Is your home infested with bed bugs? Are you wondering how to exterminate these bothersome pests? If so, then you need to take special care to avoid the following acts which will most likely worsen your problem. Following are some 5 things you should not do when trying to remove bedbugs from your home.
1. Do not turn up the heat- It is true that exposing bed bugs to temperatures above 1200 F would kill all of their life stages. However, this high heat must be uniformly applied in the whole house, or else the bedbugs would escape from hot parts of the house and hide in the cooler rooms. Maintaining high temperatures is challenging because you will not only need to heat up the rooms but also the deep sofas, crevices, and cracks in your walls and furniture. Maintaining such high temperatures is not only expensive but can also damage your belongings.
2. Do not throw away your bedbug-infested mattress and buy a new one- oftentimes, the infestation is not confined to the mattress. Bedbugs can hide in cracks in the wall and in some crevices in the bed. Immediately you bring in the new mattress, the bedbugs will move into the new mattress and multiply their colonies causing serious problems to you and to your household.
3. Do not leave home or move from the infested room to sleep in a different room or hotel as a control measure- Doing this would be an exercise in futility because bedbugs can go dormant for extended periods of time and survive without a meal for many months as they wait for their hosts to return.
4. Do not dispose of your infested furniture- Throwing away infested furniture can lead to the spreading of these pests to other people’s homes. You need not take such a drastic measure. Infested furniture can be cleaned and treated. Instead of spreading the problem seek a lasting solution that will not only save you from the high replacement cost of replacing furniture but also from spreading the infestation to your neighbours.
5. Last but most importantly do not apply insecticides unless you know what you are doing. You need to seek advice from professionals on the right insecticides to use. Additionally, you might need to hire a qualified pest control professional to help you deal with the infestation.
As a general rule, always seek to deal with the infestation in its early stage. Always seek help from professionals on how to deal with these bothersome pests. By so doing, you will save yourself the pain of having to pay for widespread extermination costs and you will also protect your loved ones from the discomforts that are seen in bedbug-infested homes.