Does Extermination Eliminate Bed Bugs Permanently?

Keep on reading to find out. For one, when you treat bed bug infestation with heat treatment, every bed bug and its eggs will be killed in the quickest way possible, including those in a void on walls, crevices, and insulated areas. However, there’s still a chance for a reinfestation without proper care since the heat treatment method doesn’t leave any residual effects, meaning it doesn’t make up for bounce-back bed bugs. So, yes, you may still have reinfection after extermination. On the other hand, pesticides leave behind residues that can handle subsequent bed bug infestation. Still, the pesticide application may not reach bed bugs or their eggs in hidden areas.

So how do you deal with a resurgence?

There are some steps to ensure you don’t get a reinfestation. Here’s what to do:

Place bed bug receptors under bed legs and sofas to verify and trap any remaining bed bugs.
Install mattress encasements to trap and suffocate any existing bed bugs in the mattress. At the same time, the encasements make it easier to identify any new bed bugs.

If you use any of these monitoring devices and still spot any bed bugs, it’s best to call in Pest control and management specialists for further treatment.

Contact Bed Bug Specialists, LLC for Quality Bed Bugs Treatment

We understand bed bugs are hard to get rid of; that is why we provide the best available bed bug identification and elimination methods. We utilize Heat treatment methods, pesticide application, home inspections, as well as the use of encasements and receptors to ensure your bed bug problem is fully dealt with. Feel free to call for our services if you reside in Marshall, MI, and the surrounding areas.

How Can You Prevent Bed Bugs Infestation in Your Home?

When someone shouts bedbugs!! The sound of it makes your skin crawl. Now imagine your house crawling with bed bugs, nightmare, right? Well, you don’t have to get to that stage of living with these sneaky pests when you can actually prevent their infestation. Bed bugs would come into your home if you’re using furniture that was previously infested or you’ve been to a house that is bed bug-infested. Here’s what you need to do:

Always inspect second-hand furniture before buying If you have to buy second-hand furniture, check every corner of the furniture, clean it thoroughly before placing it in your home. In fact, as a rule of thumb, never buy a second-hand mattress; they are the biggest hosts of bed bugs.
Always inspect your bedding for any signs of bed bugs You can never be too sure with bed bugs. So, when doing your regular cleaning, check the condition of your bed and see if there are any residues or signs of bed bugs. A sure way to find out about bed bug infestation is by placing bed bug receptors on your bedposts. This will verify their infestation. And in case you notice any bed bugs, you use bed bug encasements to cover your mattress to suffocate them and their eggs.
When traveling, always check the hotel rooms for bed bugs This might seem like an overdo, but at the end of the day, you don’t want to bring bed bugs to your home so you should do whatever it takes. If you are not so sure about the situation, avoid unpacking. You can also wash everything from your journey outside before bringing them inside for extra protection.

What if it doesn’t work?

If you do all this and still get bed bugs, don’t freak out just yet; there’s a sure way to eliminate bedbugs, that is the use of heat treatment. You can always seek the help of an expert to get sure bed bug treatment methods.

Hire Bed Bug Specialist, LLC for Bed Bug Treatment

We use the number one heat treatment method, the heat assault 500X system, the safest and fastest way to exterminate bed bugs. If you are having a bed bug problem in Marshall, MI, don’t hesitate to reach out or help.

How Effective are Bed Bug Encasements?

You’ve probably heard of encasements when dealing with the bedbugs problem. Encasements are specialized covers used to zip up mattresses and box springs. These encasements are designed to trap bedbugs inside your mattress, so they suffocate and die, and also to make it impossible for new bed bugs to get into your mattress. Bedbugs’ first choice of habitat is your bed. However, if they can’t get to your bed, that doesn’t prevent them from inhabiting:

Your couch
Stuffed animals
Rugs and carpets
Closets
Wardrobes
Cracks and crevices on walls
And even your headboard

