Not a Creature Was Stirring, Not Even a Bed Bug
Almost everybody loves the holiday season. No matter what holiday or holidays you celebrate, if any, it’s hard not to be cheerful. The lights and decorations hanging everywhere, beautiful snow, hot chocolate, and more can make even the Grinchiest folks among us smile. However, the holidays can be a bit stressful at times. For one thing, not everybody loves getting together with their families for holiday parties and such. Besides the stress of having a bunch of people over at your home, or navigating through snow and ice to get to someone else’s house, there’s the possibility of ending up with bed bugs.
How to Avoid Bringing Bed Bugs Ho-Ho-Home
When heading over to someone else’s home for a holiday party, you run the risk of bringing bed bugs home with you. In fact, if the person in question has bed bugs and doesn’t know about it, they could accidentally send the pesky bugs home with every one of their guests! There are several ways to avoid this issue.
First off, if you feel comfortable doing so, simply ask the host if they’ve ever had an issue with bed bugs. Second, when you get over to their house, discreetly check out their furniture for signs of bed bugs. Signs include black or dark red/rust colored spots, as well as actual live bugs. If you spot any of these things, come up with a reason to politely excuse yourself from the party early. Remove your shoes outside of your home and leave them there, and throw your clothes in the dryer for about an hour. The heat will kill the bugs and keep them from spreading throughout your home. Take similar precautions after having people over for the holidays. If you know someone has been having issues with bed bugs, maybe skip inviting them over this year and try doing something with them outside of your home, so that they don’t accidentally bring bugs into your home. After having people over, keep an eye out for those same signs of bed bugs on your furniture, and if that furniture has covers on it, wash and dry those thoroughly as soon as you can. It’s always better to be safe than sorry.
What About Trees and Decorations?
Knowing how easy it is to bring bed bugs into your home, you might be concerned about bringing a Christmas tree home. The good news is, bed bugs don’t usually live in trees traditionally used as Christmas trees, such as spruce trees or fir trees. The bad news is, if you do have a tree, it could contain other types of bugs, such as aphids or spiders. It’s always a good idea to shake out your tree before bringing it inside in order to dislodge any stowaways. Other decorations, however, can pose a greater risk of bringing bed bugs into your home. Tree skirts, for example, could easily carry bed bugs, especially if you get them secondhand from family, Facebook marketplace, Goodwill, or similar places. If you do purchase fabric decorations, it’s a good idea to wash and dry them as soon as you get them home.
How Do I Get Rid of Bed Bugs?
In the unfortunate event that you do end up with bed bugs at home, there are plenty of ways to get rid of them. First of all, you can try bed bug sprays. If you are going to use chemical treatments, desiccants are your best bet. Desiccants are chemicals that dry out the bug. When you open a package and find those little packs of silica, that’s a desiccant as well. However, that doesn’t mean you should pour those little packets onto the bed bugs to get rid of them. You’ll need to use a pesticide specifically meant for bed bugs, and it will dry out the bugs’ waxy protective layer, killing them by dehydration. If chemical treatment does not work, however, there’s another method that may work better, heat treatment.
What is Heat Treatment?
Bed bug heat treatment is effective because of bed bugs’ limited tolerance for heat. They cannot survive temperatures over 120 degrees Fahrenheit, which is why earlier paragraphs suggested throwing clothes and furniture covers in the dryer for an hour or so to get rid of bed bugs. If the bugs are isolated to one garment, sheet, etc. then throwing them in the dryer can be effective, but if they’ve already spread to your home, more thorough heat treatment may be necessary. That’s where Bed Bug BBQ comes in! When you book a heat treatment, we come out to your home with heaters, fans to move the air through your home, wireless monitors to make sure the temperature stays where it needs to be, and generators. We then heat your home to a temperature that will kill the bed bugs, make sure your home stays at that temperature for a few hours, and then remove our equipment.
Call Bed Bug BBQ for Help!
Do you have bed bugs in your house? Bed Bug BBQ’s heat treatment gets rid of bed bugs in just one day and is safe for all types of homes and businesses! Contact Bed Bug BBQ today for a FREE quote and inspection at (216) 221-1227 or through our website! Check out our other bed bug informational resources on identification, prevention, and eradication.
