Bed bug infestation is on the rise and has become a major issue for households throughout the United States. Bed bugs are one of the toughest and most annoying pests. They are elusive and hide in the smallest cracks and crevices. If you can slide a business card into any crack, consider it an ideal hotspot for bed bugs. Most importantly, bed bugs are not just found on beds and mattresses, they can shelter in any place that has the necessary temperatures for them to survive.
If your house is already infested with bed bugs, only a professional pest control team can help you out. However, if you want to prevent the entry of bed bugs, you can take certain measures to prevent bed bugs from invading your home.
This blog lists the top 6 prevention tips to help you avoid the headache of bed bug infestation.
So, without any delay, let’s dive in.
1. Identify Them
Educate yourself and your family about the identification of bed bugs and their bites, along with the early signs of a bed bug infestation. Bed bugs are brown, wingless, oval, flat insects. Bed bug bites are typically small bumpy red marks that are itchy and often appear in rows. Knowing more about bed bugs is the best way to prevent a bed bug problem from becoming a full-blown crisis.
2. Inspect Your Home
Inspect your home for bed bugs thoroughly using a flashlight and any flat-edged object like a credit card. Check around beds, mattresses, cracks, crevices, folds of fabric, furniture, and other areas for bed bugs, eggs, feces, or molted skin. If you find any of these, seek professional help immediately. Be sure to wear protective gloves during this inspection.
3. Check Your Pets
Apart from the home inspection, inspect your pets as bed bugs feed on warm-blooded animals. Moreover, bed bugs can get attracted to your pet’s bedding, where they may lay eggs and feed. Check the area around the bed where your pet sleeps. You can also go the extra mile by washing your pet bed regularly in high-temperature settings.
4. Vacuum
Bed bugs also love to hide within your carpet, so, besides vacuuming mattresses, vacuum your carpet to ensure that there are no be bugs. Plus, vacuum all floors, box springs, and every exposed area in your home. have Once vacuuming is done, remove the vacuum bag and place it in a sealed trash bag to dispose of it.
5. Prevent their Entry
Seal all entry points of bed bugs such as cracks, holes, cervices. Fix any plumbing issues, leakage issues, cover the gaps between doors and windows using weather stripping. Moreover, bed bugs mostly use the holes of power outlets and hide there to evade extermination until it is safe to move elsewhere. Therefore, covering your power outlets will prevent their entry.
6. Store Your Clothing
Store your clothes in vacuum-sealed airtight bags at home and while traveling so that your clothes are less accessible to pests. While you place your seasonal clothing and fabric like sweaters and blankets in the vacuum-sealed bags, remove the air from the bags using a vacuum cleaner and put them away, and store them in a safe place for future use.
Wrapping Up
These aforementioned tips will keep bed bugs away from your belongings and your home. However, if you are seeing signs and suspect that you are dealing with an infestation, go for a professional bed bug treatment to get rid of them safely, effectively, and permanently.