That said, mattress encasements are not a sure bet when used on their own. It’s more of a preventive measure on one area of your home; it allows you to get rid of bedbugs in your mattress and enables you to take note of newer bedbugs. What’s an alternative? If you want to prevent bedbugs from reaching your bed altogether, using bedbug receptors can be an added advantage in conjunction with the encasements, of course. The receptors are slippery; placing them on each bed leg will trap the bedbugs, and this way, you may probably know the amount of infestation you’re dealing with. Just make sure your bed isn’t too close to the wall to facilitate the movement of bedbugs into your bed. What’s the surefire way? For complete eradication of bedbugs, hire professional bedbug specialists. These professionals use one of the most effective bed bugs treatment available on the market – heat treatment. For example, the heat assault 500X system has been proven to be the most secure and safest means of eliminating bedbugs. For a better and long-term elimination, you can use heat treatment in conjunction with pesticide application. You’ll be getting rid of all the bed bugs plus their eggs. Then you can enjoy your home free from these pesky pests.

Contact Bed Bug Specialists, LLC for High-Quality Bed Bugs Treatment

Call us today if you have a bed bug problem in Marshall, Owosso, and Battle Creek, Mi. We have all the necessary tools and methods to eliminate bedbugs.

Does Bed Bug Heat Treatment Work?

Heat treatment has been crowned as one of the safest and most effective strategies in getting rid of bed bugs. It involves the use of heat assault equipment which which heats a room to around 140 degrees Fahrenheit, ensuring bed bugs and their eggs are killed within the shortest time possible. This temperature also gets to the hard-to-reach areas like voids on walls, carpeting, and other insulated regions. The only issue is heat treatment doesn’t leave any residual effects. It is a disadvantage because, without residues, the chances of re infestations are high. Heat treatment is a one-time treatment; it doesn’t prevent bed bugs from bouncing back.

So, what’s the alternative?

A combination of both heat treatment methods and other mechanical and chemical use is the way to go. Take it as the best of both worlds. So, in conjunction with the heat treatment method, you can also employ the use of:

Encasements These are specialized covers you can use to zip your mattresses and box springs. These materials are not only bed bug bite proof, but the encasing also makes it impossible for new bugs to enter, and the trapped ones get suffocated to death.
Bed bug receptors These are not an elimination method; they are devices used to verify and monitor the infestation of bed bugs. The devices have a vertical and slippery surface, big enough to be set under a bedpost. They trap bed bugs by making it impossible for them to climb off the dish.
Targeted pesticide application The number one concern for many homeowners is the afterward effect on the environment and the people around them. Well, some environmentally conscious pesticides can be suitable for bed bug elimination. While chemicals are not fast-acting, a combination with heat treatment is the best course of action.

For Quality Bed Bugs Treatment, Contact Bed Bug Specialists, LLC

We provide all the available methods of bed bug identification and elimination. If you have a bed bug problem, call us today if you reside in Marshall, Owosso, and Battle Creek, Mi.

Are Home Remedies Efficient For Bed Bug Elimination?

One thing is clear; bed bugs are challenging to get rid of. Despite the many existing techniques, pest control for bed bugs still proves a challenge. However, that doesn’t mean you sit and relax and wait for these creatures to render you powerless in your home. In a world of DIY everything, like every other homeowner, you need the home remedies that work on these bugs. Some of the most common home remedies against bed bugs include:

Vacuuming frequently
Crushing them
Frequent laundering with hot water
Regular cleaning

The truth is that some home remedies, as effective as they may sound, might not eliminate the bed bugs. What is the other option? Bed bugs hide in small crevices as small as inside a mattress or cushion, and to eliminate them, you need to get to where they hide. That is why an expert intervention is recommended. Most home remedies, if they work, will only eliminate the bed bugs you see, so what about the ones you don’t see? This only means home remedies are not enough. The best way is to hire pest control and extermination services. Are professional bed bug elimination methods better? Absolutely yes. The professionals have come up with innovative bed bug treatments. Some of the treatments include using the heat treatment method, which utilizes the Heat Assault 500X, which is the most effective and safest pest extermination technique. Unlike the pesticide application, heat treatment will ensure complete extermination of both the seen and unseen bedbugs and doesn’t leave a residue.

