Six Way You Can Get Bed Bugs In Your Home

How do you get bed bugs? If you do not know the answer to this particular question you must read this now!

Bed bugs continue to be a serious headache all over the USA and indeed across numerous countries in the Western world. Having an elementary knowledge of how you get bed bugs is going to make a huge difference with regards to preventing their spread.

Here are six of the most frequent ways you can get bed bugs invading your house:

1. Travel - All of us love to treat ourselves and our families to the odd holiday and many of us need to travel on business.
Unfortunately, this is the most common way in which bedbugs to find their way into our houses. These vampire pests are actually brilliant hitch hikers that can crawl into luggage and other belongings left in hotel rooms, on aeroplanes or from any other type of public transport where they may be hiding away. It only takes one traveler or visitor to have the insects on their clothing or inside their bags to cause an infestation
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2. Visitors - How do you get bed bugs from visitors? Well, I would sincerely hope that none of your friends or family would bring bedbugs to stay intentionally. Especially over the holiday season this can be a problem  when  you might have a lot of people staying over.

3. Purchasing clothing from second hand retailers - times are really hard and cash is tight for many

of us. If you do purchase clothes from this kind of outlet carry them back home in a sealed bag. Wash them at as high a temperature as the fabric will withstand and tumble dry straightaway. Hiring outfits at times such as Halloween may also be problematic and you almost certainly will never be 100% sure they have been laundered and checked before hand. In this case make sure you properly check everything before you take  it into your home.

4. Buying pre-owned furniture - could potentially be extremely high risk but again if needs must...  For a start only visit a used furniture shop which is trustworthy. Look at the furniture in detail. Couches, chairs, bed frames etc will all be quite hard to check fully. If you see any small rips in upholstery or stitching coming undone leave well alone - you will never know if indeed there are actually bedbugs inside of it. Any piece of furniture that appears to have white dust within it may have been treated for bed bugs or perhaps another kind of insect and therefore my recommendation would definitely be leave well alone. If you can, have items you do buy professionally fumigated - unfortunately this will of course increase the cost.

5. Taking in furniture from dumpsters or from the street - no matter how desperate you might be this is certainly not advisable. Truth be told there is every probability that the items ended up being left because they contain bedbugs!

6. Moving into rented houses. This really is something that happens to a lot of people - they move into a new home and in less than a couple of weeks there are bedbugs everywhere! Okay so, just how do you get bed bugs when you know you did not have them prior to the move? Quite often the last tenant has had problems, they move, the owner has just a bit of a clean up, maybe has the place sprayed then rents the property to somebody else.  Should some bugs or eggs survive and reproduce any new tenant will quickly have a huge problem on their hands.


If or when you are moving it is often a wise move to ask a pest management consultant along to check out the property for warning signs of bed bugs. Be warned, many property owners may very well object to this so ask your specialist to pose as a relative or friend so that they can have a good poke around.

Eliminating Bed Bug Eggs May Help You Eliminate An Infestation Faster

A fertilized female bed bug with access to a good food supply will lay around 3 to 4 eggs every day. If circumstances really aren't ideal she might just lay 1. Anyway, it is conceivable that a single female will probably lay around 500 eggs during the course of her lifetime - usually somewhere around 9 months this depends upon conditions like temperature etc. The minute bed bug eggs are laid where they are least likely to be disturbed therefore ensuring that they have the very best chance of hatching and maturing. When searching for bedbug eggs check out any kind of cracks and crevices, behind peeling wallpaper, baseboards, along the base of headboards etc. When an egg is first laid the exterior is covered with a sticky substance that enables it to stick to the surface upon which it was placed making it more difficult for it to be removed. The eggs of bed bugs are really very tiny measuring a mere 1 mm and are white in color. Quite often you may hear them compared in appearance to a grain of rice. At regular room temperature the young bed bugs will emerge within 7 days. Obviously if its possible to identify bedbug eggs and kill them before they hatch your infestation might be brought under control easier. Unfortunately it must be said that this might be much easier said than actually doing it. Due to their size and also color finding bed bugs eggs can be no simple task particularly if they are located on a surface that is light in color. Is actually just about possible to see them with the naked eye however the use of a magnifying glass and a flash light could make the task a little bit easier. Okay so, how do you destroy bedbug eggs? To tell the truth there is no straight-forward answer. Would you believe there are no chemical treatments guaranteed to destroy bed bug eggs in one go!. Some of these remedies won't kill any eggs because they can not penetrate the outer shell. To be fair, these products are usually manufactured to destroy mature bugs and nymphs on contact. The best way to eradicate bed bug eggs is through heat. Temperatures upwards of 120 oC will eliminate them. This is actually the main reason that it is advisable to launder and tumble dry all bed sheets, garments etc. before beginning any treatment of the infested room. Its not the laundering which will dispose of the eggs but the time the items spend in the drier As for destroying bedbug eggs with heat you have got a few options such as a commercial treatment carried out by professionals or utilizing a suitable steam vapor cleaner and doing the job yourself. You have to make certain it is one which gets to the sort of temperatures required i.e up wards of 120oC and produces dry vapor to prevent items becoming too wet and perhaps causing problems with mold. If you do go for chemical treatment methods do not forget you are going to need to apply more than one due to the fact a single treatment will not eliminate all the eggs. Therefore, further treatments are going to be necessary at intervals to eliminate bugs as they hatch out.

