How To Rid Bed Bug
at Home

Return to Main Articles Page

The trick to successfully learn How To Rid Bed Bugs is to take charge of your problem. Unfortunately, if you reside in an apartment, the problem is much greater than you think because bed bugs easily slide under baseboards and through wall sockets and travel through the walls.

To successfully kill bed bugs while living in an apartment complex, will require your neighbors treating too. So good luck! This becomes a community chore to successfully kill bed bugs in an apartment complex. You also have a second problem, that bed bugs have grown immune to the exterminators toxic pesticides; therefore calling an exterminator is useless.

We suggest using a non toxic bed bug spray for your bedding area and a residual bed bug spray that continues killing for 60 days along with other products to keep bed bugs away once and for all.

If you are living in a residential single dwelling home, then you have control over How To Rid Bed Bugs and you can keep them away for good. When dealing with bed bugs, you will need to take steps to prevent bed bugs from coming back and you will also need to learn How To Rid Bed Bugs quickly. We intend on helping you to accomplish both steps successfully.

Because bed bugs multiply so quickly, people often get overwhelmed with How To Rid Bed Bugs and think its impossible to handle on their own. It’s really not hard to learn How To Rid Bed Bugs and keep them out of your home.

One of the first signs of realizing that you have bed bugs in your home is your bed bug bite. These bites look like mosquito bites and also itch. Using a bed bug bite pack will heal the skin and eliminate the itch.

How To Rid Bed Bugs From your Home?

To successfully learn How To Rid Bed Bugs from your home, you should perform a bed bug inspection. See the inspection list below.

Bed bug Inspection Check List:
•   Inspect electrical switch plates, pictures on walls, wall posters
•   Inspect tack strips under wall-to-wall carpeting and behind baseboards
•   Inspect electrical appliances-radios, phones, televisions, ect.,looking in hiding places.
•   Inspect Cracks and crevices in head and foot boards, attached side railings and supports
•   Inspect mattresses top, sides and bottom. Check all buttons, seams and rips.
•   Inspect cracks in plaster or seams in wall paper.
•   Inspect secondhand beds, bedding, and furniture. The newer better built mattresses do not offer as much shelter and protection for the bed bugs to hide. A bed bug approved bed bug mattress cover will eliminate your mattress from getting soiled from bed bugs.

Learning How to Rid Bed Bugs Steps

Step 1 How To Rid Bed Bugs – Prepare the area :

Reduce clutter to make bed bug inspection easier.
Remove drawers from desks and dressers and turn furniture over, if possible, to inspect and clean all hiding spots; then add diatomaceous earth.
If you dismantle the bed frames, you may expose additional bedbug hiding sites.
Stand up the box spring and shine a flashlight through the gauze fabric to expose bed bugs.If the fabric is torn ( possible hiding place), remove fabric to prepare for spraying.
Caulk and seal all holes where pipes and wires penetrate walls and floor, and fill cracks around baseboards and moldings to further reduce harborages.
Personal items (stuffed animals, soft toys, blankets) should be removed, cleaned with a vacuum cleaner, and bagged in plastic for for a couple of days with diatomaceous earth in the bag. You can also bag your laptops, phones, radios in a bag as well. The diatomaceous earth will not harm these items and is a non residual, so you don’t have to launder these items after using the diatomaceous earth.
Thoroughly clean the infested rooms .Scrub infested surfaces with a stiff brush to dislodge eggs.
Vacuum in area of bed bug harborages with a vacuum attachment. Vacuum along baseboards, nearby furniture, bed stands, rails, headboards, foot boards, bed seams, tufts, buttons, edges of the bedding as well as the edges of the carpets (particularly along the tack strips) are key areas to vacuum. A good vacuum cleaning job may remove particles from cracks and crevices to encourage greater insecticide penetration.
Discard vacuum cleaner bag in a sealed plastic bag when finished.
Caulk cracks and crevices in the building exterior and also repair or screen openings to exclude birds, bats, and rodents that can serve as alternate hosts for bed bugs.

Step #2 – Use a nontoxic bed bug spray to spray your baseboards, on your bed frame, your mattress, your curtains, furniture, drawers and any place bed bugs may be hiding in your room. This step is a quick pass to kill the bed bugs currently lurking in the room. You should only consider using a bed bug spray that is non toxic on your mattress; inquire before you buy.

Step #3 – Learning How To Rid Bed Bugs begins with vaccuming your living space VERY WELL, including furniture, carpets, draperies, drawers, mattress, behind pictures on the walls, etc. This is literally the first step when learning how to rid bed bugs which allows you to begin with a good foundation to get the room sanitized from the bed bug fecal matter, droppings and exoskeletons and bed bug free.

Step #4 – Another critical step when learning How To Rid Bed Bugs is to put all bedding such as pillows, comforters, covers and sheets in the dryer on high heat settings for about a half hour. Remember that bed bugs can not withstand the heat. Use your clothes dryer for all cloth items to kill bed bugs. If you don’t have a clothes dryer, other options are to boil water and place our bedding in that or to steam the items with a hand held steamer.

Step #5 – Another helpful step when learning How To Rid Bed Bugs is the use of steam to kill bed bugs AND also to clean and sanitize the room. With a hand help steamer, steam your draperies, your mattress and your cloth furniture. Steaming will allow you to Kill Bed Bugs that are hiding in the seams and the crevices AND it will help to remove the stains from the bed bug fecal matter and secretions. An added benefit is that the steam will also provide a more sanitized and clean environment in the room.

Step #6 – How To Rid Bed Bugs in your mattress is easy but a very critical step. There are several easy steps you should perform.

Vacuum the mattress as mentioned above
Steam the mattress with a hand held steamer to kill the bed bugs AND to remove the bed bug stains from the mattress
Spray your mattress with a non toxic bed bug spray such as DeadBedBug brand of bed bug spray.
Apply diatomaceous earth all over the mattress to prevent bed bugs from coming back and as a precaution in the event you missed one in a seam or in the mattress itself.
Now place the mattress in a NEW mattress protector; not a mattress cover. You will want your mattress totally encased and closed up with a zipper. Using a bed bug mattress protector specifically made for bed bugs is your best bet.

Step #7 – Learning How To Rid Bed Bugs is easy when you Apply diatomaceous earth along your baseboards, in your wall sockets, rubbing it in your carpets and in your drawers will kill bed bugs if they return.

Step #8 – At this point your room should be clean and free of bed bugs. I recommend making one final pass with your bed bug spray all over your room.