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 the bed bug extermination process is critical. This is such a new, exploding phenomenon that many bed bug exterminators 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.

If you are one of the unlucky majority that is allergic to bed bug bites, here is how you deal with them.

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.

You are going to start in the bedroom (or wherever it is that you sleep) because that is where the infestation will be the worst.

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.