Of all the creepy insects and arachnids that find their way into human homes, none strike fear into the hearts of homeowners like bed bugs. Having an infestation of these insects can repel guests and residents alike with the threat of waking up in the middle of the night to uncomfortable, itching bumps. Worse, getting rid of the problem could take months. This holiday season, have a plan in place to protect your home from the spread of bed bugs. Here’s some preventative tips and how to know when it’s time to call bed bug control in Cambridge.

Tips for Keeping Bed Bugs Away

While many people think bed bugs simply come inside from outdoors, this is rarely the case. In fact, the most common way bugs find new homes is by hitching a ride on clothing, bags or furniture. To prevent an infestation you should follow a few rules. These are:

• Try to avoid having guests place clothes or belongings on or around your beds
• Use a bedcover and wash bedding after guests leave
• Stay at clean hotels and look up reviews before staying overnight
• Use box spring and mattress covers
• Familiarize yourself with the common signs of an infestation

Because bed bugs don’t like the cold temperatures outdoors, they tend to hide in cracks and crevices in heated buildings. Unlike ticks and fleas, however, they are vulnerable to being directly squished by humans or animals. To reduce their risk, therefore, they find safe places like the seams of mattresses, backpacks or clothing where they can remain close to people but hidden from danger. 

Having guests place their things in a quarantined area can keep potential invaders from deciding that your home seems appealing. Even if a few eggs do tumble into your home, you may not face a full infestation.

While it can be almost impossible to kill a whole house of bed bugs at once, it’s fairly easy to kill a few that have latched onto clothes or bedding. Just wash your items and dry them on high heat for more than half an hour. Afterward, check for dead bugs and put everything back where it was. Investing in relatively inexpensive mattresses and box spring covers can make cleaning even easier since you’ll know you don’t have eggs or insects deep inside your bedding.

Hotels, motels, cabins and hostels are notorious places to pick up bed bugs. If your holiday plans include travelling through any of these rest stops, make sure to check bedding surfaces, keep belongings away from beds and tumble dry everything once you’ve returned. If you can, thoroughly read reviews on any place you plan to spend the night in.

When To Call For Help

Whenever you identify incontrovertible evidence that your property has already been colonized, you should call a professional. While some signs of an infestation are obvious, such as direct sightings of biting insects, others are harder to make sense of. Bed bug bites can appear similar to flea or mosquito bites, but they tend to appear as a series of itchy, red bumps that follow the bug’s path along your extremities.

Bug feces are often easy to spot and usually show up along mattress seams as brownish-red flakes. Eggs can look like dust or flakes, but when they appear beside feces or near patches of liquid blood, you should get ready to call for help.

If you’re afraid that the bed bug exterminator cost is going to set you back, consider the potential cost of having a bed bug population running rampant in your home. At Truly Nolen, our treatments are affordable and effective at eliminating pests from your property for good. For professional service with years of experience, call Truly Nolen today.