Since almost a record number of Americans traveled this spring, it’s likely that the number of bed bugs will go up. Sunday, June 4 is the first day of National Bed Bug Awareness Week. Vista Pest Control, your friendly pest, mosquito, termite, and rodent management expert, would like to help keep your home free of bed bugs after you return from a summer vacation or work trip. If you follow these tips, you and your family will be safe:
- Check travel sites before you leave to see if there have been any reports of bed bugs at your hotel.
- Before you move, check to see if there are any bed bugs in the room or rooms. Look behind the headboard and lamps, as well as in closets, drawers, couches, and chairs.
- By pulling back the sheets, you can check the edges and corners of the mattress and box spring for pepper-like stains, spots, or shed bed bug skins.
- Bed bugs can be moved easily in bags, on cleaning carts, and even through wall outlets. Most of the time, an infection spreads the fastest in the room where it started.
- Unpack only the clothes you plan to wear; don’t put your shoes on the floor.
- Bed bugs are less likely to live in the bathroom or on a tile floor, so that’s where you should put your bags.
- When you get home, look for bed bugs in everything you own, including the clothes you are wearing.
- After you’ve unpacked your bags outside or in the garage, put everything in the washer or dryer for at least 10 minutes on the highest heat setting.
Extra Information About Bed Bugs
People at your next quiz night will be amazed and maybe a little grossed out by these facts about bed bugs. It’s strange how much is known about bed bugs:
- Bed bugs are found all over the world. They are thought to have come to the U.S. from Europe in the 17th century.
- Most of the time, bed bugs eat people, but they can also eat other warm-blooded animals like mice, birds, and dogs.
- Adults are very flat and only about a quarter of an inch long. Compared to most other insects, they are oval-shaped and not very long.
- Bed bugs can lay anywhere from one to five eggs a day, which adds up to 500 eggs over their lifetime.
- Bed bugs can go several months without eating blood.
- Bed bugs can live in temperatures from almost -120 degrees Fahrenheit to 122 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Bed bugs feed for about five minutes on blood before hiding to eat.
- Bed bug eggs can get through a mattress stitch because they are so small.
- Bed bugs can eat seven times their own weight in blood, which is the same as an average-sized man drinking 120 gallons of liquid.
- The chemicals in bed bug saliva that make it numb also make more blood flow to the bite spot. Bed bugs eat quickly and almost without pain, which helps keep their hosts from waking up.
How to Get Rid of Bed Bugs
Before a trained pest control expert can come up with a good plan for treating bed bugs, he or she must carefully check all known and possible places where bed bugs might hide. This bug can’t be controlled well with do-it-yourself methods.
If you think your home has bed bugs, call California’s most trusted and easy-to-reach bed bug and pest control expert. Once we do a professional inspection, make a correct identification, and do the inspection, we can give you a control and prevention program with several levels. The pest control experts at Vista Pest Control appreciate your help in keeping pests out of your home and yard until the next time we talk.
