Make Your Home More Inviting This Spring

Posted on: 28 September 2016

If you arrived home from your last vacation with some unwanted guests from your hotel stay, then you will be happy to learn that you can eradicate them from your home. While getting rid of a bed bug infestation is not simple, quick, nor easy, with some persistence and effort, you can remove all of them from your family's living space in a reasonable amount of time.

Use this process to locate and eradicate the bed bugs that traveled home with you from your vacation:

Step 1: Gather All of the Necessary Supplies

To remove the bedbugs from your home, you need to gather up the following supplies:

• a box of lawn and leaf trash bags

• rubber bands

• a vacuum cleaner with disposable bags

• isopropyl alcohol

• a spray bottle

In addition to the items listed above, you also need to use a clothing dryer to kill a bed bug infestation. Using your own dryer will help to prevent the bed bugs from spreading to other people's homes.

Step 2: Collect All Infected Items

Using one of the large lawn and leaf trash bags, walk around all of the rooms of your home that are affected by the bed bugs and remove any items that can be disposed of as trash.

Don't over-fill the bags because you need to leave plenty of room at their tops to tie them closed. Additionally, you should wind a rubber band over the tied area of each bag to contain any bed bugs that might be inside of the bags. Place the bags inside of your trashcan or take them to the landfill.

It is also important to note that you should not dispose of bed bug contaminated materials in cardboard boxes. The bed bugs will escape from the boxes and infest other homes.

Step 3: Remove All Porous Materials

Once the spaces are free of disposable items, you should run your vacuum in all the affected spaces of your home. Using more trash bags, gather up all of the porous materials located in the rooms.

Fabric items should immediately be placed into your clothing dryer to kill all bed bugs and their eggs. The dryer should be run on its hot setting for an hour. Once completed, then the items should be washed and dried as usual.

If the rooms have area rugs, then they need to be laundered. If the room has large area rugs that cannot be washed or wall-to-wall carpeting, then it needs to be removed and taken to the landfill. You are fighting a loosing battle to try and combat bed bugs with carpeting.

Once all of the porous materials have been removed from the rooms, then you need to vacuum them very well. Go over each area of the floor and baseboards multiple times to remove any bed bugs or eggs that are hiding. When you finish, take out the vacuum cleaner bag and place it into a trash bag, seal the trash bag, and place it into the trash dumpster.

Step 4: Spray the Room with Isopropyl Alcohol

Finally, to kill any bed bugs or eggs that are still left in your home from your vacation, place isopropyl alcohol in a spray bottle and spray down all of the baseboards and flooring in the affected areas of your home. Repeat this process daily until you no longer have any bed bugs.