“Don’t let the bed bugs bite!” This is a common phrase or idiom we used to say if we are wishing a person or our love ones a good night sleep but terminologically speaking, what does it really mean when we talk more about it deeply and in real life?
Bed bugs are insects that is feed on human blood and usually attacks at night when we are in our sleep. Their bites can result in a number of health impacts including skin rashes, psychological effects and allergic symptoms that may lead to skin changes ranging from small areas of redness to prominent blisters. In the early 1900s, mattresses were held on bed frames using a woven rope design. These ropes needed frequent tightening to ensure a taut, firm mattress which the phrase “sleep tight” was born. The mattresses were often stuffed using straw, shredded corn husks or down feathers, causing attraction to bed bugs and as the time goes by it became a common phrase to say “sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite.” From the history of the saying, it literally telling us how important cleanliness is in your home not just to have a good sleep but most importantly to maintain healthy living. As of today’s modern era, bed bugs are still can be seen inside your home and homeowners are dying to learn how to get rid of them, so here are some tips or steps to make those bed bugs disappear that you might want to consider.
1. Search for the infested areas
Looking for smaller infestation is harder to detect but it is much easier and cheaper to treat a smaller infestation before they start to reproduce. Bedbugs usually hides in a place where they have easy access to people to bite in the night such as near the tags of the mattress, box spring, crack in the bed frame and headboard, inside electrical outlets, under loose wallpapers and between couch cushions since they are very small and they can squeeze into tiny spots. However, bedbugs may enter your home undetected through luggage, shoes or used clothing.
2. Contain the infestation
Once you now identified the location of the bedbugs, you need to keep them contained to stop them from spreading because they reproduce quickly. A regular female bed bugs can produce 500 eggs in her lifetime which is an equivalent to 3 generations per year. These insects cannot fly but they can move quickly on the floor by crawling. Over time they may spread to your room or even to your nearby rooms by scattering through the bedroom, moving into any crevice or protected location. A quick and easy way to trap bedbugs is with your vacuum cleaner by running it to different possible hiding spots of the bugs and that includes your bed, dresser, carpets and electronic devices that you are not frequently using. Seal up all your linens and affected clothes in plastic bags until you can wash them. Anything that cannot be treated in the washer and dryer, place them in a plastic bag. Leave it there for a few months, if possible, to make sure all the bugs die.
3. Prepping for the treatment
You might get excited killing all those bugs after you discover their whereabouts but you must first make a little preparation before starting your treatment, this is to make sure that all areas is going to be treated and clean areas will not be infested as well. Make sure that all possible hiding spots of the bed bugs are properly decomposed or cleaned to avoid the scattering of the bugs and mixing infested items to the clean areas. If there are things in your room that are not really important anymore, you may want to throw it away before it can be infested and by that you can grasp the idea and benefits of decluttering. Seal up all open areas like cracks, open electrical outlets and loose wallpapers and lastly moving away the bed at least 6 inches away from the wall to prevent bed bugs climbing from once place to another.
4. Let the treatment begin
Since bed bugs are easy to kill, there are a lot of different ways to get rid of them. You can first try to remove bed bugs without chemicals and by just using temperature, they can die in high heat at 115°F (46°C) or intense cold at 32°F (less than 0°C). Washing bedding and clothes in hot water for 30 minutes then putting them in a dryer on the highest heat setting for 30 minutes proven to be effective in killing bed bugs. You can also try sealing up bed bugs inside container or bags and putting it in the freezer at 0°F (-17°C) and just leave them in there for at least four days. Place bedbug-proof covers over your mattress and box spring and zip these covers all the way up so that bugs that are trapped inside will die and new bugs won’t be able to get in. If these methods don’t wipe out all the bugs on your own, you may need to try an insecticide and you should get the professionals involved. There are a lot of pest control companies that you can call for help, they have the advantage of using chemicals and other treatments that are not available to you such as treatment for bugs on contact and those undetected as well.
5. Let the bed bugs out!
Eliminating the bed bugs is not an easy job and it does not work in a blink of an eye. You should not trust that your treatment will work 100% successfully. You need to always monitor all the affected areas about once every seven days for signs of activity and you might want considering placing bed bug interceptors under each legs of the bed to trap bed bugs before they can climb up into your bed. To keep your room away from those pests, vacuum and wash your bed sheets, curtains, pillow sheet, blanket and carpets very much often. Another way to prevent those bedbugs from spreading is cleaning up regularly your room and not leaving books or magazines or other items on the floor. Also, if you are into travelling check first the place you are staying in if there are bed bugs to avoid bringing them home with you.
These are only tips and ideas to get rid of your nightmares but if you are just starting to build a home, consider looking for a place which has cleaner and healthier environment. Bria Homes is known for promoting green living and healthy living in its communities. Actually, it launched ‘Project Communitree: An Adopt A Tree Program,’ which aims to educate its public about the importance of a cleaner environment and ‘Sa Bria Lulusog ang Pamilya,’ which aims to foster the importance of proper diet to Filipino families. This is because Bria firmly believes that a healthy and a greener home leads to a happier home. Aside from the community itself, Bria Homes provides a holistic and a pleasant atmosphere in its communities because of its branded open space-Sentro and its affordable trendy homes.