How to Check for Bed Bugs
If you’ve seen news stories about bed bugs traveling to major cities from places across the globe, you may feel nervous about staying anywhere but your home. Fortunately, if you know how to check for bed bugs, hotel rooms and other rentals aren’t such a cause for anxiety. Here, Franklin Pest Solutions explains the process of checking for bed bugs, whether you’re traveling or at home.
Why Checking for Bed Bugs is Tricky
One would think it would be simple to spot bugs in a bed, but in fact, bed bugs are excellent at hiding. They are very small and good at evading detection. They are typically nocturnal, and even their bites are not immediately noticeable. Bed bugs inject a small amount of anaesthetic and anti-coagulant into the skin as they’re feeding, so the host doesn’t feel it happening. Depending on a person’s sensitivity, the reaction may be delayed. To check a bed for bed bugs, you’ll need to look for shed exoskeletons, as well as very small marks from blood or feces. What’s more, despite their name, bed bugs don’t stick to beds, so when you are checking for them, you’ll need to look in the curtains, your clothing, luggage, carpets, night stands, behind pictures, and inside furniture. These crafty little creatures can even hide behind wallpaper and underneath carpeting!
How to Check for Bed Bugs’ Bites
If you’re bitten at night, it’s not necessarily a bed bug. Other bugs, like mosquitoes and fleas, can bite you while you sleep. If you do wake up with bites, bed bug bites tend to be linear, with several bites in a row as they crawl along the mattress or couch. In rare cases, an allergy to bed bug bites can result in an anaphylactic reaction. Bed bug bites go away on their own, but if they’re troubling you, clean them with soap and water, apply an over-the-counter corticosteroid cream or calamine lotion, and use an oral antihistamine, if necessary, to relieve symptoms.
Checking for Bed Bugs
One way to check for bed bugs is with a credit card. Because bed bugs can hide in crevices no wider than a credit card, a credit card with a piece of tape wrapped around it can reach into tiny cracks and crevices and pull out bugs, their exoskeletons, and their eggs. Look closely at your sheets, pillows, blankets, comforters, and any other bedding, inspecting them for tiny red or black dots that could be blood or fecal stains. You can wash and dry your bedding on high heat to get rid of any bed bugs that might be hiding in them. Then, pulling the bed away from the wall, use the sticky credit card on the folds and seams of the mattress, and check the mattress for small dark spots. Take your mattress off of the box springs, inspect it like you did the mattress, then use the credit card along the bed frame and headboard. If you find signs of a bed bug infestation, call for professional bed bug solutions.
If you are in a hotel, it is wise to check for bed bugs before you settle into your room. To check for bed bugs at a hotel, look for dark spots around the seams of the mattress and box spring, then search for signs of bed bugs under furniture and in crevices or nooks in headboards, mattress seams, and walls. Check in and behind curtains, looking for bed bugs or their excrement. Do this before you set down your luggage. The safest place to set it down is the bathtub. If there is no tub, the bathroom is fine. Carefully check inside wardrobes, cabinets, and luggage racks. It’s important to keep bed bugs out of your luggage, so they can’t come home with you. Invest in some large, plastic encasements to keep bed bugs from getting into seams of your luggage. If you find any signs of bed bugs during your stay, contact the hotel staff immediately and request a new room. Run your clothing for 20 to 30 minutes in a hot dryer, following this by washing them in whichever temperature you prefer. Upon returning home, before bringing luggage inside, inspect it.
Call the Professionals for Bed Bugs Solutions
Since 1929, Franklin Pest Solutions has been serving customers in the state of Indiana. Our experts provide quality residential and commercial service to communities within a 50 mile radius from each of our branch locations, including Hammond, Michigan City, Lafayette, New Albany, Indianapolis, and South Bend. We offer bed bug solutions that are eco-conscious and effective, using integrated pest management best practices, We prioritize your health. Our multi-generational, family-run and operated American business has earned a reputation for excellence, not just in the way we treat pests, but in the way we treat our customers. Having been in business for nearly a century, we’ve seen the services and methods of our industry change and evolve, but our values have remained the same.
We work to embody the ideals of an industry leader, providing pest control solutions in a careful, conscientious, professional manner, and making customer satisfaction our top priority. The experts at Franklin Pest Solutions are certified by several local, state, and national associations, and we are committed to respecting the role insects play in our ecosystem while also protecting public health. Through community outreach, we work to create cleaner and healthier homes and workplaces while also educating people and serving our community through volunteerism. To schedule a consultation, reach out to a location near you, call 1-800-GOT-PESTS? or contact us through our website.
