Bed bugs are one of those quintessential pests that no one wants around them. The irony is that the most times, they creep in unannounced into your beds. In fact, worldwide, bed bug infestation is one of the most common pest problems. They can be transported quite easily.
It could be via your luggage, clothes, furniture and even bedding. What’s worse is that these bedbugs most times develop resistance to common insecticides. The result, getting rid of them becomes nearly impossible.
Often the first step towards eliminating them is identifying their presence. If you ever heard the saying perseverance is the key to success, this is the right opportunity to try it out.
How To Identify Bedbug Infestation?
Your body can often throw the most obvious signs of a bedbug infestation. If you wake up every morning with red rashes like mosquito bites, it’s time to pay attention. Often, unlike a mosquito bite, these can be extended over a large area and might also burn quite badly.
These bedbugs normally come out during the night and feed on human blood. However, in case of some severe infestation, they can even attack during the daytime. These are oval shaped and brown in color. They are most common in a warm bed, but you could also find them underneath wooden chairs and benches. You can smell dried blood and see spots of dried blood around the area they inhabit. This is one of the easiest ways to find these nuisance pests.
The exposed areas of your body are most vulnerable to the bedbug attack. The average lifespan of these are 10-11 months, but you must understand they multiply very fast.
How To Look For Bedbugs?
Now, this is the tricky part. It is never simple to look out for these insects. If you are subject to these bites regularly, dismantling the bed is one of the easiest options. Look for them around the seams of the mattress and within any cracks in your bed. They are most likely to be found in these areas.
Replacing the mattress or placing a bedbug proof mattress above the infected one is an option. However, in case you are planning to starve them to death, it is a long process. They take about 400 days on an average.
Also carefully check for these in the other upholstered furniture like the sofa and even curtains and curtain rods. A basic hygiene routine is necessary to keep other similar insects like drain flies at bay.
Tackling Bedbugs
Complete sanitation along with several preventive measures is often the best way to deal with bedbugs. Heating the infested objects at 50-degree centigrade or higher is often the best way to deal with these. You must wash the infested linen in hot water. Remember the heated steam is often the best way to kill these pests.
You could also spray non-toxic bed bug spray, especially on items that can’t be washed or disinfested in steam. Regular vacuuming of the house is also another way to deal with it.
The next step involves repairing cracks and crevices in your house and furniture. These are often a bedbug’s most favorite abode. You could also hire profession pest control firms for a thorough clean-up job.
Conclusion
Prevention is often the best way to deal with bedbugs. However, if your home has been infested despite that, fast and multi-pronged action brings in the best results.