If you are bothered by itching at night, and in the morning red spots appear on the skin, then you can suspect that there are bedbugs in the house. Where do these bloodsuckers come from, and how to get rid of them? This is the first thing that comes to the apartment owner’s mind. But there is no particular reason to panic, even though it is difficult, but quite doable, the main thing is to know everything about your opponent, then it will be much easier to fight him.
Where do bed bugs come from?
These blood-sucking insects have been living with humans for a long time, and it was previously believed that their occurrence meant that the owners of an apartment or house were untidy. But in reality, their appearance has nothing to do with this; they can enter a living space for completely different reasons.
- Bedbugs can come with you from a business trip or vacation, hidden in clothes or things. After all, many hotels are guilty of having insects in their rooms, even if the service is far from cheap, and their presence is sometimes detected on trains.
- There is a possibility that friends who already have contact with them will unwittingly give them to you.
- A trip to nature can also end in an unpleasant neighborhood. And when, after a while, the apartment’s residents begin to itch at night, no one will even think of connecting this with outdoor recreation.
- Pets walking outside can also accidentally pick them up and bring them home.
- And the owners of private houses are constantly under threat of their invasion. They can climb up the walls of a house from the ground, penetrate through windows, or make their way out of a barn where animals and birds live.
- In an apartment building, they travel through cracks, ventilation systems, and balcony spans. And even if they have appeared in only one apartment, residents of other apartments cannot rest assured that harmful cohabitants will not soon move in with them.
- Bedbugs can be brought in with new furniture, because no one carries out measures to destroy them in workshops and factories.
Where bedbugs live and how to detect them
Bedbugs are nocturnal insects, and during the day they prefer to hide and lay their eggs in secluded places. Therefore, they need to be looked for in all hard-to-reach corners of your home: in furniture cracks and places of wooden joints, behind wallpaper and baseboards, in a closet, folds of clothes, book bindings.
In the summer, many do not even think that bedbugs have appeared at home. Usually, similar symptoms are associated with mosquito bites. But if it's winter outside, and at night someone constantly bites, red dots appear on the skin, you can be sure that there are bedbugs in the apartment. This is evidenced by red-brown spots on the sheets after sleep. And almost immediately an unpleasant specific smell appears, giving away their presence. If you turn on the light unexpectedly at night, you can see the bloodsuckers themselves on the sheets.
If such obvious signs are present, it is advisable to carefully examine all the corners of the furniture, then you will notice small white grains, bedbug eggs, or the insects themselves. That's it! You must begin to act immediately, otherwise their population will grow, and it will be very difficult to remove them.
Selection of weapons of destruction
If parasites are found in the house, you must immediately warn the neighbors so that measures are taken synchronously. If they move into their apartment, then soon everything will start all over again.
When choosing a means to combat blood-sucking insects, you should know that they are divided into repellent and destroying them. And if the former are more suitable for preventive measures and subsequent treatment, then the latter are capable of destroying parasites.
You can repel insects with sharp and unpleasant-smelling substances, these can be essential oils (for example, eucalyptus, lavender, rosemary, cloves).
Aromatic herbs: tansy, calamus, wild rosemary, wormwood.
Also chemical liquids: turpentine, ammonia, kerosene.
So what method should you choose to get rid of these uninvited guests? It all depends on how many there are and where they came from. Self-processing is suitable for those in whose homes they have not yet had time to really take root and densely fill the territory.
There are many substances that destroy bed bugs, and if they have not yet occupied the entire area of the apartment, you can deal with it on your own. Which drug to choose is up to the owner to decide; the main thing is to focus on its effectiveness, safety, and cost-effectiveness. And, of course, so that later you don’t have to throw away all the interior items because they are hopelessly damaged.
- Bedbug gels. Effective and easy to use. They retain their properties for several months, so they are good because newly hatched insects from eggs will also fall under their influence.
- Liquid concentrated products can also be considered as an excellent way to fight. They are available in plastic bottles or capsules and diluted with water. These can be: GET (against bedbugs), Primadid, “Foxide”, “Lakterin”, “Forsyth”.
