National pest management has seen an increase in bedbugs by 70 percent. Janice Lieberman reported for NBC's "The Today Show" on December 8, 2008 about bed bug prevention and elimination. Learn what a bedbug is, what to do about them if you have them in your home, and how to prevent an infestation.
What are Bed Bugs?
Bed bugs are small insects that feed on human blood. Signs of bedbugs include bites that appear in a line. Full grown they are only about 1/4 inch, oval shaped and flat. They can be white after a molt, tan, brown or orange. If they have eaten recently, they can have a dark spot in the middle of their body. Finding empty shells in your bedding can indicate that you have bed bugs. They can be found anywhere in your home and hotel room, not just in the bed, but prefer to hide close to your bed and feed at night.
Bed bugs can get into your home as a stowaway in your luggage from a recent trip, and in the cracks of used furniture that you bring into your home.They can survive for up to a year without eating, so they can be found in a supposedly clean apartment, and can even travel through the walls to adjoining apartments. Bed bugs can be extremely difficult to get rid of.
How to Get Rid of Bed Bugs
You can spend thousands of dollars to get rid of bed bugs. Continued treatments may not kill all the bugs and can leave you frustrated and itchy. Canines and pest control experts together can help reduce the costs of eliminating bed bugs. Bill Whitestone, founder of the Florida Canine Academy, rescues dogs and trains them for this purpose. The use of dogs to aid pest control experts helps to cut down the time and amount of pesticides needed to eradicate bed bugs.
The dogs can help pinpoint where the bugs are and rule out where they are not in order to focus efforts to get rid of them. This helps to cut down the time and amount of pesticides needed to eradicate bed bugs. According to a study done by the University of Florida, dogs are 98% accurate in finding bed bugs whereas exterminators are only about 30% accurate.
How to Prevent Bed Bugs
Prevention is the best solution for a bed bug problem. When you travel, if you find signs of bed bugs in your hotel room, notify hotel management immediately and have them switch you to another room. Sanitation makes no difference in the presence of bed bugs, so even the cleanest, five star hotel can be infected.
When you arrive home from a trip, leave your suitcase in the garage or car port until you are ready to do laundry, and then wash and dry all your clothes even clean ones in very hot water. You can also use special mattress pad covers that keep the bed bugs out but allow air in.
If you discover bed bugs in your home, taking steps quickly to eradicate them is prudent. You can still get rid of the bed bugs if there are no exterminators in your area that use canines to find the bed bugs, just keep in mind that you will need to do your part as well to wash everything and eliminate clutter that the bugs can hide in.
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