How to Protect your Mattress from Bed Bugs

Bed bugs can make themselves at home in your mattress, ruining your sleep and turning your nights into a bugging nightmare. These bloodsuckers can hound you, bite you, and travel on your bed as if it was their own. Bed bugs can become a nuisance, and they should be taken care of to reduce the risk of hindering your sleep routine or causing multiple health problems. Although they typically feed on blood every five to ten days, they can be quite resilient as they are capable of surviving several months to a year without feeding.

So here are a few tips for bed bug control:

• Be sure to check for signs of bugs – lift up the corner of the sheet and look on the edge of the bed near the seam for any droppings or exoskeletons (they shed!). If you do get bedbugs, don’t think that tossing the old mattress will get rid of all bugs. A female adult bedbug can lay up to 200 eggs in her lifetime.
• Using a bed bug mattress cover can help minimize an infestation. A tightly woven case will keep bed bugs from infesting your mattress or box spring. Once it is installed, bed bugs already in the mattress cannot escape, and will eventually die inside the encasement.
• Vacuum frequently to remove any successful hitchhikers (Bed bugs are great at hitchhiking!)
• Shared laundry facilities can be an active ground for bugs to hitchhike. Use plastic bags to transport items that need to be washed. And if the bug infestation is active, for the journey back home, use a new bag. Wash clothes in hot water and dry them on the highest heat setting, as a dryer on high heat can kill bed bugs. You should remove the clothes from the dryer, place them directly into the bag and fold them at home.
• Consider purchasing a portable heating chamber to treat any items that you believe may have bed bugs. These chambers use an electric heater that forces hot air into the chamber to effectively kill bed bugs in all life stages, in hours.

There is no absolute prevention for bed bugs.

Our company has a well-qualified team, with graduates from the top Purdue University Entomology Department. These graduates train our technicians to execute the best bug treatment. Advanced Services provide six treatments per year (versus most companies’ four), and our pest-free guarantee covers more critters. Our happy staff will deliver the kind of service you would want to tell your neighbor about, and the bugs won’t live to hear your story!