- Aerosols are easy to use, and if they get on the insect's skin and respiratory tract, they can destroy them quickly enough. These are the popular “Dichlorvos”, “Raptor”, also “Prima-U”, “Raid”, “Carbozol”.
- Powdered substances “Riapan” and “Neopin” are poured into secluded corners or diluted with water in the form of a suspension, and coated with them in all possible places.
- An old proven remedy is an insecticidal pencil. With its help, the population of bedbugs is destroyed by infecting each other. It is quite enough when parasites have just appeared in the house. You can also use smoke bombs.
If you decide to get rid of bedbugs on your own, then it is best to apply a set of measures, then the event will be more effective.
After treatment against bedbugs, it is advisable to redecorate the apartment, paint the windows and doors, and re-glue the wallpaper. Then there is a possibility that they will not return again.
For those premises where bed bugs have proliferated, it is preferable to call specialists, inviting SES employees or contact private companies. Having visited the home, they will assess the territory from a professional point of view and decide on the type of drug that will guarantee the destruction of the entire population along with the eggs. These products retain their properties for up to two months, and newly hatched bedbugs die. Since ordinary chemicals, without penetrating their shell, evaporate quickly, and do not provide such a guarantee. In addition, professional insecticides are not so toxic to living creatures and do not damage furniture. Professionals will do everything quickly and efficiently, saving time.And if the bedbugs are not completely destroyed, then they will re-treat for free.
Self-processing. Safety precautions.
The most effective drugs are those that contain karbofos. The main thing is to carefully study the instructions and strictly follow the recommendations. You need to know that they are extremely toxic and pose a danger to all living things. They should not get on the body, mucous membranes or inside the body.
The room must also be prepared for the procedure. All kitchen utensils are placed in sealed packaging. Food products are removed from the treated area. All residents of the apartment must leave it for several days. Aquarium fish do not need to be relocated, but the vessel in which they are kept must be hermetically sealed. It is recommended to unfold folding furniture, because it is in its folds that bedbugs hide. It is also better to remove clothes and toys. But if they are also infected with bedbugs, it is better to mercilessly throw away what cannot be treated with high temperatures.
Personal safety must come first. You need to wear rubber gloves on your hands to prevent toxins from getting on your skin. To avoid poisoning, you need to use a respirator and protect your eyes with goggles. If you have a special suit, great, but you can also use old thick clothes, then they are simply thrown away. Having prepared in this way, you can begin processing using a spray bottle and a chemical diluted in water. It happens that bedbugs have already developed immunity to the chosen product, then the treatment will have to be repeated, changing the drug.
Traditional and non-chemical methods
This method does not at all guarantee complete relief from insect infestations, but it is quite suitable as a preventative or complex remedy.
Bags of dried herbs are hung in closets, among piles of laundry, in the corners of furniture. Chopped grass can be poured into all the cracks and scattered along the baseboards.
Bedbugs are frightened by strong odors, so it is permissible to treat furniture and places where they accumulate with mixtures of kerosene, turpentine, and camphor oil.
There are also non-chemical ways to kill these insects. Bed bugs cannot tolerate high temperatures, and if you wash clothes in a washing machine above 50 degrees, they will definitely die. If you boil it, then the eggs will not withstand such exposure.
Bedbugs do not like the cold, but the frost should not be higher than -20, and they should be kept for at least an hour, otherwise they will only go into suspended animation.
Prevention
It is always easier to prevent a problem than to solve it later, this axiom is known to everyone. Therefore, to prevent the ubiquitous parasites from appearing suddenly, preventive measures must always be taken.
You shouldn’t buy furniture second-hand, but if this happens, you don’t need to bring it into the house right away. Let it stand outside on a frosty day, and if the weather is warm, the item should be treated, at least with drugs that expel bedbugs.
After visiting hotels, clothes should be washed and ironed thoroughly.
It’s great when your home is wet cleaned regularly, and as an addition to it, cabinets and furniture are treated with disinfectant solutions.
The appearance of bed bugs in a house is a very unpleasant and even dangerous phenomenon, but no one is safe from such a neighborhood. Therefore, if they appear, it is necessary to immediately begin to destroy them, otherwise delay threatens that the situation will worsen, and it will be much more difficult to eliminate them.