Which Home Remedies For Bed Bugs Should You Consider?

Bed bugs are still causing huge concerns and the expense of using skilled pest control experts can often be huge. As a result many people are searching for home remedies for bed bugs that work. Now, you can discover various forums and websites suggesting a wide variety of home remedies. Some, just do not work whilst others are just dangerous! Now let's consider a couple of these: Rubbing alcohol - Now I have seen this hailed on various forums and yes in the event that the alcohol makes direct contact with a live bedbug it will kill it! Unfortunately, the first issue is that being alcohol it evaporates extremely rapidly which means it will have no lasting effect and won't kill bugs which trundle out of their hiding places later on. The second and most frightening problem with rubbing alcohol as a home remedy for bed bugs is the fact that it is highly flammable. Numerous people have set their homes alight after dousing sofas, mattresses and so forth with alcohol then unintentionally dropping a match or perhaps cigarette. Not one of the most wise remedies for bed bugs! Pesticides - any type of chemical remedy should be executed with great care. Just use products that can be safely used indoors and in places where perhaps yourself and your family intend to sleep. Indeed there are many chemical pesticides out there that are only made to be used outdoors - regardless of how desperate you may be NEVER be tempted to apply them inside. Some are extremely poisonous and could kill more than bed bugs! Personally I would suggest getting the experts involved if chemical treatment methods are really required. All right, so those are some home remedies for bed bugs which are probably best avoided. Let us look at a few that can often be very effective:- Diatomaceous earth - this is a dust made from ground fossil shells. There are various kinds but, for use in this capacity you will want the freshwater food-grade product which is completely safe. This is not by any means a fast or complete "fix" for bed bugs. Putting a light scattering of diatomaceous earth in areas within your house where it won't be disturbed will kill bed bugs who encounter it. Basically it gets into their joints and also wears down their waxy outer "shell" causing them to dehydrate. Laundering and tumble drying clothes, bed linen etc. - you need to make this the first step in every home remedy for bed bugs. While laundering will thoroughly clean and also freshen the items the heat within the tumble drier will wipe out any bedbug eggs, nymphs and adults hiding inside. Bed bugs will be killed by temperatures in excess of 120 oC. Bed Bug Sprays - there a wide range of of these around whilst most destroy bed bugs upon contact not all destroy bedbug eggs or any bugs which emerge following the treatment. Vacuuming and Steam Cleaning - I have found this to be one of the best home remedies for bed bugs. To start with use a vacuum on mattresses, settees, soft furnishings, soft toys and so forth. Note it is vital that you empty and thoroughly clean your vacuum when you are finished otherwise you are going to just end up spreading bed bugs to other areas of your home. Retrace your steps with a good steam vapor cleaner, it should achieve temperatures upwards of 120 oC and it ought to generate dry vapour. The nozzle of the steam vapor cleaner needs to be put onto the surface and moved carefully and methodically. If the nozzle is too far from the surface the temperature of the steam will be reduced which makes it less effective. You will find that making use of any of these home remedies for bed bugs independently will likely not get rid of the problem. Making use of them as a combination however potentially can eliminate of bed bugs. It must be said nevertheless, if your infestation is in more than one room and extremely large there simply is no home cure that can eradicate these blood sucking pests and therefore you really will need professional treatment.

How Itchy Are Bed Bug Bites?

