One of the worst feelings is discovering a bed bug in your home. It brings a myriad of questions. Where did they come from? How many are there? How do I get rid of them? Thankfully, Barrier Pest Control has you covered on all fronts. If you discover what you think is a bed bug in your home, the first step is to record the sighting. Take a picture or record a video and send it to us via email. Having a picture or video helps us identify the pest that you think is a bed bug – it will also avert an inspection fee that you would incur without such a picture. If it is in fact a bed bug, our office will schedule a time to do a more thorough inspection to determine the extent of the infestation and give you a quote for the service.
When it comes to treatment, there are typically two courses of action you have to choose between. The first is a heat treatment – this involves heating the entirety of your home to a temperature of 140 degrees Fahrenheit for several hours. The benefits of this style of treatment is that it requires almost no preparation by the home owner. The negatives is that it is expensive and may still require a chemical application in order to guarantee the service. The second is a full chemical application. This involves a treatment of the infected areas and the rest of the home with chemical products to kill bed bugs immediately and over the course of the next several days. The negatives of this style of treatment is that it requires a significant amount of preparation prior to the service. The benefits are that it is significantly more inexpensive and that it is easier to guarantee (no additional products are necessary in case a retreat is needed). Barrier Pest Control provides customers with the full chemical application because of its record of success and because of the cost saving benefits we can pass on to our customers.
As it pertains to preventing bed bugs from entering your home, that is a more difficult endeavor. The only way bed bugs enter your home is by being introduced by an object that is infected with them. These include shoes, bags, luggage, furniture, or any other object that has been in contact with bed bug infestations for a period of time – this could include furniture purchased from Facebook Marketplace or a thrift store or luggage that had been in a hotel room infected with bed bugs. While it may be difficult to know whether an object has been infected, there are ways to make sure that they are not infected when they come home. Beginning soon, Barrier Pest Control will be utilizing heat treatments to treat individual items, including furniture and luggage, to help get rid of bed bugs prior to the items entering your home. While we utilize chemical applications to treat homes infested with bed bugs, heat treatments can be more effective when treating individual items. Next time you buy a couch or bed frame off Facebook or are in a hotel that you are concerned has bed bugs, reach out to us and we’ll get you taken care of!
