It’s not just dirty dorm rooms and filthy apartments that get bed bugs. The truth is, anyone can suffer from a bed bug infestation, no matter how clean and cautious you may be. Bed bugs can get into your home without you realizing it, and before long, you could be waking up with bites on your body. If you or someone you know in Salt Lake City has bed bugs, you might find yourself wondering how bed bugs get into Salt Lake City homes.
Where Bed Bugs Live
Bed bugs live up to their name. Populations can usually be found hiding out in concealed areas around the bedroom such as the baseboard, mattress seams, nightstand, and even alarm clocks and lamps if the infestation is severe enough. But they aren’t limited to the bedroom. Other bed bug hotspots include cushions in upholstered furniture, in the folds of curtains, and inside electronic devices.
How Bed Bugs Get Into Your Home
Like many small pests such as cockroaches and fleas, bed bugs get into our living spaces by hitchhiking their way in. Picked up a piece of furniture off the sidewalk? Brought your luggage back from the hotel? It’s possible that you’ve brought bed bugs back with you. Bed bugs can survive for months without food and their small size makes them hard to detect with the naked eye. This combination of traits makes them masters of the waiting game, able to hide out almost indefinitely until someone transports them to a suitable feeding ground.
Preventing Bed Bugs From Getting Into Your Salt Lake City Home
You can take steps to avoid bringing bed bugs into your home or apartment:
- When traveling, keep bags, purses, and backpacks off the floor where bed bugs can crawl into them. A luggage rack, coat hanger, or bathroom counter are all good choices. A bed bug can crawl more than 100 feet in a single night, but can’t jump or fly, so keep your belongings elevated when in a hotel, apartment, or shared living space.
- Wash your clothes. Bed bugs can hide in the folds of your clothing and hitchhike their way home with you. If you’ve been traveling, you should also wash the clothes you didn’t wear. Make sure to wash your clothes with hot water to kill any bed bugs that may be hiding out in your clothes.
- Check your pets. If you brought your furry companion with you while traveling into a hotel or even a friend’s home or apartment, it’s possible that bed bugs could be brought home by your pet. Give them good grooming to check for any bugs they may be carrying.
Bed Bugs And Secondhand Furniture
Hitchhiking isn’t the only way that bed bugs get into our homes, however. Sometimes, we can unintentionally bring the infestation home ourselves. Secondhand furniture is a major cause of bed bug infestations. It might be the perfect piece to bring together your living room, but that ottoman could be full of creepy crawlies. So, it’s important to inspect any previously owned furniture for bed bugs.
Avoid anything upholstered. Bed bugs like to cling to fabric and textiles and are less likely to be hiding out in wooden furniture (just watch out for splinters). You’ll also want to avoid picking up furniture from the curb. There’s probably a good reason why its previous owners are throwing it out. If you’ve got your heart set on a piece of secondhand furniture or have recently brought one home, you can conduct an inspection with a few simple objects;
- Place your furniture over a white sheet and shake it out. Any bed bugs that fall out will be visible on the sheet.
- Using a credit card, skim the edges and seams of the furniture for any signs of infestation. Eggs, sheddings, and droppings could be found in addition to live bed bugs.
- Inspect concealed areas of the furniture with a flashlight. Bed bugs prefer dark, out of reach areas and don’t like direct light. A strong flashlight should reveal where they’re hiding.
No matter what precautions you take, you might end up with bed bugs anyway. It’s a more common problem than many people realize, and one that’s easily solved with the right pest control solution. So, if you’ve got bed bugs in Salt Lake City, contact the professionals at White Knight Pest Control. They will work with you to eliminate the bed bug problem in your Salt Lake City home or apartment and will keep them from coming back. If you believe you have a bed bug problem, don’t wait until it’s too late. Get in touch with the pest control experts at White Knight Pest Control today for professional bed bug control services!