How to keep the bed bugs from biting!

Summer vacation season has arrived — and when you travel, it’s always fun to bring back souvenirs.

But there’s a little souvenir you might accidentally cart home that you didn’t even notice and that could make life miserable. And you can pick it up just about anywhere, whether you’re on a bargain tour or visiting a luxury resort spa.

I’m talking about Cimex lectularius, more commonly known as bed bugs.

If you haven’t yet encountered one of these persistent and bloodsucking little critters, consider yourself lucky. Because they’re in more places than you might imagine — and it’s important to your health (and sanity) that these bugs don’t hitch a ride home with you after your summer vacation.

Out for bloodBelieve it or not, “Bed Bug Awareness Week” just ended on Saturday. But for anyone who has ever tried to evict these persistent bloodsucking creatures from their home, every single day is filled with “bed bug awareness.”

The most common way for bed bugs to infest your home is by transferring themselves from a place you’ve stayed — which might even be a first-class hotel — via your luggage. But they can also easily hitch a ride in an item of used furniture such as a couch or chair.

You can even pick them up in places you’d least expect them. Like buses, trains or taxis, retail stores, movie theaters, nursing homes or outpatient facilities — especially in some larger cities where they’re now considered an epidemic.

By whatever route they might gain entry to your premises, these reddish-brown, itsy-bitsy insects are very good at hiding out in tiny spaces, like cracks and crevices, where they hole up until dark. Then, like little vampires, they emerge to suck your blood (which they need to survive) while you’re sleeping.

While most of us associate bed big bites with itching or painful welts, the health risks can be serious. The bites have been known to cause everything from allergic reactions to asthma attacks.

So how can you keep these bloodthirsty little varmints out of your life? Here are tips offered by leading debugging experts to keep the bed bugs from biting:

• Look for evidence of these parasites when you check into a hotel. With the help of a good flashlight, check out the beds and look for black or rust-colored spots on the sheets; bug skins that have been shed; and, of course, the bugs themselves. If you find any evidence of bed bugs, it’s time to find another room — well removed from the infested one. And remember, bed bugs have been known to invade the most elegant places.
• Keep your clothes in a sealed plastic bag inside your suitcase. Don’t unpack on a bed, but on a luggage rack or desk. As strange as it may sound, you might even want to keep your suitcase inside the bathtub, an area that these particular critters can’t get to.
• Wash all your clothes immediately upon returning home, and turn the drier up high, which will kill any of the bugs and their eggs that might have attached themselves to an article of apparel. A single female can lay up to 500 eggs.
• Check your empty suitcases for any evidence of bed bugs — and if you suspect they’re there, vacuum or use steam heat on them.

If you already have a bed big infestation, they can be real headache to get rid of. In fact, it took three tries for Brooke Borel, the author of a new book on bedbugs called Infested: How the Bed Bug Infiltrated Our Bedrooms and Took Over the World, to rid her apartment of them.

Fortunately, there are a few things you can try:

• Get rid of clutter, wash all bedding regularly, vacuum thoroughly and frequently, and steam clean your home, especially around cracks and crevices. Bed bugs hate heat!
• Open a window or use a fan in your bedroom to disperse the CO2 that you’re giving off when you sleep. Bed bugs seek out CO2 and use it as a beacon of sorts to find you.
• Another recommended method is turning a bowl or dog dish into a “dry ice trap.” Place some dry ice inside the bowl and cover it with a cloth or paper cover. The bed bugs will be attracted to the CO2 given off by the dry ice — and once inside, they won’t be able to escape.

While people with a bed bug problem are often advised to call in an exterminator, remember that many of the chemicals used by pest control services are extremely toxic. And whole-house fumigation typically requires the use of deadly gases. So don’t let anyone talk you into that.

Sources:

“Don’t let bed bugs bite — or hitch a ride home with you” Chuck Nelson, June 8, 2015, The Tennessean, Tennessean.com

“Bedbugs: Coming to a bed near you” Simon Worrall, May 17, 2015, National Geographic, news.nationalgeographic.com