woodstock, Suwanee, Marietta, Hiram, and Aiken SC is a potential environment for these little critters.

You may also pick up bed bugs while visiting a friend or neighbor. They may not even know they have an infestation and end up, unwittingly, passing it on to you. If your jacket, scarf, or other clothing comes into contact with that of your coworkers or classmates, some bugs may have hitched a ride into your home or business.

Your neighbors may have inadvertently shared their bed bug problem with you. If you live in a multi-family home, you should make sure you check all cracks and crevices that could allow the pests to go from your neighbor’s apartment to yours.

Bed bugs are not known to carry disease, so you don’t have to worry about catching a virus or another health problem from someone else who has been bitten by a bed bug. However, this doesn’t mean they don’t have a significant effect on your home, business, or well-being.

Some people are allergic to bed bug bites. If this is the case, you may experience hives. These are red bumps that form on your skin when histamines release in the body. They’re usually itchy and can spread to other parts of your body. Regardless of whether or not you’re allergic to bed bugs, you’ll likely have a reaction if they bite you. Bed bug control experts explain some ways the bites can affect your skin:

• Small, raised bumps that are clear in the middle
• Bumps can also be itchy and have darker centers surrounded by lighter swollen areas
• Small, red welts or bumps in a zigzag pattern or a relatively straight line
• Papular eruptions on the skin that are either painful or inflamed

Also, scratching bites can result in skin problems, including, red skin, scarring, and infection. Often, you can differentiate mosquito bites from those of bed bug bites by examining the bumps and marks left behind. Pest control experts explain if they appear in clusters or in a line, they are most likely bed bug bites. Mosquitoes tend to bite once and then fly off. Although bed bugs can also bite just once, they often have to dislodge and crawl to another spot in order to get their fill. This results in groups of bumps or marks.

Along with other crawling pests, bed bugs can spread to the clothing of people who visit your home. If your home is known to host these pests, it may have a significant effect on your social life. Not only will people be less likely to visit, but they may also think twice before inviting you over.

Bed bugs like to bite when you’re sleeping. Because your body is in one place, it’s easy for them to feast without interruption by swatting hands and itching fingernails. Bed bugs secrete an anesthetic as they feed, and even though this numbs your skin, it still may interrupt your sleep by the itching sensation you feel afterward.

Bed bugs live for around 10 months. If they don’t have any blood on which to feed, they can still live for up to five months—or even longer. During that time, however, pest control experts explain a female bed bug can lay hundreds of eggs. After it hatches, it’s ready to start laying eggs in around five weeks. The eggs take about 17 days to hatch, and the young bugs start biting almost immediately. Bed bugs don’t waste time with mating in order to expand their colony. It’s best to take action right away if you see any bed bug signs in or around your business or home.

To prepare your home or business, here are some examples in which you should prepare for. A service professional based on inspection will guide you through the entire process:

• Discard all items that are in the infested rooms that are not needed and can be thrown away as any item can harbor bedbugs.
• Strip the beds of all linens such as pillows, pillowcases, sheets, and bed skirts; place them in plastic bags, remove from the infested areas and laundered before using them. These items must be laundered in hot water and must be dried at high temperatures over 140 degrees for 30 minutes before being used.
• Furniture and all other items must be pulled away from the walls.
• Remove electrical switch cover plates and outlet covers.
• On the day of the treatment. Extinguish all open flames, including candles and pilot lights.
• All people and pets must remain outside the structure during the actual treatment.

Depending on the treatment that the pest control experts are going to use, you can expect a service professional to enter your business or home and use a combination of treatment techniques that eradicates bed bugs on contact, or the bed bug control professional may also use steam to treat clothing, sheets, other bedding, toys, and other specific items.

Even after you have bed bugs eradicated, they may come back. To prevent a reinfestation, you should carefully clean and inspect luggage before leaving houses of friends and family members as well as hotel rooms and other paid places of lodging, such as rental homes and condos. Check for places where bed bugs could have entered from an adjoining home, such as around the connecting doors or windows. Seal off cracks or holes in walls or floors. Keep an eye out for bed bug signs, and if you see any, act immediately. Call the bed bug control professionals at Peachtree Pest right away.

Usually, the return of bed bugs after treatment means they were brought in from somewhere else. A thorough treatment can eliminate bed bugs from your home or business, but it has no effect on the places you visit. If they’ve crawled back in, it’s likely because they hitched a ride on your clothes or in your luggage. It’s also very important that you don’t remove items from the home or office space before or during a bed bug treatment, because this could lead to reinfestation if those items were unknowingly infested with bed bugs.

Yes, you should leave your house during the treatment and stay out for at least four or five hours after the treatment has been completed. Please wait to return items that were removed from infested rooms until your service professional has advised you that it is safe to do so.

Peachtree Pest Control offers expert treatment designed to effectively and efficiently control and prevent pests from invading your home or business in Atlanta, Augusta, Fayetteville, Woodstock, Suwanee, Marietta, Hiram, and Aiken SC. Our use of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) techniques focuses on finding the core of the pest concern and controlling Bed Bugs from the source. Through IPM, pest control materials are selected and applied in a manner that minimizes risks to human health, pets, and the environment.

Call Peachtree Pest Control today for your FREE and NO OBLIGATION estimate at 855-732-2487 or Schedule Online today!