Ever had a particularly bad sleepless night? The day after sleeping badly, you may have trouble focusing, feel more easily irritated, and even feel increased anxiety or stress. Now imagine having nothing but sleepless nights for two months. With a bed bug infestation, that could be the case if you don’t find the right kind of help. We’re here to walk you through the best and worst ways to deal with a bed bug infestation.
Bed Bug Appearance And Identification
In case you aren’t familiar with bed bugs in Roseville, here’s a quick description. Bed bugs are small black bugs that feed entirely on blood from mammals, like humans. They like warm, dark areas like the inside bedding, furniture, and clothing.
Despite a common misconception that they only live in dirty homes, bed bugs can be found anywhere that humans can.
If you have an infestation, you’ll probably know. You may see bugs on your bed. You may notice dark stains that could be from their feces or your blood. You may see shed bug skin on the mattress or carpet. Or, you may know you have bed bugs because they keep you awake at night or you wake up covered in itchy bites.
So, you think you have bed bugs. Now what?
DIY: Cheaper Than The Real Deal?
If your first instinct is to open your computer and search “How can I get rid of bed bugs on my own?” I have some bad news. DIY bed bug control is not the way to go.
Though it seems like taking care of the problem on your own should be cheaper and easier than calling professional pest control services, this isn’t actually true. We’ll break down why with some common DIY techniques.
- Heating. While it is true that heat kills bed bugs, it isn’t as simple as stuffing your sheets into the washer and dryer at the highest heat settings. While this will kill any bed bugs on your sheets, it won’t do anything to the bed bugs that are still hiding in your mattress, carpet, closet, or floorboards…
- Freezing. The explanation here is about the same as for heating. You can kill bed bugs on clothes by stuffing the clothes into a plastic bag and placing them in the freezer for several days. However, this won’t matter if you have bed bugs anywhere other than the objects in the bag.
- Vacuuming. If you can see bed bugs, you can try to vacuum up the bugs. If you do this, you need to immediately dump the vacuum filter (outside!) so the bed bugs don’t crawl right back into your home. Vacuuming can be mildly effective, but you probably won’t be able to get every bug, and your problem will be just as pressing a week later.
All of these options seem like an affordable option until you realize how inefficient they are. Even if you can take care of bed bugs alone, it’s estimated that you’ll be working at it for two months. Two months of bed bugs are not worth the money you might save.
Plus, when you factor in the cost of electricity for running the washer and dryer, or the waste of trying to clean out your freezer, you’ll probably realize that the endeavor was not as cheap as you once thought.
Neighborly Pest Management’s Solution
Instead, we recommend contacting us at Neighborly Pest Management. We truly want to help you protect your home from bed bugs. We’ll start with an inspection to determine the spread of these bugs. Then we’ll use a special steam treatment to target infested areas.
Because we want to make sure that each and every bed bug is gone, we include two follow-up visits and a thirty-day warranty. In especially tough cases, we offer heat chamber treatments and fumigation. Our treatment options are cost-efficient and we’ll make sure that we’ve done a thorough job so you won’t find yourself facing more bed bugs in a month.