Dallas, TX Homeowners' Complete Bed Bug Prevention Guide
Alongside termites, bed bugs are one of Dallas, TX's home and business owners’ worst nightmares. They infest the place where you lay your head and feed on you while you’re asleep – kind of like vampires. Far from being a problem that only affects fleabag motels and dirty, unkempt homes, bed bugs can infest anywhere at any time. All you have to do is lay your bag down on the wrong piece of furniture, and a few of these sneaky little stowaways can hitch a ride right into your home. Fortunately, there are a few things you can do to avoid this.
How To Get Bed Bugs
By far, the most common ways people wind up with a bed bug infestation are by travel and secondhand shopping. When you travel, you’re exposing yourself to bed bug hot spots, including train and bus stations, airports, hotels, and other areas with lots of people from many places. Bed bugs find it easy to spread because many homeowners don’t know they have them.
Unless they invade your home in large numbers, the signs of bed bugs are often subtle. Bed bug welts can be mistaken for mosquito bites. Bed bugs are tiny and good at hiding, so they’re easy to miss. And other signs are also subtle enough to go unnoticed unless you’re looking for them. That means people can be spreading bed bugs to hotels and travel hubs without knowing they’re doing so.
People can also unknowingly sell bed bug-infested items to thrift and antique stores. When you shop at such places or garage sales, flea markets, and the like, you run the risk of carrying bed bugs into your home on your purchases. Don’t let the name “bed bug” fool you. Bed bugs infest more than just secondhand mattresses. You can bring them into your home on just about anything: couches, appliances, electronics, etc.
How To Not Get Bed Bugs
Above, we talked about the most common ways to wind up with bed bugs. Now let’s talk about what you can do to keep that from happening. Of course, most people aren’t going to avoid travel for their entire lives. So it would help if you took precautions when you do travel. Take measures like:
- Check all hotel/hostel/B&B beds for signs of bugs, including Small blood spots on sheets
- Bed bug eggs/feces/exoskeletons
- Actual bugs hiding in mattress creases, under buttons, etc.
- Strange, musty odors in the bed
- Avoid laying luggage on soft furniture like sofas and beds.
- Always wash and dry clothes on the highest possible heat after arriving home.
- Check luggage for bugs before bringing it back into your house.
Another great strategy to avoid bedbugs is to avoid secondhand shopping altogether. If you can’t kick the thrift store habit, make sure you wash all fabric items in hot water and check any items you buy for signs of bugs before bringing them into your home. Remember, bed bugs are sneaky. They can hide in crazy places like under keyboard keys or wedged between appliance buttons. That means you’ll need to inspect every item you buy thoroughly.
One of the worst things about bed bugs is how hard they are to get rid of once you have them. Because they’re so good at hiding, it’s just about impossible to find them all. And since you have to directly hit them with most over-the-counter (OTC) pesticides to kill them, you likely won’t do anything more with these methods than temporarily reduce the bed bug population in your home.
Fortunately, there’s a better way. Here at Urbanex, our state-of-the-art bed bug elimination process can get rid of every bed bug infesting your home and ensure they’re gone for good. So give us a call or visit our contact page to schedule your service today!
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