Bed bugs are small, oval, brownish insects with flat bodies about the size of an apple seed. They cannot fly, but they can quickly crawl across floors, walls, and ceilings spreading mayhem from room to room or to the neighboring apartment.
What can be sprayed on a mattress for bed bugs? There are several aerosol and dust that can be sprayed or dusted onto a mattress to rid it of bed bugs. They include:
- Cimexa Dust
- CrossFire Insecticide
- Bedlam Plus Aerosols
- CrossFire Aerosols
- Temprid FX Insecticide
- Steri-Fab Bed Bug Spray
Dust actually lasts longer than aerosol sprays, but with the crack and crevice tips on the aerosols, they are better able to penetrate into the smallest cracks where bed bugs like to hide. The best idea is to use both aerosol sprays and dust to make certain to kill all the insects and their eggs. This article will examine the procedure for ridding oneself of bed bugs and the best way to make sure they remain exterminated from the bedroom for good.
The Procedure Before Beginning to Spray for Bed Bugs
After discovering that bed bugs have infiltrated a home, homeowners need to act quickly to contain the infestation to just one room. To do this, they must follow several steps before attempting to spray to treat the problem.
- Identify the depth of the problem
- Remove infested items
- Treat with insecticide
An examination of each of these steps will help to understand what to do.
Identify the Depth of the Problem
The first step to treating for bed bugs is to get an idea of how many bed bugs there may be in, on, and around the mattress. This examination will tell you whether one can treat their own bed bug problem or if a professional exterminator is needed.
Remove Infested Items
These items may include clothing, stuffed animals, cloth dolls, other items that inhabited the bed where the bugs were found. The items that can be placed in bags and treated should be washed in extremely hot water and dried on high heat to make certain the bed bugs are dead. Items that cannot be treated with heat must be placed in plastic bags and sealed closed for a year.
Tip: Bed bugs can live in extremes of temperature and go without eating for many months. Placing items that are infested outdoors in the cold of winter, even in sub-zero weather, will not kill them.
Treat with Insecticide
It is vital to treat the room where the infestation occurred with strong insecticides. This includes not just the mattress, bedsprings, and frame of the bed but furniture, curtains, carpets, and even inside electrical outlets.
Where to Spray for Bed Bugs
It isn’t enough to spray insecticides willy-nilly or all over a mattress to kill bed bugs as there are other places and a method for doing so. Places besides the bed to spray liquid insecticides or aerosols include:
- Around the inside of closets, door frames and doors
- Around and under the bed
- Along the baseboards near the bed
- Drawers from furniture and the inside of cabinetry
- Where the bed touches the floor
- Chairs, and underneath chairs
- Loose plaster
- Molding on the top and the bottom of the room
- Around the windows
Although spraying mattresses seems a reasonable thing to do when infested with bed bugs, coating them with toxic chemicals if the infestation is bad will only put humans in peril.
Keep the Infestation from Spreading
It is vital to inspect all around the treated room for signs the bed bugs have not been eradicated. These places to check include:
- Headboards
- Bedside tables
- Ceiling/wall junctions
- Loose wallpaper or paneling
- Wherever you find a crease or crevice near where a person sleeps
- Baseboards, mattress seams, and personal belongings
If the homeowner finds either the characteristic brown spotting or shell casings that have been shed by adults during molting, then the room is not free of bed bugs, and the infestation continues.
However, even if no bed bugs are found during a thorough investigation, homeowners need to stay on their toes because it only takes one pregnant, mated bed bug to start the trouble for sleepers all over again.
The Physical Signs of a Bed Bug Infestation
Bed bugs are messy eaters and leave behind several signs that they have been present. By knowing these clues, homeowners can be better prepared to act quickly to contain the problem to just one room and save on exterminating the entire home.
These clues include:
- Shed bed bug shells
- Fecal spots on mattress and bedding
- Bed Bug Bites
A closer look at these three signs will help identify the problem.
Shed Bed Bug Shells
Bed bugs shed their shells as they eat blood and grow with each feeding leaving behind a hard exoskeleton or shell. Each bed bug molts five times, and as the infestation grows, so do the number of shells lying about. The shells resemble the bed bugs in appearance but are actually only bits of the insects.
Fecal Spots on Mattress or Bedding
The fecal matter of bed bugs is full of blood and will leave behind a dark brown blood spot on the mattress, bedding, and nightclothes of their host. These stains resemble smears and can be black in color. This is because the bed bugs are excreting digested blood, their only source of food.
Bed Bug Bites
While a portion of people who are bitten by bed bugs show no symptoms at all, up to 70% have a reaction similar to chiggers or mosquito bites, leaving a nasty, itchy mess on the skin of bed bug victims.
The symptoms of a bed bug bite include:
- Raised, red welts
- Burning and itching
- Bed bug bite rash across a localized area
- Straight lines of multiple bites
The only way to rule out other physical reasons for these symptoms is to go to a physician and be examined. However, it may be cheaper and more advantageous to check the bed of the affected person first to see if there is a bed bug presence.
It Is Better to Allow Professionals to Handle Bed Bugs
While it is understandable that homeowners want to treat for bed bugs themselves, the truth is that it is much better and smarter to allow a professional exterminator to do it for them. This is especially true if the homeowner opts to use a pest-control bomb or fogger that they can buy at their local department store. These bombs do not work and can expose families to toxic chemicals.
Most over-the-counter aerosol insecticides are not effective against bed bugs either. This is because many of these products contain pyrethrin or a type of it as the main ingredient, and those compounds act the same way as DDT, and bed bugs have become resistant to dying from them.
While spraying a bed bug or two with an over-the-counter aerosol spray may appear to kill the ones you sprayed, there are thousands you cannot see that has not been touched and live on to keep the infestation going.
It is beyond difficult for anyone who is not a professional exterminator to kill a bed bug infestation because they are so prolific and great at hiding.
So, if in doubt, call a professional exterminator as many homeowners do every year.
No comments:
Post a Comment