How are bed bugs notorious for being able to enter homes and create uncomfortable situations? If you have an infestation, the probability of successful extermination largely depends on how you prepare your home for professional treatment. Here’s how to prepare your living space.
Proper preparation is essential when eliminating bed bugs. It makes the extermination process easier while providing lesser chances of reinfestation. Bed bugs can hide anywhere, and proper preparation ensures that no hiding spot remains unchecked.
Preparation Steps
- Determine Infested Areas: Before starting, you need to know which areas have infestations. Most bed bugs infest the bedrooms but can spread to other parts of the home. If you live in Appleton, WI, identifying the hotspots is crucial for your bed bug preparation Appleton, WI
- Limit Movement of Items:Don’t move stuff around the place from infested to non-infested areas. Doing this just transmits bed bugs through your home.
- Declutter: Get rid of clutter in the affected area as much as possible. This includes stuff that is on the floor, surfaces, and stuff even underneath furniture.
Preparation of Bedrooms
- Strip Bedding: Remove all bedding, including sheets, pillowcases, and blankets. Put all of these into sealed plastic bags and wash them hot (at least 120 degrees F) to kill any bed bugs or eggs.
- Remove Mattresses and Box Springs: Take out mattresses and box springs from the bed frame. Put them against a wall so you can get access to treatment.
- Clear Under the Bed: Store nothing under the bed, as this will obstruct treatment.
- Inspect Furniture: Empty dressers, nightstands, and any other furniture. Check drawers and behind furniture for bed bugs.
- Vacuum Thoroughly: Vacuum all floors, carpets, and upholstered furniture using a crevice tool to get into tight spaces. Take the bag out immediately of your house to eliminate even the faintest hope of re-infestation.
Preparation of Other Living Rooms
- Clear Clutter: Just like the bedrooms, clear clutters in other living rooms to enable easy access by exterminators to all areas.
- Check Electronics: Unplug electronic devices in the affected rooms for they could harbor bed bugs.
- Take Down Curtains and Fabrics: Take down curtains and fabric items that can’t easily be washed. These also should be washed in hot temperatures or dry cleaned.
- Check Shelves: Leave books out of bookshelves and inspect books, especially inside the spines of books, because they are favorite hiding spots for bed bugs.
- Pack to Leave Space: If you have to extract items from a space in the home (like laundry) from an infested area, bag up those items in plastic bags so that you’re not carrying mattress bugs elsewhere.
After Preparation
Now that you’ve prepped your home:
- Communicate to your Pest Control Professional: Ensure your pest control professional is aware of particular areas to look out for as well as any past history of bed bugs.
- Strictly Follow Additional Instructions: Your exterminator should give you additional instructions in terms of preparations before the actual treatment or post-treatment care.
- Leave the Property During Treatment: As professionals inform you, you should make plans to leave your house during treatment. Ideally, this will be for a few hours.
- Do Not Clean Up Within a Given Time after Treatment: Avoid vacuuming or cleaning the treated areas within a given time after treatment. All this will give enough time to the pesticides to perform their work.
- Watch for Evidence of Re-infestation: After treatment, be watchful for signs of re-infestation of bed bugs. Report them to your pest control service.
Post-Treatment
- Use Protective Covers: It is recommended to purchase mattress encasements, which cover all the remaining bed bugs inside and block any further infestation of bed bugs.
- Maintain Preventative Practices: It is wise to observe your home from time to time for any presence of bed bugs, especially after visiting or bringing second-hand possessions to your living space.
- Maintain Cleanliness: Keep your living spaces clean, clean up clutter, and reduce sheltered spaces where bed bugs can hide.
- Educate Yourself on the Behavior of Bed Bugs: Understanding how bed bugs function can identify potential problems before they can rise to the level of infestation.
- Have Follow-up Treatments in Preparation: In some cases, a second treatment will be necessary to eliminate any remaining pests or newly hatched eggs that survived the first treatment.
Conclusion
Follow these steps carefully to ensure that professional bed bug treatments are as successful as possible, and that the chance of re-infestation is limited. Remember that preparation not only helps deal with current problems but also leads to a pest-free environment going forward.