Need pest control and extermination services?

Hire Bed Bug Specialists, LLC. We are the bed bug experts in Marshall, Michigan, and the surrounding areas. Whether you need a home inspection or you already know you have a pest problem, get in touch with us. We use some of the best techniques in the market, and we are always happy to help.

Why Are Bed Bugs Annoyingly Hard to Exterminate?

Bedbugs have made themselves part of human living since the ancient days, and they are getting even more comfortable. The fight against these tiny creatures can always get tiresome and sometimes impossible, especially with the wrong products and skills. Here is why it is so hard to eliminate them:

They multiply quickly Bed bugs reproduce based on their access to blood meals. One female bedbug can lay more than a hundred eggs at once. And remember, the average lifespan of a bedbug is about 7-12months. So, with the availability of human blood and “favorable” temperatures, the population of bedbugs can double in just 10days.
Bed bugs behavior These pests’ behavior makes it more difficult to exterminate them. They are active at night, and their small and flat bodies enable them to fit into any space. Plus, you will not find them nesting in one place; they wander everywhere.
They’ve become resistant to pesticides Pesticide application has always been an effective way to prevent and control bedbugs for a long time now. Unfortunately, bed bugs have also developed resistance towards some of these pesticides.

What’s the way forward?

With the advanced technology, there have been new effective methods of bedbug treatments. One of those effective methods in residential bed bug extermination is the use of heat treatment. The use of the Heat Assault 500X system has proven to be among the safest extermination methods. It’s not just safe for the environment but also for pets and human beings as well. Plus, its application doesn’t cause damage to your property. To get started on bedbug elimination, get in touch with a local bed bug specialist company.

Bed bug extermination in Michigan

If you have a pest problem in Marshall, MI, and Surrounding Areas, we are here to help. Bed Bug Specialists, LLC, is a licensed, state-certified pest management company providing high-quality pest control services. Contact us today for queries or quotations.

Michigan Manual for the Prevention and Control of Bed Bugs

The United States’ Top 50 Cities With Bed Bugs Features For Michigan Cities

Four Michigan cities rank among the worst in America for bed bugs.

Orkin released their annual list of the worst cities for bed bugs. The 2019 list has some newcomers.

The list is based on treatment data from the metro areas where Orkin performed the most bed bug treatments from December 1, 2017 – November 30, 2018. The ranking includes both residential and commercial treatments.

Four Michigan cities:

No. 8 – Detroit (No. 7 in 2018)
No. 20 – Grand Rapids (No. 23 in 2018)
No. 32 – Lansing (Unranked in 2018)
No. 47 – Flint (No. 36 in 2018)

“Bed bugs are the number one urban pest in many cities today,” said Chelle Hartzer, an Orkin entomologist. “They are master hitchhikers, so no one is immune. Sanitation has nothing to do with prevention: from public transit to five-star resorts, bed bugs have been and can be found everywhere humans are.”

Here are proactive tips MBBS recommends for homeowners and travelers:

At Home:

Inspect your home for signs of bed bugs regularly. Check the places where bed bugs hide during the day, including mattress tags and seams, and behind baseboards, headboards, electrical outlets and picture frames.

Decrease clutter around your home to make it easier to spot bed bugs on your own or during professional inspections.

Inspect all secondhand furniture before bringing it inside your home. This is a common way for bed bugs to be introduced into homes.

Dry potentially infested bed linens, curtains and stuffed animals on the hottest temperature allowed for the fabric.

During travel, remember the acronym S.L.E.E.P. to inspect for bed bugs:

Survey the hotel room for signs of an infestation. Be on the lookout for tiny, ink-colored stains on mattress seams, in soft furniture and behind headboards.

Lift and look in bed bug hiding spots: the mattress, box spring and other furniture, as well as behind baseboards, pictures and even torn wallpaper.

Elevate luggage away from the bed and wall. The safest places are in the bathroom or on counters.

