How To Get Rid Of BedBugs: These Six Items Will Help

Have you ever slept in a hotel or traveled by bus and found that you later had tiny red bites on your skin? This is probably because of bedbugs.

Bedbugs are small wingless insects that feed exclusively on warm-blooded creatures. This makes us an ideal host for them. Bedbugs are oval and flattened in shape; white, brown, or burnt orange in color; and about one-fourth of an inch in length. The young ones are the size of a poppy seed. They are visible to the naked eye. They get their name because of their preference to live in home furnishings including sofas, beds, and mattresses. However, they are increasingly being found in offices across the U.S. They usually hide in dark cracks and crevices.

You would rarely know when you are being bitten, because they bite when you are asleep. A bed bug’s bite is painless because the saliva of the bed bug is an anesthetic. The feeding is complete in just five minutes. However, you might find a red welt when you are awake, one similar to that of a mosquito or flea bite. Over a period of a few weeks, you may get sensitized to repeated bites and develop an allergic response. Bed bugs are most active an hour before sunrise, which is their peak feeding time, but may also feed during the day if they are hungry or get the opportunity.

Bed bugs feed every five to ten days. They can, however, live for several months without feeding. If there is no food around, they become dormant for over a year. A well-fed bed bug lives for about six to nine months. The female bed bug lays approximately 5 eggs in a day and nearly 500 during their entire lifetime. Eggs are nearly 1 mm long and are visible to the naked eye. They have a milky-white tinge and take two weeks to hatch. It is therefore important to recheck your home periodically.

Most bites resolve within one to two weeks. Treatments focus on relieving symptoms, and include:

• Applying a topical cream, such as cortisone, to relieve itching
• Administering an oral antibiotic if infection occurs
• Giving oral corticosteroids if there is a severe allergic reaction.
• Use of antihistamines, in some cases, to relieve allergic reactions

As soon as the symptoms are treated, it will be necessary to know the way to deal with the infestation.

The following procedures are advised to get rid of bed bugs:

• Bag the infested bedding and garments and launder them at a minimum of 120° F
• Heat the items in the drier
• For items that cannot be treated by washing or by placing in the drier, wrap them in plastic and place them outdoors in a very hot and sunny location for at least 24 hours
• Vacuuming may help get rid of some of the bed dugs before treatment with insecticides
• You may find it is best to throw some infested items away (bag them before disposal)
• Insecticides are very effective in getting rid of bed bugs. A good pest control professional knows where to look for them and will treat all areas where bugs are found.

The biggest risk from bed bugs comes from secondary bacterial infections, caused by scratching the skin. They are not known to carry diseases, but can cause discomfort and disturbed sleep. If your home is infested with bedbugs, it is important to deal with them immediately.

7/26/2011 BedBugs Continue To Infest The Northeast:  Barre Vermont Hotel & New Haven Connecticut Apartment Amongst Places

Bedbugs Plague New Haven Apartment

A New Haven apartment building is dealing with some unwelcome guests; bed bugs.

Residents at 114 Bristol Street have been complaining about the pests for some time. While not every apartment has bed bugs, it seems everyone in the building knows about them.

“They’re itchy and some were biting,” said resident Kezzie Staton who so far has only heard about the bugs.

According to residents, exterminators have been inside the building over the past week although they are not sure if the exterminators have been able to kill the bed bugs.

Neighbors say that they hope the problem is taken care of soon before the problem spreads to everyone.

“Management sent them over to do something about it but the point is are they doing a good job? We don’t know,” said one resident who goes by the name Robinson.

The management company would not comment on the situation.

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Bedbugs Found In Barre Vermont Hotel

A Barre hotel is the latest victim to what officials are calling a world-wide epidemic, and bed bugs are to blame.

Bobby Weeks who found bed bugs in the hotel room said,  “We got flashlights out we found 23 of them in her bed, in her kids bed, on the floor, on the bureau.”

Weeks says his girlfriend’s room at the Budget Inn is infested with bugs. He’s now reaching out to local authorities.

Barre’s City Manager Steven Mackenzie explained, “Once we got the report it was to make an inspection, and make a determination.  In this case there were bed bugs confirmed.”

The city has ordered the Inn shut down three rooms on the second floor until they are properly treated by pest control.

Experts say travelers are a main carrier of the bed bugs, but say outbreaks are not limited to hotels and motels. In fact they say they see more calls these days from home owners.

State Entimologist Jon Turmel said, “There is that stigma, oh there are bed bugs that is dirty, that is just not true.”

Turmel says these bugs are not picky when it comes to temperature, season or location. He says they do not carry disease, or pose health concerns, but they are creepy, and annoying.

“I have gotten more calls and samples in the last two years than I have in the past 35 years, ” He explained.

Turmel suspects the reason for the ongoing bed bug problem is due to a reduction in chemical sprays used to get rid of all pests.

“We would go in to places once a week or once a month and treat all of the baseboards, and the heating units. Spray them for cockroaches. We do not do that anymore.”

Turmel says current treatments, like bed bug baits, or extreme temperatures, are more environmentally friendly, but are used once the bugs have already moved in, not as a preventative measure.

The Budget Inn says an exterminator has treated the room twice, and believes the current tenants brought the bugs with them.

Experts say at least four exterminators in the state have the temperature control equipment to kill the bugs, and two companies with bed bug sniffing dogs to help you identify if you have a problem.

Continue Reading More & Watching Video: BedBugs Found In Barre Vermont Hotel

5/8/2011 Bedbug Spray Linked To Thailand Tourist Death: May Have Had Reaction To Overdose Of Insecticide

TOURIST Sarah Carter may have died mysteriously in Chiang Mai earlier this year from reaction to an overdose of insecticide, a New Zealand television show speculated tonight.

The ‘Sixty Minutes’ program took samples from a Chiang Mai hotel room for testing and found traces of an insecticide, chlorpyrifos, which is banned from domestic use in some countries.

A Phuketwan reporter visited the Laleena guesthouse on Phi Phi soon after the deaths while samples of household chemicals were being taken for testing, but no cause of the fatalities was ever established.

Sarah Carter’s death was one of seven in Chiang Mai over a period of several weeks earlier this year. The deaths have yet to be adequately explained by local authorities, who believe they were coincidental.

According to New Zealand reports, the ‘Sixty Minutes’ program has produced ”credible evidence” that Sarah Carter died due to insecticide poisoning.

Chemical samples were taken from the bedroom that 23-year-old Ms Carter stayed in at the Downtown Inn, at a time when the entire fifth floor was being pulled apart and cleaned.

Before leaving for Chiang Mai, ‘Sixty Minutes’ spoke to a New Zealand scientist who suspected insecticide poisoning.

”I think she’s been killed by an overzealous sprayer who has been acting on the instructions of the hotel owner to deal with the bed bugs,” chemical expert Dr Ron McDowall, who works for the United Nations cleaning up toxic rubbish dumps, was quoted as saying on the site 3news.co.nz.

He said the traces brought brought back were small, but the fact that the chemical was found three months later, in a room that had been scrubbed, points to chlorpyrifos poisoning.

Among other theories is one that goes that the heavy use of chemicals on foodstuffs grown around Chiang Mai may have left residues in a meal eaten by Ms Carter and her two friends, who also fell ill but survived.

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