Do bed bug bites itch? For some this may sound like a stupid question - of course bed bug bites itch! Nevertheless this does not always happen. Bed bugs as you are most probably aware are unpleasant little pests who thrive by feasting on blood. Any warm blooded creature will do but human beings are frequently first in line these days. Our vampire pals prefer to bite under the cover of darkness - typically in the hour or so before the sun comes up however they will come out in the daytime if they are hungry and food becomes available. They can detect the victim who will provide their next meal from the Carbon dioxide they breath out and their body heat. You will usually find that bites will appear on parts of the body which have been left uncovered for example the face, neck, arms and neck. Bed bugs are extremely smart they make sure that they can enjoy a good dinner without being detected. They do this by injecting a local anaesthetic to slightly numb the spot and an anticoagulant to allow the blood to flow more easily both of these substances can be found in the bed bugs saliva. It is the allergic reaction caused by the saliva which prompts the rash and itchy bed bug bites to appear. The rash may take a few days to appear and can look like small red spots or bumps or possibly welts on the skin. Itching from the bites can be annoying and can last for a few hours or a few days. As I said at the introduction to this article bed bug bites don't always itch simply because there are many individuals who do not suffer any ill effects at all. Due to the appearance and the symptoms produced by the bites it is often extremely difficult for a doctor to accurately diagnose them as being from bed bugs! Other insect bites such as fleas bites and mosquito bites can look very similar. Skin conditions also like eczema and psoriasis and even scabies can display similar symptoms. The only way to be certain is to physically track down the bugs in your home and have them correctly identified. Having said all that, there is no real treatment for bed bug bites. Oral antihistamines or cortisone creams will relieve the itch. Scratching may lead to bacterial skin infection and should be avoided. There only one effective way to stop horrid bed bug bites that itch like crazy - ELIMINATE THE BED BUGS!!!!

Think Your Rash Is Caused By Bed Bugs?

One sure symptom that you have got a possible infestation of blood sucking bugs on your hands is the bed bug rash. It is important all the same that you do not just surmise that any rash which appears on you or possibly any of the family is because of bed bugs! There is a vast number of skin conditions that are likely to present with the same symptoms like eczema, psoriasis, even chicken pox along with bites from other blood sucking pests that include fleas and mosquitoes. This can often make a doctors task of providing a diagnosis extremely challenging. Subsequently, if you are afraid that your rash may perhaps have been caused by bedbug bites you really need to try and find evidence of an infestation. Make sure you search the household for clues such as for example, bedbug poo, cast skins, small blood smears on your mattress and bedding, bedbug eggs and of course live insects. If you uncover none of these signs you really should reconsider exactly what the trigger of the rash could be and seek medical advise. Confirmation of the existence of bed bugs in your property will likely help your doctor make straightforward diagnosis. Okay so, what does a bed bug rash look like? Typically a bedbug rash will develop randomly as little red bumps which will either be flat or risen on areas of your skin. The site around the bumps can often be swollen and is usually itchy. The worst thing you can do however is scratch because this may possibly lead to the rash becoming infected. The frequently affected areas include the face, neck, arms and legs i.e. any part of the body which has been kept uncovered during the night. Not everyone bitten by these vampire insects displays symptoms. Quite a few fortunate individuals will suffer no reaction what so ever to their saliva. Bed bugs are fairly smart, because, their saliva has a mild anaesthetic to prevent the victim feeling the bite plus an anticoagulant to let the blood to flow more readily to make feeding a lot quicker. There are some unfortunate individuals however that may suffer a serious reaction maybe even anaphylaxis which will need to have urgent medical attention. The bites can typically appear within a time frame of anything from one day to as much as several days after the initial bite. The more regularly a person is bitten the more sensitized they will become meaning the bites are likely to appear a great deal faster. Just how do you treat a bed bug rash? In the vast majority instances no medical assistance is required - unless of course a bacterial skin infection sets in and antibiotics are required. The itching may be calmed using creams such as hydro cortisone or even oral antihistamines. The bites themselves will disappear over time provided of course that the bed bugs have been wiped out from your home. There are various other medical conditions which an infestation might cause like anxiety, panic attacks and insomnia. These could possibly have a far greater impact on somebody's life when compared to a bed bug rash.

Can You See Bed Bugs With The Naked Eye?

Can you see bed bugs? Awakening with itchy, red bites on areas of your skin definitely is not a nice experience. Then you begin wondering precisely what triggered it? A skin disorder, fleas, mosquitoes, BED BUGS? Such symptoms will most likely have many causes and it can be very hard for a doctor to pin down the genuine cause so if you suspect bed bugs it will make diagnosis a great deal faster if you can actually try to find the culprits! Ok so, the major question is can you see bed bugs? The answer is yes! A full grown bed bug is reddish brown in color and has a flat, oval shaped body and six legs - ideal for fitting into the littlest of hiding places! In terms of size an adult will measure something like 4 to 5 mm long and 1.5 to 3 mm in width.Sometimes the adult bug is likened in appearance and size to an apple seed. A freshly hatched nymph or "baby bed bug" looks like a tinier version of its parents. You can see immature bed bugs with the naked eye. They only measure somewhere around 1 mm and are translucent. I have heard nymphs likened to poppy seeds in size! Both adult and bed bug nymphs grow in width after a blood dinner. When engorged their usually flat bodies become more "puffed up" and their coloring changes to red because the blood inside them is visible. The color only changes to the more usual tan or reddish brown as the meal is digested. Subsequently if you see what resembles a mobile blood spot on your bedsheets it is most likely a bed bug! Finding and eliminating bed bug eggs is a vital part of any bed bug treatment program because an adult female has the ability to lay eggs at a speed of around 1 to 5 per day that's up to 500 in her life time. Can you see bed bug eggs? These are often described as looking like grains of rice in shape and color. It is possible to see bed bug eggs with no magnification due to the fact they measure approximately 1 mm. You will usually discover them "glued" to the surface of a mattress or maybe a headboard. As they developed bed bugs cast their skins a total of 6 times before they develop into sexually mature adults. This process normally takes in the region of 5 weeks. It is possible to spot bed bugs skins which have been shed during this process. Basically they look exactly like a bed bug but are in fact transparent, empty skins. Should you come across these when hunting down bed bugs in your home they are a sure sign of an active infestation.

