What To Do If You Get Bed Bugs (& Where To Spot Them)

Bed bugs are usually brought into the house from the outside, on clothing, baggage, second-hand furniture or in laundry done in an infested home. Social stigma is attached to them more than to any other insect. This is unfair since the most conscientious homemaker may bring them in on his or her clothing after brushing up against someone while shopping or spending an afternoon at the movies.

Once in the house, they will hide all day in the most out-of-the-way place they can find. Its hiding place may be a good distance away from the bedin wall spaces, floor cracks, behind partitions, in furniture cracksor it may burrow into the mattress tufts or crawl in among the crevices in the bed frame.

Wherever it hides, it has an uncanny instinct for finding its way easily to the bed when the lights are out. They will climb up from the floor, climb walls and drop from ceilings with ease to get at their victims. They are attracted to your body warmth and the carbon dioxide you exhalesure signs that theres a live one waiting to be feasted on.

Because of the increased amount of traveling we do today compared to a few decades ago, bed bugs can be a real problem in hotels, buses, airplanes and other areas where groups of people gather together.

Buildings that house several people or families at once can also cause infestation problems (apartment buildings, condos, senior citizen homes, etc.) since they can travel between walls with ease.

Before eating, the bedbug (Cimex lectulariusalso known as a chinch, a red-coat or a mahogany flat) is a small one-quarter to three-eighths of an inch, wingless, paper-thin insect, oval in shape and dark brown in color. After becoming engorged, the body thickens and is elongated. The ingested blood changes its color to a dull red. The mouth is constructed in the shape of a beak, which it plunges into the body of its victim, sucking the blood up through it. At the same time a fluid is being secreted to facilitate the eating process. This fluid is extremely irritating to the skin of most human beings and causes swelling, irritation and itching.

Tip:

When sleeping in an unfamiliar bed (at a hotel for example), pull back the bed sheets and look at the bare mattressif you see excrement (it will look like rust spots on the mattress), leave the room immediately and find another hotel to stay at.

You can call in a professional exterminator to fumigate the home and furniture inside, this is preferable since professional exterminators are familiar with the hiding habits of these critters and the chemicals they use are usually very effective. However, if fumigation is out of your budget or youd like to try a more natural remedy to kill them, food grade Diatomaceous Earth is a safe and harsh-chemical free method.

Diatomaceous Earth is a natural, effective means of pest control (Ive previously recommended it for fleas and ant control). You can find it in garden centers (make sure to buy the food grade stuff). Its a soft, chalk-like sedimentary rock that is crumbled into a fine white to off-white powder.

Diatomaceous Earth is easily picked up by the hairy bodies of most insects, whereupon it scratches through their protective wax layers and they also absorb some of this material. The result being that the insects lose water rapidly, dry up and die. Further protection is provided by the powders property of repelling many insects. In houses it can be used effectively to prevent the entry of certain insects such as earwigs, ants, and cockroaches, and to control these and others that are present in cupboards containing food, carpets, basements, attics, window ledges, pet areas (for fleas), etc. In all of these examples it is important to place a small amount of the powder in corners, cracks, crevices and other areas where insects might hide.

(Source: Ecological Agriculture Projects, McGill University).

Steps To Take:

It will take a few weeks before they all will be killed (you have to ensure that the entire life cycle has been haltedno new eggs waiting to hatch, etc.). Keep applying the Diatomaceous Earth and petroleum jelly until all signs of the infestation are gone.

Try applying one of the following for relief:

If there is a danger of infection, use iodine as a topical antiseptic to control it.

Source: Some of the information above is from Womans Home Companion Household Book (1948)

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What To Do If You Get Bed Bugs (& Where To Spot Them)