Examine your luggage carefully while repacking and once you return home from a trip. Always store luggage away from the bed.

Place all dryer-safe clothing from your luggage in the dryer for at least 15 minutes at the highest setting after you return home.

Here’s the top 50 list:

1.   Baltimore
2.   Washington, D.C.
3.   Chicago
4.   Los Angeles
5.   Columbus, Ohio
6.   New York (+2)
7.   Cincinnati (-1)
8.   Detroit (-1)
9.   Atlanta (+4)
10.   Philadelphia (+2)
11.   Cleveland-Akron (+3)
12.   San Francisco (-3)
13.   Raleigh-Durham, N.C. (+2)
14.   Indianapolis (-3)
15.   Dallas (-5)
16.   Norfolk, Va. (+2)
17.   Richmond, Va. (-1)
18.   Greenville, S.C. (+7)
19.   Charlotte, N.C.
20.   Grand Rapids, Mich. (+3)
21.   Buffalo, N.Y. (-1)
22.   Knoxville, Tenn. (-1)
23.   Nashville, Tenn. (-1)
24.   Champaign, Ill. (+2)
25.   Pittsburg (-1)
26.   Houston (-9)
27.   Denver (+1)
28.   Milwaukee (+1)
29.   Miami (+8)
30.   St. Louis (+5)
31.   Charleston, W.Va.
32.   Lansing, Mich. (new to list)
33.   Syracuse, N.Y.
34.   Phoenix (-7)
35.   Tampa, Fla. (+14)
36.   Greensboro, N.C. (+10)
37.   Omaha, Neb. (+2)
38.   Boston (-6)
39.   Seattle (-3)
40.   Las Vegas (+5)
41.   Orlando, Fla. (new to list)
42.   Davenport, Iowa (new to list)
43.   Hartford, Conn. (-13)
44.   Cedar Rapids, Iowa (-4)
45.   Dayton, Ohio (-11)
46.   Honolulu (-3)
47.   Flint, Mich. (-9)
48.   Ft. Wayne, Ind. (new to list)
49.   San Diego (-8)
50.   Youngstown, Ohio (new to list)

*This article first appeared on Click on Detroit.

7 Myths About Bed Bugs Debunked

It’s not surprising that half-truths and downright magical thinking come into play where bed bugs are concerned. There are few things that make us feel so powerless in our own domain as the specter of a visit from these creatures.

The most obvious misconception is that if you keep your house really clean, bed bugs won’t come. But, explains Mike Potter, an entomologist and extension professor at the University of Kentucky, bed bugs don’t care whether or not you’ve vacuumed.

“They’re not cockroaches,” Potter says. “They don’t feed on debris. You could have a pristine environment and they could still get introduced.”

Below, CR busts some myths and delivers advice to help you stare down this scourge, protect yourself and your family, and take effective action if you need to.

Myth 1: You’re safe from bed bugs if you have a foam mattress.

Truth: While bed bugs can’t live in foam, they can stash themselves in any crevice that’s close to your body while you’re inert, such as in the small cracks of your bed frame. So even though foam isn’t habitable for bed bugs, someone who’s sleeping on it is still vulnerable.

Does it lower your risk to zip your mattress and box spring into protective bags?

“Bed bugs might not be able to live inside the encasement, but they can live outside of it for sure,” says Potter.

So you can still have bed bugs in your home and can still get bitten. What encasement bags are good for is protecting the actual mattress. That means you might not need to toss it and spend money on a new one if you have a bed-bug infestation.

Myth 2: Bed bugs travel only by hitchhiking on clothes or other fabric.

Truth: Fabric is only one mode of transport. Bed bugs get around on their own just fine. “They can crawl through electrical outlets, up through walls, down hallways,” says Potter. “They can go right out the door and into other rooms or units within a building.” If you live in a multi-unit building and you know bed bugs are in apartments near yours, you should have an exterminator examine your home and look for signs of the pests. And if your home has an infestation in one room, adjacent rooms should be treated, too.

