Once you realize you have bed bugs, your first impulse will be to escape them and/or kill them. But beware, acting on those impulses can have serious consequences.
It’s so easy to fall into a trap of misery and hopelessness. Please don’t let yourself become discouraged. You don’t deserve this, and you did nothing to cause it. Regaining your mental health is vitally important to beating bed bugs. It is the first step in winning the war against them.
Choosing the right bed bug exterminator (also called a Pest Control Operator, or PCO) to deal with your bed bug problem is critical. This is such a new, exploding phenomenon that many bed bug exterminatorss still don’t have a lot of experience with bed bugs. That’s changing, especially cities where the problem is getting out of control (like New York, Vancouver, Miami). But for other towns away from the big infestations, you need to do your homework.
Here’s how you can separate the pros from the cons.
Isolating your bed is one of the best ways for you to take charge of your bed bug problem, because it allows you to sleep again. Lack of sleep affects your thinking, your moods, the whole way you look at the world. In fact, lack of sleep will literally drive you crazy. It is, in my opinion, one of the main reasons having bed bugs is so emotionally draining. You feel miserable because you are EXHAUSTED. So turning your bed into a secure fortress is the first step in turning the tables on those bastards.
I’ve said it before, and I will say it again. You need an exterminator to deal with bed bugs. They can hide just about any where, they reproduce like crazy, and they can live for a year or more without feeding. You need a person who has experience in killing them, and chances are that person is not you.
Bed bugs love clutter, because of all the dark, cozy places it gives them to hide. Remove the clutter, and you will make your home much more unfriendly to them. I am talking about the piles of stuff in the corner, the dirty laundry, the old toys and magazines, exercise equipment, etc.
A bed bug exterminator has chemicals that can kill bugs living in your furniture. So if he treats your stuff with a product like Bedlam or SteriFab, you should be able to skip this step.
Because depending on how much furniture you have in your bedroom, this could be a time-consuming part of the project. You will now have to clean your dresser, nightstand, armoire, and any other wooden furniture you might have.
Bed bugs can hide in cracks the width of a fingernail. Look around your bedroom. You will probably see many such cracks. For example, a crack in the plaster in the wall, or between the baseboards and the floor is enough for a bed bug to hide in.
If you have a hardwood floor, vacuum every inch of it, using the brush attachment on your vacuum to get into the little gaps between the planks. Then wash it using Murphy’s Oil Soap.
Strictly speaking, bats and birds don’t carry bed bugs. They carry related types of insect parasites with blood sucking behaviors similar to those of bed bugs.
Still have that diatomaceous earth handy? Now is the time to use it. It will provide residual killing power on any bed bugs that might be left after you cleaned your bedroom.
It is less likely that bed bugs are infesting rooms in your house that you don’t spend much time in. They will stay close to their food source, so that means they are likely to be in your bedroom, living room, den or office.
In order for these techniques to work, you cannot let down your guard. You have to keep at it so that any bed bugs you didn’t clear in your initial cleaning (yes, you missed some. It’s virtually impossible to completely clear a house on the first try) will get eradicated in the follow up.
If you live in an apartment, it is critical that all units in the entire building get treated at the same time. If you have bed bugs, chances are, others in your building do too.
When an exterminator treats bed bugs, chances are he'll use insecticides to take them down. There are a lot of chcemicals he might use, and it is important that you, as an informed consumer, understand what the options are. This article contains a listing of the common pesticides for use against bed bugs.
Not sure where to start? If you need immediate relief, this article tells you which sections of this website you should read first.
But before we get to that, let me say that if you even suspect you have bed bugs, do not waste any time. Get a pest control specialist in your house RIGHT NOW. Bed bugs multiply fast. They don’t behave like ants, roaches or other pests you may have encountered before.