Looking For A Treatment For Bed Bugs?

Are bed bugs giving you sleepless nights and nasty bites? If you need help and advice about treatment for bed bugs read on.....

Bed bugs are similar in size to the lovable lady bug - about 1/5th of an inch. They tend to be mahogany or a rusty reddish color. These creepy crawlies come out at night to feed - on blood and will hide away during the day in all sorts of places from small cracks and holes in the floor and walls of a room to the folds of bed linen and the creases of the mattress. When in need of food they can travel up to 100ft so don't be surprised if you find them in obscure places. The nasty bites which bed bugs inflict are quite often the first indication of a problem. The bites are usually red, swollen areas which are itchy and appear in lines of three. It is important that you ensure that the bites do not become infected - this can be painful and mat require medical attention. There are a minority of people who will develop a severe reaction to the bug bites and who will need to see a doctor urgently. Time is of the essence, the bed bugs must be eliminated as quickly as possible to prevent the infestation growing out of control. Treatments for bed bugs vary. The use of insecticides is still common and can be very effective but also very dangerous if used incorrectly. There are non toxic, natural alternatives available which can work equally as well and have the advantage of being safe if there are pets or children in the house. The first course of action should be to determine whether or not that it is indeed bed bugs which are the problem. This can be established relatively easily. Look out for blood spots on bed linen and possibly dead bugs which have been squashed during

the night. Check along the seams and in any folds or rips in your mattress not forgetting the box spring too. If bugs are present you will find dark fecal marks, the small white eggs and of course the live bugs. The whole room must then be searched carefully as these little pests can move around the room in search of food. When I say the whole room I mean drawers, cupboards, smoke alarms, picture frames. The biggest tell tale sign that bed bugs are in residence are the dark faecal marks that they leave behind. Chemical treatment for bed bugs is usually required to ensure that all the bugs are exterminated and that eggs and larvae are destroyed. Insecticides can be extremely dangerous and must be used with great care. Pets and children should be kept well away form treated areas. There are alternative non toxic options which can be just as effective and which are child and pet friendly. Treatment for the bed bugs cannot be applied until the room and all the items in it have been cleaned thoroughly. It is best done in a systematic and ordered fashion to ensure that there is no area left unchecked or cleaned. Six Tips To Get Started: 1. Strip the bed of all linen and remove all soft furnishings where possible. Place them immediately into a plastic bag and seal it tight. NB. do this in the room which is infested to prevent bed bugs getting into other areas of the house. Launder suitable items at a high temperature. 2. Items which are not suitable for laundering should be put into the tumble dryer on a high heat setting for around 10 minutes. Bed bugs cannot survive in extreme heat or cold so by placing items like for example shoes in sealed plastic bags and placing them outside in the heat or cold for a few hours will kill the bugs. 3. Clear out any little crevices and holes where the bed bugs may be nesting. Once the treatment for the bed bugs has been completed make sure that all of these are suitably filled in. 4. Remove any clutter which may be in the room. Bag and seal newspapers, magazines etc. and dispose of them.

5. Use the vacuum cleaner on floors, curtains, mattress and box spring - in fact anywhere you can get into with it. The benefit of this is that it will not only suck up bed bugs but eggs and larvae too which are more difficult to see. Be sure to seal and dispose of the bag from the vacuum cleaner immediately. 6. The chemical or non toxic equivalent spray can then be applied once you are confident that the room has been thoroughly cleaned. It is essential that the correct dosage id applied so ensure that manufacturer's instructions should be followed carefully. Infestations can be very large and may be impossible to get rid of using the by treating bed bugs using the treatment for bed bugs suggested here. In such instances it really is best to call in professionals who can apply fast effective treatments for bed bugs.