Holiday Guests part 2 of Guest 4 – The Bed Bug
Bed Bugs are most active at night and feed on many different
hosts including humans and pets. Females lay 1 to 5 eggs a day, and the eggs
are sticky (unlike the flea) so they stick to different surfaces. Eggs hatch in
6 to 10 days. Bed Bugs travel up to 20 feet to feed, so they hide all over a
room. They will hide in mattresses, head boards, night stands, lamps by the bed,
box springs, drawers, clothes, computers, stereos, speakers, books, cell
phones, IPods, clutter, behind mirrors, ceiling fans, heating and air vents, light
switches, smoke detectors, carbon monoxide detector, picture frames, behind
wall paper, crown molding …
Once you have done a complete inspection (flashlights help),
decide what you can treat or what you should throw away. If you decide to throw
items away, be careful not to spread the Bed Bugs to other areas of the house as
you remove the infested items. If you throw the items in your garage until
trash day, you might want to treat this area as well.
Since Bed Bugs in the USA have a social stigma associated
with them, if you throw out a mattress or recliner, you should spray paint in
big red letters BED BUG INFESTED on the items, so no one will pick them up to
use in their home and your friends and neighbors will know you have Bed Bugs.
Just kidding, maybe just cut them up or destroy them so no one will be tempted
to use them.
Vacuuming the area of all visible Bed Bugs an effective
non-chemical treatment to begin the control of Bed Bugs (as with fleas be sure
to treat the vacuum bag, so the Bed Bugs do not re-invest the house). Encasing
the mattress and box springs after treatment, if they are not too infested, is
another effective non-chemical control.
At Possum’s we sell too many products that will aid in the
control of Bed Bugs to mention in this article. We have organic aerosols,
organic dusts, organic concentrates, non-organic aerosols, concentrates and
dusts, growth regulators, strips, traps, bed post barriers, literature to read …
If you want to do it yourself, plan to start high along the
ceiling and treat down to the floor. Since eggs hatch in 6 to 10 days, re-inspect
in a week to two weeks to see if you have any new guests. If this does not
sound fun to you, consider hiring a Pest Management Professional.
Always read, understand and follow product label. The
product label is a Federal Law.
