- Image via Wikipedia
By Michael Kawula
Bed bugs are a terrible problem that terrorize homeowners, motels, apartment complexes, dorm rooms and all dwellings. These bugs are flat, oval looking, reddish brown, tiny blood sucking insects. Night bugs feed off your skin leaving bumps and can cause terrible allergic reactions. These insects travel throughout the walls of living quarters and are extremely difficult to contain. They can be found in furniture, sheets, pillows, comforters, mattresses and anywhere they can latch onto humans. These annoying insects are easily transported in clothing, suitcases and anything possible.
Detecting these bugs is not very difficult. Their bites cause itching and a burning feeling. Typically you will notice bumps on your skin and red blots. Looking for blood stain marks on sheets or carpeting can show a possible detection of bed bugs. These insects also tend to have a stale odor. Their feces are also easily detected on bedding with dark spots left from their body waste. A great way to detect is to place some strong tape upside down near your bedding and check the tape in the morning to see if any are stuck on it
Bed bugs are nocturnal insects and typically found in areas that people sleep. These insects also prefer a warm area and are found in mattresses, pillows and other sleeping areas. Individuals who travel are more prone to bed bugs as many hotels have infestation problems. Individuals who are also in the service business of going from home to home are more prone to attracting them.
It is strongly recommended that individuals consult an expert as they are hard to contain. Here are some solutions to try to contain or prevent bed bugs:
Steam Cleaners that release high temperature heat can kill bed bugs. Anything 120 degrees or greater will kill a bed bug. Make sure when steaming to steam baseboards as they can nest during the day in walls or tight crevices. Remember to have a steamer that can run an hour or more so you can efficiently do the entire room and surrounding rooms.
UV-C Wands such as the purelight UV Hand Wand are great tools. UV-C light will kill not only bed bugs but also dust mites. UV light wands are great for allergy suffers as they kill many things that cause allergic reactions and also are great for eliminating odors. Another great tool is the raycop vacuum which has UV-C light and is great for vacuuming your sleeping areas.
Microban X-580 disinfectant spray kills roaches, fleas, bed bugs, mold, odors and much more. Microban works very well with a fogger puremist machine or spray bottle. A fogger puremist machine allows you to disinfect a room or even in vehicles to freshen.
Night bugs are a terrible problem that create a very itchy annoying feeling. They need to be treated immediately and with caution. Serious infestation of these insects can be very costly. Remember to react promptly, check often and try one of the three suggested solutions for preventative measures. Sleep tight and don’t let the bed bugs bite.
Visit http://www.discountcleaningproducts.com
Mike Kawula is an owner of Discount Cleaning Products and 123BuyIt, America’s #1 Online Retailer of Commercial & Residential Tools Cleaning Supplies & Office Supplies!
Reach by email at marketing@123buyit.com or 888-233-0851
Article Source: How to Kill Bed Bugs and Prevent Them – 3 Solutions to Eliminating Bed Bugs
Filed under Avoiding Bed Bugs, Bed Bug Detection, Bed Bug Remedies, Get Rid of Bed Bugs, How to Kill Bed Bugs by on Sep 29th, 2010. Comment. 
- Image via Wikipedia
They are disgusting.
There’s no denying it. Those little creepy crawlies that feed solely on the blood of humans and other warm-blooded animals, and make their homes in the comfort of your bed send a shudder through the spine.
Have you ever wondered what a bed bug actually is, other than something to cringe at?
There are around 108 species of these bugs, but the most common – the Cimex lectularius (found in temperate climates) – is well adapted to human environments, and brave enough to make its home in your mattress.
So what do they look like?
Do you really want to know? Adult bed bugs are reddish-brown, flat, oval, and have no wings. They have microscopic hairs covering their bodies, and a large adult can grow up to 5mm in length and 3mm in width. Babies are translucent and lighter in colour, but become darker as they mature.
The Common Bed Bug. Gross.
By nature, bed bugs are blood suckers. Typically, if one if sucking the blood of a human, it’s because no other prey is available. They usually feed just before dawn since they don’t like sunlight, but have been known to feed during the day. They’re attracted to us because of the carbon dioxide we emit, as well as our body heat.
“That’s sick. But how do they get up onto the bed?”That’s the gross part… they either crawl up, or they drop down from the ceiling or a wall. When they feed, they inject a small amount of anesthetic into the skin with one tube, and extract the blood with another tube for about 5 minutes before retreating back to their hiding places. The anesthetic is what causes the itching sensation when you notice the bite later on.
