You do everything right and you still worry. According the latest reports, bed bugs are everywhere. Where once the focus was on travelers and bed bugs hitching rides in their suitcases, now there is worry about kids bringing them home from school in their backpacks. Some reports have visitors to doctor’s offices finding them in their homes afterwards. And the situation is especially bad in Cleveland, with calls to exterminators continuing to increase.
While experts aren’t sure why bed bug infestations are on the rise, one reason may be that bed bugs have become increasingly resistant to pesticides. Homeowners’ repeated attempts to eradicate bed bug infestations on their own, coupled with bed bugs’ tendencies to hide deep in crevices may have contributed to this resilience. Understanding bed bug behavior can go a long way in helping homeowners make the right decision when it comes to dealing with an infestation.
What you should know:
- Bed bugs feed at night, so just because you haven’t seen them doesn’t mean you don’t have an infestation.
- Bed bugs do not stay in beds or cushions once they have a comfortable habitat. They will move to crevices, furniture and baseboards to hide.
- A bed bug can live up to 12 months in a box or piece of furniture waiting for its next blood meal.
- Bed bugs typically lay eggs deep in protected crevices that are difficult to get to with pesticides.
The homeowner attempting to spray for a potential bed bug infestation will often fail because the pesticide simply can’t reach the eggs, which will hatch three months later and re-infect the home, or because the bed bugs have become resistant to that pesticide. Even professional exterminators are dealing with the resistance problem and have turned to heat treatments as an alternative or in additional to chemical treatments.
Heat treatment can target an area or an entire room, raising the temperature to 120 degrees and keeping it there for at least two hours to kill the bugs and any eggs deposited out of reach. Bedding and clothing that may be infected can be washed at the same temperature to ascertain the problem is eradicated.
In some cases, a combination of heat and chemical treatment can take care of a serious problem by treating surface areas immediately. The heat treatment to follow then deals with the bugs that are hiding elsewhere.
Experts say the key is addressing every possible hiding place and getting the eggs. It is therefore recommended homeowners call a professional when bed bugs are suspected.
While bed bugs were thought to be extinct only 30 years ago, they are clearly back, and Northeast Ohio seems to have taken an especially hard hit.
TNT Exterminating offers bed bug treatments that include heat and chemical remedies, to be certain your problem is dealt with correctly the first time. Call or click here for details and to schedule a thorough inspection.