Finding and Killing Bed Bugs at Home
Bed bugs are a serious problem for houses and businesses across the country as we as in Europe and Australia. The scourge was almost eradicated by the 1940s, but it has come back with a vengeance over the past 15 years. It can cause irritating bites and allergic reactions as well as a foul smell to areas infested with them.
Do You Have Bed Bugs?
If you think you have bedbugs, there are a number of ways to find out for sure. An easy way is to buy glue traps and leave them around beds, couches and cushy chairs. When bugs get stuck in the traps, examine them to see if they are small, flattened, oval-shaped brown bugs. If so, you may have bed bugs. Compare them to online pictures of bed bugs to find out for certain.
Another way to find out for sure is to look under your mattress and find the bugs yourself. They may be holding onto the underside of the mattress or hiding inside the mattress itself. If you see holes in your mattress, you may have bugs that have burrowed inside.
Exterminate Bed Bugs
Bed bugs can live at very cold temperatures, but not hot ones. A common way to kill bed bugs is to use steam heat to kill them. It's clean, non-toxic and works well when you can find the bugs. However, other methods may be necessary when you can't find all of the bugs to kill them.
Using glue traps to kill a small infestation is useful and inexpensive. Traps put around the legs of beds can also be used to kill bed bugs as they try to climb into the bed. If an infestation is a bad one, consider using two or three methods to kill them as effectively as possible.
- Killing Bed Bugs
Find out how to find bed bugs, how to kill bed bugs and how to know whether you have an infestation at home or at work.
Where Bed Bugs Hide
While bed bugs do often hide in beds, they can hide just about anywhere that isn't moved often. If you have a lot of clutter, this is a perfect way to create bedbug homes that they will be happy to hide and breed in. Getting rid of clutter and mess can make your home much less comfortable for these insects. They can hide in books, clothing piles, old boxes, and virtually anywhere else inside the home.
To get rid of bugs that are already in the house, it will be necessary to clear away old items and search inside boxes and bookshelves. With a cleaner house and less clutter, you can keep your home free of not only bed bugs but other bugs as well.