These bugs can live for 5 months to a whole year depending on the climate. The warmer and more conducive to feeding it is, the shorter their lifespan. A bed bug can survive in temperatures between 16°C and 45°C. Oddly enough, they can live up to a year without feeding.
Now that you have a clear picture of these creatures, the question remains…
Do memory foam mattresses get bed bugs?
Because memory foam mattresses are made from a more solid core and don’t have convenient hiding places, bed bugs aren’t as tempted to set up shop. It’s your headboard, bed base and sheets that you need to worry about, since they like to hide in small, enclosed spaces.
They’re are also found in spring mattresses, since they have many crevices and allow the bugs a lot of roaming space. DDT is a powerful chemical that has kept the critters away for decades, but unfortunately, there is worry that the insects have developed a resistance to the stuff. The best solution for getting rid of bed bugs in your spring mattress is to get rid of the mattress itself.
Bed Bug Infestation
Helenka Prochazka manages NovosBed, the world’s best Memory Foam Mattress company.
Article Source: Do Memory Foam Mattresses Get Bed Bugs?
Filed under Bed Bug Detection, Bed Bugs, Bugs in Bed, How to Kill Bed Bugs by on Sep 28th, 2010. Comment.
- Image via Wikipedia
By Douiglas Stern
The “pest of the 21st century” is what urban entomologist Michael Potter calls the tiny, blood-sucking pests that are spreading panic across the country. A leading expert on the habits and resurgence of Cimex lectularius, the common bed bug, the University of Kentucky researcher has found that these modern pests are increasingly resistant to pyrethroid insecticides commonly used to control them. Even worse, they are passing this resistance onto their offspring. Already a problem for apartment owners and property managers, a super bed bug is not a welcome thought, particularly with pending state legislation and new municipal regulations getting ready to place the onus for dealing with these problem pests at landlords’ doorsteps.
Bed bugs have been sharing beds with humans for centuries. After World War II, DDT effectively annihilated the pest in America and Western countries, although they continued to flourish in less developed countries. The banning of DDT coupled with the growth of international travel has caused a resurgence of man’s age-old nemesis. Since the 1990s, reported infestations in the U.S. have increased 500%. These insects are now common in all 50 states with infestations regularly reported in apartments, condominiums, hotels, college dormitories, office buildings, hospitals and private homes.
Adept hitchhikers, bed bugs travel into apartments on residents’ clothing, mattresses, furniture and inside packing boxes. Several recent infestations have been traced back to moving vans. Adult bed bugs are reddish brown and about the size of an apple seed, but nymphs and eggs are microscopic. Nuisance pests that feed on human blood, they do not transmit disease; but their bites can cause itchy, red welts, psychosomatic stress and severe allergic reactions. Feeding on sleeping humans at night, they hide in tiny crevices in or near beds between feedings. As an infestation grows, they spread to adjacent units through wall voids, electrical and plumbing conduits and air ducts. Bed bugs can easily be spread through an apartment complex via shared laundry facilities or maintenance workers.
Legally tasked with providing pest control services for tenants, New Jersey apartment owners are being now faced with losing the litigation war on treatment as well. With new pending legislation (New Jersey #A 3203), apartment owners may soon have to bear the responsibility and financial expense of providing housing that is rat, roach and soon to be bed bug-free. While other vermin can be eliminated with proper maintenance and control costs recouped in rent payments, bed bugs are an entirely different problem. Insects of convenience, they are not attracted by food or filth but are brought into apartments by residents. They are as likely to be found in upscale, well-maintained establishments as in tenements.
To date, efforts to combat bed bugs have focused on reactive measures focused on treating the problem after the fact. Cutting-edge technologies at both ends of the temperature spectrum are being used to control insecticide-resistant bugs. New monitoring and trapping products just coming onto the pest control market offer the first opportunity for proactive prevention. A game changer in the fight against bed bugs, monitors are the first 24/7 preventative tool available on the market. Not only could proactive use of bed bug monitors become a powerful tool in protecting property and tenants, but they could turn the tide in the courtroom. In defending against bed bug litigation, regular monitor use could positively influence judges and juries in favor of apartment owners.
