If you have lately sprayed for bed bugs or had an exterminator visit your house, you might wonder whether the treatment was effective. Every treatment has success depending on a number of elements. Eliminating a larger infestation becomes more difficult. A growing bed bug population will start to migrate to other parts of the house. This makes a major infestation far more challenging to manage and calls for a more extensive treatment. Through this guide, we will give you some hints to help you determine whether your bed bug control treatment was successful.
Degree of infestation matters for a successful bed bug control
Every infected area needs to be taken care of either during treatment or in bed, as bugs will rapidly resurface. Have you been thinking of handling the infestation on your own? Keep in mind that you have to do several treatments to control the growing population, and the infestation might reach much beyond the bedroom. Apartment buildings and multi-unit residences abound in big cities. In connected homes, treating bed bugs might become progressively challenging. More bed bugs can enter your house from the nearby house. This can be through the doors, cracks, and crevices even if your home has been thoroughly cleaned and the colony killed. Install a door sweep and caulk any surfaces to prevent the pests from moving between units.
Bed Bug signs to watch for post-treatment
Looking for these symptoms will help you to make sure that whether your treatment was successful or not:
- Little red pimples or rashes.
- The insects leave red specks on your bed sheets, pillowcases, bedclothes, baseboards, or walls after a meal.
- Little shells were found anywhere the insects would hide during the day, along baseboards or mattress seams.
- Live bugs are tiny, oval, brownish-red insects about the size of an apple seed.
These are a few signs that will confirm that the bug population still exists if you notice them in your house. More precautions need to be taken. Soon after the finishing of treatment, you cannot celebrate your victory. Always remember that the eggs can take up to two weeks to hatch. If you detect none of these indicators for three weeks after treatment, the odds are high that the pests have been eliminated. This is why many pest control companiesadvise you to spray once every two weeks to eradicate any fresh hatchlings.
Keep in mind also that bed bugs are actual survivors. They are experts at hiding, have developed to resist many insecticides, and can efficiently go to extended lengths without feeding.
Can installing interceptors or bed bug monitors work?
Place bed bug monitors under every leg of your bed to screen for surviving bugs after treatment. Cheap and efficient in trapping the bugs as they attempt to enter or exit the bed are the interceptors. Look for proof in the traps daily; if the treatment worked, there should be no bugs. If nobody uses a bed to feed on, bed bugs are unlikely to crawl onto it. You can set up monitors with an appealing scent to draw the bugs in their own right. This will let you know whether an empty house room is infested. A hibernating or inert colony of bed bugs can call guest rooms home.
What do you do if you suspect a bed bug re-infestation?
Acting quickly can help stop a bed bug re-infestation from worsening if you believe one exists. You can do this:
- Investigate popular hiding places. Search furniture cracks, mattresses, box springs, and bed frames for bed bugs.
- Confirming their existence are bed bug fecal marks, molted skins, or eggs.
- Use sticky traps or bed bug interceptors to verify an infestation and catch bugs.
- Sort things that might transmit the bugs—such as bedding, clothes, or luggage—into sealed plastic bags.
- Clean the vacuum: To find any obvious bed bugs or eggs, vacuum the bed, furniture, and surrounds.
- To kill bugs and eggs, wash all contaminated linens, clothes, and soft goods in hot water and then high-heat dry them.
Professionals frequently utilize heat to eradicate bed bugs since high temperatures can kill all stages of life of these organisms. Diatomaceous earth is a naturally occurring powder that you might dust around cracks and fissures. Over time, it kills bed bugs by dehydrating them. Check new purchases and travel luggage. Check your bags carefully if you believe you brought bed bugs from a trip.
Call for pest control professionals. If they have re-infested, bed bug outbreaks are challenging to eradicate without professional assistance. Experts in pest control can apply more forceful treatments such as chemical solutions or heat.
Where would you least expect them?
Still dreaming about a five-star trip? Well, don’t assume you are free from bed bugs based merely on the digs are elegant. Bed bugs can be hidden in the carpet, drapes, bedding, and artwork—they also prefer living an excellent life. One female starts an ultimately thriving colony on her own.
Their modest stature makes them challenging to find and simple to hide while housekeeping cleans the room. Stowing your bags in the bathroom—either on a metal stand or in the bathtub or shower—will help you to outsmart the pests. Rarely found in the tiled bathroom, bed bugs allow you time to check the room for them before settling down.
Outsmart these hide-and-seek masters by checking these popular spots:
- The box springs and mattress’s creases and folds
- Along the headboard’s and bedframe’s cracks
- Beneath baseboards
- In furniture joints, alarms, clocks, computers, and speakers are within electrical outlets.
- Benevolent behind artworks or images
- Within the wallpaper’s seams
- At the point where the wall meets the ceiling
- In clothes drawers
Conclusion: When is the right time to celebrate?
Celebrating actual success is usually safe if, six to eight weeks following treatment, you have not seen any bed bugs or suffered any bites. Determining if your treatment was effective can feel like a waiting game; sadly, overnight is not something we know. These guidelines will help you decide whether your infestation is really under control and act fast to stop re-infestation should it not be so.
