I moved into an apartment, and they didn’t tell me but they have bed bugs. I’ve been getting bit every night so i’m planning on moving out. I just want to make sure no bed bugs follow me to the new apartment and lay eggs. Any tips on what i can do or how i can make sure any bed bugs don’t move with me?
More posts like this one in Bedbug Questions.
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Since bed bugs hide in small crevices, they can travel with luggage, furniture, clothing, boxes, ect. This is how they move between hotels, homes and apartments. Used furniture, particularly bed frames and mattresses, are of greatest risk of harboring bed bugs and their eggs. They may be present in vacant apartments hiding in cracks and crevices since they may survive months without a blood meal. Bed bugs may travel between nearby apartments through voids in walls and holes though which wires and pipes pass. In a few cases, bats and/or birds may introduce and maintain bed bugs and their close relatives (bat bugs and bird bugs). All nests that harbor birds and bats should be removed.
Step I : Pre-treatment Procedures
Reduce clutter to inspection easier.
If you dismantle the bed frames, you may expose additional bedbug hiding sites.
Remove drawers from desks and dressers and turn furniture over, if possible, to inspect and clean all hiding spots.
Stand up the box spring and shine a flashlight through the gauze fabric to expose bed bugs.If the fabric is torn ( possible hiding place), remove fabric to prepare for spraying.
Caulk and seal all holes where pipes and wires penetrate walls and floor, and fill cracks around baseboards and moldings to further reduce harborages.
Since infested garments and bed linen can’t be treated with insecticide they will need to be laundered in hot water (120°F minimum). If washing is not available, sometimes heating the garments or bed linen for several minutes in a clothes dryer may work.
Thoroughly clean the infested rooms .Scrub infested surfaces with a stiff brush to dislodge eggs.
Vacuum in area of bed bug harborages with an vacuum attachment. Vacuum along baseboards, nearby furniture, bed stands, rails, headboards, footboards,bed seams, tufts, buttons, edges of the bedding as well as the edges of the carpets(particularly along the tack strips) are key areas to vacuum. A good vacuum cleaning job may remove particles from cracks and crevices to encourage greater insecticide penetration.
Discard vacuum cleaner bag in a sealed plastic bag when finished.
Caulk cracks and crevices in the building exterior and also repair or screen openings to exclude birds, bats, and rodents that can serve as alternate hosts for bed bugs.
mattress or size of infestation. If there are holes or tears in the gauze fabric or fabric of the mattress, bed bugs and eggs may be inside, as well as outside. There are restrictions on how beds can be treated with insecticides.
After the mattress is vacuumed , scrubbed and treated with either an approved concentrated insecticide or dust, it can be enclosed in a zippered mattress encasements such as that used for house dust mites. These zippered mattress covers , available at bedding and allergy supply stores deny bed bugs access to other hiding areas. It would be helpful to encase not only the mattress, but the box spring as well. It is important to treat the zipper area as well when you follow the spraying and dusting procedures. Any bed bugs remaining on the mattress or box springs will be trapped inside the encasement. Leave the cover in place for a year or so since bed bugs can live for a long time without a blood meal.
More on this website where I copied and pasted info for you on: http://www.doyourownpestcontrol.com/how_to_get_rid_of_bed_bugs.htm