Myth 3: A bed bug–sniffing dog is the best way to identify an infestation.

Truth: There are reputable handlers with well-trained bed bug–sniffing dogs and there are scammers with untrained dogs. There are also legit bug-sniffing dogs that occasionally make mistakes. “What I always say is, don’t just trust the dog,” explains Potter. “Confirm with a visible [human] inspection.”

Dogs and handlers should have proper accreditation and verifiable training through respected organizations such as the Forensic and Scientific Training Investigations Center, the World Detector Dog Organization, and the National Entomology Scent Detection Canine Association.

As for spotting signs of bed bugs yourself, Potter says if you suspect there’s a problem, there are a couple of things to look for on your sheets: tiny hard brown dots about the size of a pen tip (bed-bug excrement) and small blood spots where you might have smashed a bed bug while rolling over. Potter says you might also also see white eggs the size of sesame seeds in small clumps in or around furniture.

If you’re not sure what a bed bug looks like, learn here.

And remember, if you see none of the above in your home and your only worry is bite marks, the problem could be something else. There are many insects that bite in the night.

Myth 4: You’ll need to throw out everything you own if you have bed bugs.

Truth: Most likely you won’t have to leave your expensive TV or computer—or much else—on the curb after a run-in with bed bugs. “Except for severe infestations, you don’t need to throw anything out,” says Potter. “Bed bugs only wind up in places like book bindings and alarm clocks when there’s a massive infestation. When they’re overcrowded in one place, they seek out space in other areas.”

Once your home is treated professionally, your belongings should be okay. Exterminators use heat to kill bed bugs, temperatures up around 140 degrees Fahrenheit. (The high setting on most clothes dryers is well above this, by the way.) They bring in portable heaters and fans and gradually heat the room, using sensors to make sure the heat is well-distributed.

Some pest control companies ask you to strip beds and furniture and bag up belongings including clothes, shoes, and coats so that bed bugs have nowhere to hide during the treatment. You’ll leave these bags (tied tightly) in the room being heated so that the bed bugs get baked with the rest of the space. Most everything in your home, including furniture, can withstand this heat for the hour and a half necessary to kill off the bugs.

Myth 5: A blow dryer is fatal to bed bugs.

Truth: In some cases, it can be. But the trick is keeping bed bugs in one place long enough to take the heat till they’re dead. A hair dryer can be a reliable tool for flushing bed bugs out of cracks and crevices, though. The bugs will scurry away from the hot wind.

Myth 6 : Cayenne pepper or diatomaceous earth can kill bed bugs.

Truth: In studies that Potter has conducted, natural oils or sprays, cayenne pepper, and diatomaceous earth weren’t effective at killing the pests. The same holds true for bug bombs, or sprays containing deet; the concentration is usually not high enough to kill bed bugs or their eggs (and it’s not safe to misuse this chemical by applying more than is recommended). Professional heat treatment by an exterminator is the surest way to kill bed bugs.

If you’re waiting for treatment, you might be able to reduce the number of bed bugs by laying down Cimexa’s Insecticide Dust, which is made mostly of silicon dioxide. Sprinkle it in cracks and joints of a bed frame and in any contact points where bugs could hide (for example, where wood meets the floor and where a bed platform meets the mattress). This insecticide absorbs the waxy exterior of a bed bug’s shell, leaving it desiccated, but you’ll probably need multiple applications. You can also “bake” bedding, shoes, backpacks, and pillows in a clothes dryer set on high for 10 to 20 minutes.

Myth 7: Once they’re gone, they’re gone.

Truth: Bed bugs can live one to four months at regular temperatures (possibly a bit longer at cooler temperatures). An exterminator should come more than once and should inspect your home before offering a quote. Depending on the degree of problem and the size of your home, treatment costs can range from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand; the national average is around $1,750. Many exterminators include a follow-up visit, but some will return several times. (It would be prudent to request this.) After two to three visits from a pro to make sure there are no signs of bed bugs, you can consider yourself clear of the infestation.