Monitors have the potential to alert property managers to the early stages of infestation while they are confined to the bed and bedroom. Early detection can allow property owners to arrange professional extermination of an affected apartment before pests spread. If they are discovered, monitors can determine the effectiveness of treatment and warn of re-infection. Monitoring adjacent apartments can alert property managers to spreading bed bugs, allowing targeted pest control. Early detection and intervention could save apartment owners thousands of dollars in professional pest control costs.
As with any new field, innovative pest control professionals are experimenting with various bed bug monitoring products in the field to determine which are most effective in different situations. U.S. tests and European use indicate that proactive use of monitors has the potential to turn the tide in the bed bug battle. Some of the potentially game-changing products being introduced include:
NightWatch by BioSensory, Inc. uses heat and pheromone lures to attract and trap insects, attracting them with carbon dioxide.
Bug Dome, developed by Silvandersson, an eco-friendly Swedish manufacturer, plugs into any wall outlet, using heat to lure pestsinto replaceable glue traps.
BB Alert Active from MIDMOS, popular in Europe, uses replaceable packets of a blood-mimicking chemical attractant to entice insects into a glue trap.
CDC 3000 by Cimex Science is a discrete, portable, electric monitoring and trapping device the size of a briefcase. Mimicking the presence of a human body, it lures bugs within a six-foot radius, trapping them on sealed slides for counting and documentation, attracting them with carbon dioxide. Safe for use around children and pets, it can be moved from room to room.
Climbup Insect Interceptor by Susan McKnight Inc. is an inexpensive, low-tech device that is placed under bed posts to monitor for a pest presence. Concentric plastic rings coated with slippery talc trap bugs as they climb toward or from a bed.
Bed bug dogs are specially trained to sniff out these difficult to find bugs. Capable of detecting pests within a three-foot radius, dogs quickly target treatment areas or verify treatment success.
Bed bug monitoring can protect apartment owners from law suits, reassure tenants, maintain property values and uphold reputations by enabling owners to certify their properties as pest-free. If they are discovered, monitors can minimize their spread and extermination expense. In the near future, regular use of monitors by purchase, rental or contracted services is expected to become a routine part of apartment maintenance. Bed bug monitors give apartment owners and property managers their first real 24/7 proactive weapon in the growing battle against these awful pests.
Author: Douglas Stern, Managing Partner
Stern Environmental Group http://www.SternEnvironmental.com
Call Toll Free 1-888-887-8376
[mailto:info@sternenvironmental.com]info@sternenvironmental.com
Bed bug extermination experts serving New Jersey, New York, New York City, and Connecticut.
It’s Time To Get STERN With Your Pests!
Article Source: Bed Bug Monitors - The Game Changer in the Fight Against Bed Bugs
Filed under Bed Bug Detection, Bed Bugs, Bugs in Bed by on Sep 24th, 2010. 1 Comment.
- Image by Getty Images via @daylife
By Paige Mercer
We used to think of bed bugs as a thing of the past, or something you encountered in unsavory areas. However, bed bugs are becoming more and more common once again. In the homes of people who live in the city, suburbs, and the country. It is not pleasant for parents or children. Waking up in the morning with bug bites and enduring the itch all day is so much of a hassle, and hard to explain to children. This is why getting rid of bed bugs is important.
But where do these bugs come from? Being the minute insects that they are, bedbugs travel from one area to another, notoriously sticking themselves from one bag or shoe to another. And being so small, one will not, at first glance, notice their presence until they make that bite on your skin.
Getting rid of these pests can be troublesome because of their size. Once they have proliferated, it is much more difficult to kill them all. The female bed bug can hatch as much as 300 eggs every ten days, making them an enormous infestation problem in just a month. They can hide on the smallest cracks or openings, so you really have to track them down. More so, they can survive for a number of days without feeding.
We should not wait till we get bitten before we plan on getting rid of bed bugs. Rusty spots on our mattresses are indication of their infestation. These spots are caused by their fecal matter. When this is observed, check out the crevices of the mattress or foam and the cracks on the bed board. Bed bugs prefer to stay on wood or fabric, and usually in the area where people mostly stay – like the bedroom. Changing the linens and cleaning the mattress are not enough to remove these bugs. Getting rid of bed bugs is best left to professional intervention.
There are pest control companies that you can hire to professionally exterminate them. However, if you’re planning to do it yourself, do this by overturning the furniture, exposing all bedroom items to direct sunlight, and using pesticide fit for killing them. You have to wash all fabric material in your bedroom with strong laundry soap and hang them to dry under the sun. Loose papers must be thrown out or burned. Unused linens should be kept in an airtight package to avoid infestation.
