What You Need To Know About Bed Bug Control Methods In Hammond

If you think you may have bed bugs, it’s important to get a Hammond pest control company involved as soon as possible. Bed bugs are notoriously hard to kill, with 76% of pest control experts agreeing they’re the hardest pest to eradicate. Getting rid of a bed bug infestation on your own is almost impossible. Call the pros before the bed bugs spread further than they already have.

How Do I Check For Bed Bugs?

You need to know how to find bed bugs in Hammond. Here are a few things to look for:

• Red or brown stains and smears on your bedding, mattress, box spring, walls, light sockets, and other furniture. The stains are signs that bed bugs have recently fed on you, leaving tell-tale drops of blood or feces behind.
• Bug bites on your arms or legs. These bites may appear as red welts in a line or a tight grouping.
• Exoskeletons the bugs have left behind as they’ve grown from young nymphs into full-grown adult bed bugs. Nymphs are only slightly larger than their pinhead-sized eggs when they hatch and grow to about ¼ inch long as full-grown adults. They shed their exoskeleton several times as they grow.
• Bed bugs themselves. They’re flat, reddish-brown, and oval-shaped, looking somewhat like apple seeds. When they’ve recently fed, they’re rounder and longer. Bed bugs are experts at hiding but you may find them living in the creases of your mattresses, bedding, and other furniture, under the edges of your carpet or rugs, in your curtains, closets and dressers, or inside your walls.

Since bed bugs are masters of hide-and-seek, you need to call in local pest control for bed bugs in Hammond to help you find and eliminate bed bug infestations.

Are Bed Bugs In My House Harmful To My Health?

Bed bug bites don’t transmit disease. Scientists have run experiments with HIV and other blood-borne illnesses to see if bed bugs can transmit them once they’ve fed on an infected individual. The good news is: they can’t. You don’t have to worry about catching any sort of illness or disease from bed bugs.

However, bed bug bites can itch if you’re allergic to their saliva. Use calamine lotion or diphenhydramine cream to relieve the itching. If you’re overly allergic to the saliva, you may have a severe allergic reaction or go into anaphylactic shock. If that’s the case, it’s important to seek immediate medical attention. Some people aren’t allergic to bed bug saliva at all, which makes it more difficult to diagnose a bed bug infestation.

Why Do I Have Bed Bugs In My House?

Bed bugs are hitchhikers. They’ll crawl onto your shoes, pants, backpack, purse, grocery bags, luggage, or anything else that brushes the floor in an infested area. Unfortunately, there are a lot of infested areas. Bed bugs live anywhere there are people, including in buses, airplanes, hotels, taxis, Ubers, libraries, schools, retail stores, and everywhere else where people go.

Having bed bugs doesn’t mean you’re a bad housekeeper, and it’s not a moral failing. It just means that somewhere along the way, an opportunistic bug crawled its way onto you or your belongings, then multiplied. Female bed bugs lay one to five eggs a day and more than 500 eggs in their lifetime. A bed bug infestation can get out of control quickly. That’s why you need pest control to kill bed bugs.

How Can I Get Bed Bugs Out Of My Home For Good?

There are several bed bug control techniques for your home you can use to help minimize the spread of bed bugs in your home, including:

• Vacuuming any infested areas you find, including your mattress, box spring, carpet, rugs, and other furniture. Empty the canister or take out the bag and immediately put it in your outside trash can.
• Using mattress encasements, which are fabric sacks designed to keep bed bugs inside and away from your skin. Put one on your mattress and another on your box spring. The sacks also provide smooth edges and sides, giving bedbugs less areas to hide.
• Putting down bed bug interceptors under the legs of your bed and other furniture. These handy devices prevent bed bugs from climbing from your carpet up to where you are.
• Washing your bedding in the hottest water possible, then drying it on high heat. Bed bugs can’t survive in temperatures above 122 °, so this process can kill the bed bugs hiding in your sheets, blankets, pillows, and pillowcases.

Unfortunately, these are only stop-gap measures until you can get professional help. Bed bugs can hide in tiny cracks and crevices, behind your baseboards, and in your walls. You need help from a pest control company such as DAT Exterminating to get rid of all the bed bugs in your Hammond home.

DAT Exterminating has more than ten years of experience dealing with pests like bed bugs and has been family-owned and operated since 2018. We’re the black and gold of pest control, and we’re waiting for you to call and schedule your free inspection today to get rid of your bed bugs for good.