What Are Bed Bugs?

Bed bugs are tiny, bugs that can be difficult to see and they can be difficult to discover until they become widespread, infesting a home or any location. Bedbugs can appear in your bedding, your laundry, your carpets and furniture and many other hidden spots in your home.

Where are Bed Bugs Most Commonly Found?

While bed bugs are most often found in the bedroom, they can also be found in other parts of the home including closets, living rooms, laundry rooms and virtually anywhere in your house, especially places where you may sit or lay down including desk chairs, play station chairs, sofas, love seats or beds.

According to Webmd.com, “Bedbugs are small, oval, brownish insects that live on the blood of animals or humans. Adult bedbugs have flat bodies about the size of an apple seed. After feeding, however, their bodies swell and are a reddish color. Immature bedbugs, called nymphs, shed their skins five times before reaching maturity and require a meal of blood before each shedding. Bedbugs do not fly, but they can move quickly over floors, walls, and ceilings. Female bedbugs may lay hundreds of eggs, each of which is about the size of a speck of dust, over a lifetime. Under favorable conditions the bugs can develop fully in as little as a month and produce three or more generations per year.”

If you suspect that there may be bed bugs in your home, before you start to do laundry and wash any clothes or linens, call an exterminator or a pest control service to investigate and treat your bedbug problem.

How Do I Know If There are Bedbugs in My Home?

In some cases, the signs of bed bugs may be numerous and quite apparent – including bites to human skin, blood spots on laundry and bedding, dark spots on beds or furniture and even foul odors. In other cases, there may not be much evidence at all. It is best to have a professional come to your home and perform an inspection if you suspect any bed bugs may be hiding.

Where Do Bedbugs Hide?

Bedbugs may enter your home through luggage, clothing, laundry, used beds and couches, and other furniture items. Their flattened bodies make it possible for them to fit into tiny spaces, about the width of a credit card. Bedbugs do not have nests like ants or bees, but tend to live in groups in hiding places. Their initial hiding places are typically in mattresses, box springs, bed frames, and headboards where they have easy access to people to bite in the night. Over time, however, they may scatter through the bedroom, moving into any crevice or protected location. They may also spread to nearby rooms or apartments, into rugs, laundry baskets and any other area.

Preparing for Bed Bug Inspection

An experienced bedbug technician will want to see firsthand where the bugs are hiding to better treat the infestation, all which can be disrupted by a homeowner trying to prep their home. The only things that they should ask their customers to do prior to treatment include:

• Remove laundry, clothes, sheets and towels from the floor
• Strip beds of all sheets and blankets.
• Place only these items into plastic bags for laundry

When all items in a room are left as is, it is more likely that the technician can find the bed bugs at their source.

Laundry Tips for Bed Bug Infestations

If bed bugs have been detected and treated in your home, you will want to put any affected clothes, bedding and linens in the laundry.  You can either do the laundry yourself or send the items to be professionally laundered.

Washing clothes and bedding is a simple and cheap method of killing all bed bugs. It is a very important part of both do-it-yourself bed bug control, and smart to do after a professional pest control company may have applied insecticides. Washing will kill some of the bed bugs, but it is the heat of drying that will kill any remaining bed bugs. With a few common-sense practices, you can easily launder, disinfest clothes and ensure these items do not become bed bug hiding places as you remove bed bugs from the rest of your home.

There are three main steps to think about when washing items to remove bed bugs and taking care of the laundry. These steps include: sorting laundry; washing and drying; and storing clean clothes.

Sorting the Laundry

In the infested area, pre-sort clothes and laundry as you would when you normally wash clothes and place each sorted pile of laundry into its own plastic bag. Make note of the washing instructions. This will allow you to set the highest allowable wash and dry temperatures for your clothes.

Separate dry-clean-only clothes because these should not be made wet, but they may be placed in a dryer.

Seal the bags prior to moving your laundry. This will prevent bed bugs from moving into other areas of your home or the Laundromat.

Washing and Drying the Bed Bug Infested Laundry

Wash and dry the clothes and laundry on the hottest temperature that the fabric can safely withstand.

For dry clean clothes and laundry that are able to be placed in a dryer, put into a dryer on at least medium to high setting and run the dryer for at least 30 minutes. Then take dry clean clothes to a professional cleaner’s for cleaning and pressing. Drying will kill the bugs but not clean the clothes or laundry.

If you want to only kill bed bugs and do not need to wash your clothes or laundry, simply putting infested items in the dryer for 30 minutes on high heat and it should kill all the bed bugs.

Professional Laundry Treatment

If you do not own a washer or dryer or you are unable to take care of the laundry after a bed bug infestation, there are professional laundry services that can assist you.  They will pick up your laundry, wash and dry it and ensure that all bed bugs are killed and all laundry is cleaned, and then return it to your home. Many pest treatment companies also offer laundry services for any bed bug infested laundry.

After Laundry Has Been Completed

Fold the clothes and all laundered items as soon as they are removed from the dryer. If you are doing laundry in a commercial laundromat or laundry facility in an apartment complex, place the clothes immediately into a new plastic bag. Do not set your clothes on a folding table unless you have inspected the table for bed bugs.

Keep the clean clothes and laundry in bags until you arrive home.

If you the bed bugs have been successfully treated in your home, take the laundry out of the bag and put away. If you still have an infestation, keep the folded laundry in the bag and remove clothes as needed. This will prevent the clothes and laundry from becoming infested with bed bugs once again.

Finding a Professional to Find and Treat Your Bed Bug Problem

Beach Pest Control has been working to resolve pest problems for clients in New York City, Northern New Jersey, and Long Island for over ten years. Beach Pest has their own personal team of highly trained bed bug detection dogs that can identify the location of live bed bugs. Their highly effective canine unit is what sets them apart from other companies in the industry. They will bring an experienced canine into your home and it can successfully detect the presence and location of any bed bugs – if the dogs detect any bed bugs – they will show you the bugs and the location.  Once detected, the experts at Beach Pest will create a thorough and comprehensive treatment plan, help you treat any bedding or laundry and focus on long term prevention.

Customers throughout Long Island and the New York tristate area choose Beach Pest Control because they offer reliable and personalized service and bed bug treatments that work! As an owner operated business, the owner of the company takes the time to speak with customers to help them identify their pest problems and thoroughly explain their treatment options. Beach Pest Control also offers a guarantee on all of their treatments.  If you have a bed bug problem in your home, call the experts at Beach Pest Control at 929-259-0188.