Getting rid of bed bugs takes a lot of patience and hard work. There surely are a lot of extensive processes to take before you get rid of them all. But being able to sleep soundly on the bed, without worrying about bites in the morning is enough drive to make it your daily endeavor to clean your house and make sure it is bed bug-free.
Paige has a busy life like all of us, but she takes the time for fitness and gardening. She looks forward to crawling into the softness of her bamboo sheets to recuperate each night. She enjoys nature, reading and the comfort of her down feather bed after a long day.
Article Source: Tips For Getting Rid of Bed Bugs
Filed under Bed Bug Detection, Bed Bug Remedies, Get Rid of Bed Bugs, How to Kill Bed Bugs by on Sep 9th, 2010. Comment.
- Image by Getty Images via @daylife
By Robert Yates
Bed bugs are parasitic, blood-sucking insects that feed on living hosts and can be found in temperate climates throughout the world. The common bed bug feeds on human blood and is well adapted to our environment.
Other species are known to feed on poultry, bats and sometimes humans as well. Unlike cockroaches, they do not feed on waste, so the presence of bedbugs does not indicate an unclean home, as was believed in the past.
Often described as being similar in size and shape to a lentil, the insects have very flat oval bodies and six legs. Reddish-brown in colour, bed bugs can grow up to 5mm long and shed their skin throughout their lives as they increase in size. Finding the sloughed-off skin is one of the ways of identifying an infestation, although there are other methods.
Bed bugs are usually thought to be nocturnal, but this is a slight misconception. They feed at night, as this is when their hosts tend to be sleeping and blood – their only food source – is readily available. However, they can be seen moving around during the day, particularly when there is a large number of them in a home. They can easily be spotted by the naked eye.
The parasites tend to be most active around dawn. They find their food sources by crawling over them, by climbing walls or by dropping from ceilings. To feed, they inject hosts with an anticoagulant to stop the blood clotting, and an anaesthetic to prevent the host from noticing the bite. They then suck the host’s blood for up to five minutes before returning to their hiding place.
Reactions to bed bug bites vary. Some people will notice intense itching or raised red marks on the skin that are similar to mosquito bites. They may be grouped together as a result of the insect moving slightly while feeding. In some rare cases, there may be an allergic reaction to the bites, but large numbers of people show no reaction at all, making it hard to spot infestations.
Infestations can begin for a number of reasons. The most common is for them to be picked up in hotels, hostels or motels while travelling, and for the parasites to return home with their hosts and begin new colonies.
They can also be brought into a residence inside contaminated furniture such as beds or sofas, and have been known to migrate between apartments. Pets and birds can also bring them indoors.
Light infestations can be hard to spot if the victims have no reactions to bites. Bloodstains on sheets could indicate the presence of bed bugs, as can finding discarded skin cases. Another way is to notice the insects’ faeces. They look like tiny black dots made by a permanent marker and might be found in the joints of furniture, fabrics, mattresses, or anywhere the bed bugs are nesting.
Bed bugs can nest anywhere. You might find them in bed frames, on furniture, or in clothes that are not worn regularly. In severe infestations, they could also be found in lofts, crevices, behind pictures, and in boxes under the bed. Their size and feeding habits mean they can hide easily and will not usually be active during daylight hours, making them very hard to discover.
Getting rid of bed bugs takes time, and requires the extermination of the living insects as well as their eggs. This can be done with steam, using rubbing alcohol on wooden furniture, or with chemicals.
People often prefer to call a professional to assess an infestation and treat it appropriately. This is likely to be more successful than attempting to deal with the problem alone, particularly with severe infestations.
Bed bugs were all but wiped out in the 1940s, but their numbers are on the rise again. Increased international travel is believed to be the main reason, so it pays to be vigilant when you’re on the road. Look for signs of bed bugs in your room, keep suitcases shut and hang clothes up. That way you’ll have a good chance of not bringing any unwelcome hitchhikers home with you.
It is important that people learn how to deal with [http://www.rentokil.ie/residential-customers/crawling-insects/bedbugs/index.html]bed bugs. That is because these tiny blood suckers can be a real pest.
Article Source: Controlling Beg Bugs
Filed under Bed Bug Detection, Bed Bug Remedies, How to Kill Bed Bugs by on Sep 8th, 2010. Comment.
