How to Prevent Bed Bugs from Spreading Into Your Home

Bed bugs can travel from hotels to your home hidden in your luggage, clothing, boxes, etc. Discovering bed bugs in your home is bad, but worse still is being aiding their spread. Unfortunately, bed bugs are on the rise across North America, Europe, and Australia, reaching “epidemic proportions”.

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Bed bugs spread quickly and are very difficult to get rid of, so if you suspect you have bed bugs, it’s important to know how to stop bed bugs from spreading.

Bed bugs are tiny insects that hide in old furniture, particularly bed frames and mattresses, cracks and can survive long time, months without a blood meal.

Also, bed bugs may travel between nearby apartments through voids in walls and holes though which wires and pipes pass.

Identify Bed Bugs:

Bed bugs are reddish-brown tiny insects with a flat, oval body that measures approximately ¼ of an inch (6.35 mm) long. They often hide in cracks, mattress, base boards during the day.

Signs of bed bugs on mattresses or other furniture include:

a) Tiny black dots of bed bug feces,
b) White and oval-shaped eggs about 1 mm long,
c) Shells from molting bed bugs,
d) Red or rust-colored spots from crushed bed bugs.

How to Prevent Bed Bugs:

1/ Inspect the places that are really suitable as the hideaways for them. Be vigilant in checking these known bed bug hideouts. The bed bugs like the humid place but warm inside because it will be the best to lay their eggs (however any environment under 120 F degrees or 48 C degrees is a perfect environment for them).

2/ Spray your mattresses and even luggage with an insecticide spray that discourages bed bugs from taking up residence. Also, spray your furniture with insecticide.

3/ You can isolate your mattress by the plastic, (or you can use Active Guard mattress Liners which kill bed bugs) so the bed bugs will be isolate in their place. Repair all the cracks in your furniture to close the access of them.

4/ Take preventative measures when traveling by sealing clothing in plastic bags and keeping everything in suitcases while staying in a hotel or motel.  Even better, keep your suitcases in the bathroom where bed bugs are less likely to be found.

5/ Clean your home appliances that maybe as the hideaways of them regularly and you can use the spray to kill the insects.

6/ Don’t dispose of furniture or mattresses that have had bed bugs in them by trying to sell them to other people.

7/ Repair any cracks or crevices in the exterior of your home.

8/ Repair or install new screens to prevent rodents, bats, and birds from entering your home with bedbugs.

Bed Bug Extermination:

Removing a bed bug infestation will help stop it from spreading. It could be executed by the simple and easy ways. You may use the traditional ways or maybe you can hire the professional to do it.

To kill bed bugs on bedding, clothing and other washable items, wash them in hot water and dry at a high temperature.

You can kill bed bugs on non-washable items using heat or cold treatment by raising the temperature to at least 113 degrees F for at least one hour, or lowering it to at least 0 degrees F for at least four days.

Eliminate bed bugs on carpet, fabric drapes and upholstered furniture by vacuuming weekly. Dispose of the vacuum contents carefully in a plastic bag that you can seal and remove from your home immediately.

Many professional exterminators will use hot, dry steam to kill bed bugs in places you touch; chemicals are used to kill bed bugs in other spots by flushing the bugs out for steaming.

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