How to Keep Bed Bugs Out of Your Clothes, Luggage, and Home. Welcome to Shebang, your free information site.
Bed Bugs, Prior to World War Two, and Now
Bed bugs were common to the home prior to World War Two. For the next fifty years, little were seen of them.
In the last five years, the bed bug has made a huge come back, up 300% in the last couple of years. They
are a particular problem in hotels, motels and hostels, where there is a big turnover in occupancy.
Protecting Clothing From Bed Bugs
While in a hotel or motel, always keep clothing off the bed and floor, this is hard to get your children
to do, but is so necessary. When traveling place luggage on the folding racks provided, and never place your
clothes on the bed. If in doubt about a place, keep you clothes in plastic garbage bags, hanging
in the closet, or in the bath tub, until you are sure it is okay. When returning home from a trip,
store any clothing that you will not be needing right away in plastic garbage bags, or dry cleaning bags,
if any bed bugs happen to be hiding, they will expire in time, and kept within the bags they cannot freely
move about the home.
The quickest way to deal with bed bigs when returning home is to tumble the clothes in a hot dryer, this
will kill any bugs that may be hiding within the clothing.
Steps to Take In the Home
Seal mattress and pillow with a plastic, or tightly woven zipped cover. Any bug trapped inside will
expire in time. Do not use any poison that can come in contact with your skin, or flumes you may
inhale. Wash all your bed linen and place in a hot dryer for 20 minutes.
Outside temperatures below -5c will kill the bed bug also. Any linen placed outside in the cold for
5 days will do the job. In the hot summer, cloth placed in a closed vehicle out in the sun will
dehydrate them over time. Vacuum a mattress regularly, be aware that the eggs can stick to the
bed linen, and may have to be scraped off while vacuuming.
Place the vacuum bag in a sealed plastic bag, and discard outside the house into a garbage can.
Buying Used Clothing or Mattress
Bed bugs are also found in businesses, buses, apartments, and the home. It only takes
one hitch hiking on your clothing to infest the whole home. If you are bringing used clothing
into the home, inspect it thoroughly, and run it through the dryer on high for a few minutes.
Wash all clothing before use, whether new or used.
Do not bring a used mattress into you home, and even when buying a new one, inspect it
thoroughly, before using.
Bedbug Life Cycle and Habits
Bed bugs can live up to a year without feeding and their nymphs up to about three months.
They do not carry disease, but can cause you a great deal of stress. They are about 1/4 inch long,
flat, which means they can hide just about anywhere. They hide in seams of a mattress, cracks in
wall, or wood bed frame. Their activity is reserved for the night time, in the day they hide.
The adult will feed at least once a week, and the host usually is unaware, until welts appear.
The nymphs go from egg to adult in 4 weeks.
Tip
If you buy used books, outside the house, flip through the pages to make sure no bugs
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