Eliminating Bed Bugs – Ways To Keep Your Home Free From These Pests
Saturday, November 8th, 2008
Abhishek Agarwal
Bed bugs are surely a pain in the neck. Medical findings may have ruled out that they cannot re-transmit diseases and cause epidemic outbreak, but that doesn’t make them less hated as they surely make lives miserable for some people with infested homes. Just how could these people lead normal lives when their sleep and rest are not as relaxing as before. Imagine waking up early because you need to scratch the site from where they bit you. Most often it is just not an itch but results to painful skin infection.
To get back to normalcy is to decide no less than to eradicate this little pests from your home. First, one has to get clear information on the characteristics of the bed bugs and eventually on how to detect them and plan for its annihilation. Bed bugs are so tiny that it could hide in small crevices of the flooring, beds, matresses, furnitures, upholsteries. Basically it where humans tend to stay in prolonged period like when sleeping or resting. They could also hide in cabinets, carpets, curtains, walls,and ceilings.
They feed in a very smart way choosing an hour before dawn just at the time when humans are already fast asleep. They have two tubes coming out of their mouth. They suck blood through one tube while injecting coagulants and anesthetics through the other. This makes the process undetected by its victim and only feels the itch after the effect of the anesthesia is gone for about an hour which is already time to wake up. When most of the bugs have already hidden back to their secret crevices.
To detect them, the best way is to hunt for them at their chosen hunting hour which is an hour before dawn. Care must be taken such that movements are minimized while lights are off in the room and the living rooms. Use a flashlight and do not turn the room lighting. If they sense sudden movements and lights are turned on, they scamper away in all directions like ants. If this is properly done, luck is more that possibly you will find them conglomerating outside of their crevices in a corner of the mattress, beds, headboard or chairs.
Now that you know the secret habitat locations, plan a program of action to get rid of the pests. There are several options to adapt in eradicating their race in your homes. The best is to contract the help of professional pest control services. However, you can do it yourself to save on cost.
There are chemical and non-chemical methods by which the bugs could be taken cared of. There are insecticides in spray form or gels and powders. There are repellants and killers or both at the same time. Repellant sprays and gels prevent them from getting back to the hiding places. There are powder forms are lethal that kills them on contact.
Non chemical methods uses basic housekeeping. Free the house of clutters, bring out the infested furnitures, mattresses and pressure wash them with hot water and soap. If the furnitures are too much infested, leave them out in the sun to dry on prolonged period and do it all over again. Vacuum cleaners may be used but make sure the vacuum bag with pests inside are disposed of properly in fire or hot water.
A combination of chemical and non-chemical methods will be the best approach to adapt.
As prevention for recurrence, take all precautions by keeping your house clean. Make sure new visitors from other places have their luggages examined first especially if they have stayed in hotels that are infested with bed bugs.
Bed bugs are surely a pain in the neck. Medical findings may have ruled out that they cannot re-transmit diseases and cause epidemic outbreak, but that doesn’t make them less hated as they surely make lives miserable for some people with infested homes. Just how could these people lead normal lives when their sleep and rest are not as relaxing as before. Imagine waking up early because you need to scratch the site from where they bit you. Most often it is just not an itch but results to painful skin infection.
To get back to normalcy is to decide no less than to eradicate this little pests from your home. First, one has to get clear information on the characteristics of the bed bugs and eventually on how to detect them and plan for its annihilation. Bed bugs are so tiny that it could hide in small crevices of the flooring, beds, matresses, furnitures, upholsteries. Basically it where humans tend to stay in prolonged period like when sleeping or resting. They could also hide in cabinets, carpets, curtains, walls,and ceilings.
They feed in a very smart way choosing an hour before dawn just at the time when humans are already fast asleep. They have two tubes coming out of their mouth. They suck blood through one tube while injecting coagulants and anesthetics through the other. This makes the process undetected by its victim and only feels the itch after the effect of the anesthesia is gone for about an hour which is already time to wake up. When most of the bugs have already hidden back to their secret crevices.
To detect them, the best way is to hunt for them at their chosen hunting hour which is an hour before dawn. Care must be taken such that movements are minimized while lights are off in the room and the living rooms. Use a flashlight and do not turn the room lighting. If they sense sudden movements and lights are turned on, they scamper away in all directions like ants. If this is properly done, luck is more that possibly you will find them conglomerating outside of their crevices in a corner of the mattress, beds, headboard or chairs.
Now that you know the secret habitat locations, plan a program of action to get rid of the pests. There are several options to adapt in eradicating their race in your homes. The best is to contract the help of professional pest control services. However, you can do it yourself to save on cost.
There are chemical and non-chemical methods by which the bugs could be taken cared of. There are insecticides in spray form or gels and powders. There are repellants and killers or both at the same time. Repellant sprays and gels prevent them from getting back to the hiding places. There are powder forms are lethal that kills them on contact.
Non chemical methods uses basic housekeeping. Free the house of clutters, bring out the infested furnitures, mattresses and pressure wash them with hot water and soap. If the furnitures are too much infested, leave them out in the sun to dry on prolonged period and do it all over again. Vacuum cleaners may be used but make sure the vacuum bag with pests inside are disposed of properly in fire or hot water.
A combination of chemical and non-chemical methods will be the best approach to adapt.
As prevention for recurrence, take all precautions by keeping your house clean. Make sure new visitors from other places have their luggages examined first especially if they have stayed in hotels that are infested with bed bugs.
