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.

First, pull the drawers out (they should be empty at this point). Carefully brush and vacuum every inch of the inside of the drawers, the sides, and the undersides. 

Vacuum the insides of the furniture itself, using a stiff brush to dislodge any eggs or nymphs clinging to the wood, as well as the crevice tool to get every corner of it. Be sure to vacuum the underside, and the side facing the wall, too. After you’ve vacuumed, pull the bag out of the vacuum, seal it in a contractor bag, and get it out of your home.

Then clean each piece of furniture with Murphy’s Oil soap to kill any bugs hiding on the wood. Again, you will need to clean the inside, underside and backside of everything. (Murphy’s is a wood cleaning product that kills bed bugs. See the section on isolating your bed for details on this product.)

For some large pieces, you may need to disassemble them in order to clean them.

An alternative to all this work is to put your furniture into storage. If you do this, be sure to wrap everything in thick (at least 3 mil) sheets of plastic, and tape every gap and opening shut. And you’ll have to leave the items in storage for 18 months. Your bedroom won’t look quite as inviting with all that stuff gone, but you will be assured of having eliminated a lot of bug hiding places.

If you decide to put everything into storage, you can replace them with those clear plastic stacking boxes from Target or Wal-Mart. Put your bagged items into the boxes, and keep the boxes sealed.

Once you have cleaned your furniture, dust them with DE – that means the drawers and the insides. The DE won’t get on the clothing and other items you are storing in there, because they will be bagged inside the Ziploc bags when you put it back into the drawers.

Treating upholstered Furniture

As I mentioned at the top of this section, bed bugs hide close to their meals, and a recent study of infested apartments found that 90% of the bugs were in beds, sofas, and recliners. So any of those items in your bedroom are probably infested.

Again, your PCO will have chemicals that are specifically labeled for use on furniture. Now is not the time to be squeamish about bug spray. Let him spray your furniture to kill those bugs. It will save you the expense of having to purchase new furniture.

Otherwise, you have three choices: throw it out, put it in storage, or steam clean it.

If you throw your furniture out, wrap each piece in plastic BEFORE it leaves the room. Then deface them when you put them by the dumpster – either slash with a knife or spray paint on them.

If you put your furniture in storage, again, wrap everything in 3 mil plastic BEFORE it leaves the room. Then put it away for 18 months.

If you decide to treat your furniture yourself and you don’t want to use chemicals, the best treatment method for upholstery is steaming. Using the low vapor steamer described in Part 5, below, you’ll need to steam all the surfaces of your upholstered furniture. Though be aware that steaming furniture could cause moisture to build up inside it, which might lead to a mold problem later on. Run a fan and open a window to dry up any moisture.

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