How to keep from getting bed bugs

A huge source for bed bugs is used clothing and furniture stores. There are a few things you can do to keep from getting bed bugs from thrift stores and second hand outlets:

Only buy things that you can fully inspect, in detail, inside and out.  Learn what bed bugs and their eggs look like.

If you must buy small things with hidden seams, cracks, crevices, or areas you cannot see into, you have some alternatives. Place them in air tight sealed containers. Prior to bringing the items home, bring them to a commercial laundromat where they can be placed inside a drier and kept at a temperature of 130 or hotter for at least 30 minutes, of for 160 for 10 minutes. You can reduce these times somewhat if you preheat the drier before putting the items inside.

If this is not practical, keep the items in an airtight sealed container until you can place Nuvan pest strips, available through your local pest control company in the sealed container, and keep the sealed container in a heated location - basement, spare room for 2 to 4 months.

For a faster result and the only real solution to buying larger, potentially infested items like couches, bean bag chairs, and heaven forbid, used mattresses, inspect carefully prior to purchase.  Bring the items, wrapped or sealed, if at all possible, to your local fumigation chamber - check the phone book - and fumigate prior to taking home - or better yet do not buy these kinds of items second hand.  A new couch can be purchased for 5 or 6 hundred dollars.  The cost of a bed bug treatment including mattress encasements can be well over that amount.

Heavy duty trash bags can be made into air tight containers with the use of duct tape and / or zip ties.  If you do not transport them in a sealed container you may end up with bed bugs in your car and from your car - into your home.

Bed Bugs are famous for being hitchhikers. That is, they move around with people as people move around. Populations of bed bugs can occur anywhere people spend time, sitting or sleeping, and anywhere their infested luggage or belongings spend time. While it might make you think twice about the couch or comfy chair at your local coffee shop, think about this, the travel industry is besieged by bed bugs.

People bring home bed bugs from vacations, even when they stay in hotels which are free of bed bugs - on their luggage.  Of course if your hotel room is infested, your luggage is a prime target.  Your luggage is used to store your clothes, which smell like you, a human, which is a huge attractant for bed bugs.

Before you bring your luggage into a potentially infested airport, into their potentially infested luggage handling area, where it will be loaded onto a potentially infested airplane, next to the luggage from the guy or gal who just stayed in a hugely infested motel... you should consider how to keep from getting bed bugs from your luggage.

Treating the outside of your luggage with a repellent insecticide can keep your luggage free of bed bugs.  There are several materials available now for treating your luggage. See the photos to the lower right and call us if you have questions or would like to obtain some luggage protection.

Before you unpack your carefully treated luggage, pull back any sheets and or dust ruffles.  Carefully inspect the ribbing around your mattress and box springs.  If you don't see live bed bugs, you probably do not have bed bugs in your room. 

Look for droppings - there will usually be lots of dark spots under the mattress ribbing or under mattress tags.  One tiny dark spot here or there is not a good indicator.  Check out the bed frame and headboard for live bugs or droppings.

Look for long blood marks or streaks on sheets or mattresses.  Blood streaks and smears are one possible indicator of an infestation, however, you should definitely see live bed bugs on your mattress if you are seeing blood marks.  We see a lot mattress and sheets with blood smears and no bed bugs.  Broken blood vessels, cold sores, paper cuts, acne, and a host of other natural processes create blood marks.