Okay, someone gave me some old clothes. a week or so later, I have all these red circles on my lower legs. had no clue, my friend came and said lets look at your mattress, yep, bedbugs.
My apt. will spray and they told me to bag all my clothes and put them in the dryer.
I don’t have much furniture, just a bed and couch so will this work? Never had them before. need some advice.
You’re probably pretty lucky. No furniture and you just moved in and you discovered them just as you got them - many people have lots of furniture and don’t discover them until they’re full-on infestations. I had them and had my own ‘cure’ that finally worked, but probably the best suggestion I can give is to coordinate with your landlord.
I used to like to shop thrift stores for bargains in designer used clothes, but you just listed the reason I stopped this practice.
20 minute in a hot clothes dryer will kill the bugs and eggs, but be aware that the clothing can be reinfested after you take it out of the dryer. For example, if you dry the clothes and them set them on an infested bed, or set them next to clothes you haven’t dried yet, the bugs can move into the dried clothes. So be careful how you manage the clothes while you’re drying them.
I hope the apartment management is hiring a qualified exterminator to do the spraying. Just buying some bed bug spray and spritzing it around some likely looking areas probably won’t be effective.
That’s fine, just so long as you make sure to wash & machine dry them before wearing (or even hanging in your closet). Some designer clothes need dry cleaning, not washing, which adds to the cost (though still usually a bargain). But if they can be machine dried, just a good cycle in a hot dryer should kill any bugs & eggs.
For things that can’t tolerate heat, you can also kill bedbugs and their eggs in the freezer. If your freezer gets down to 0 F (it should), then a few days in there will work (you probably want to put things in zip-lock bags with as much air squeezed out as possible, to minimize condensation).
You’ll also want to isolate your bed to limit bedbug movement in and out. Put a jar lid or plastic cup or something similar around each leg, and then pour in diatomaceous earth (which you can get cheaply at a hardware store). It’s only a minor skin irritant to humans, but if insects try to crawl through it, it gets embedded in their exoskeletons and dries them out.
If the bed is wood, especially old wood with lots of nooks and crannies, you might just want to throw it out and replace it with a metal bedframe.
Oh, and before the exterminator arrives, make sure that the bed and other furniture is moved away from the walls so he can spray them.
130 degrees will kill bedbugs in a short period of time, but you have to account for the time it takes everything to warm up to that temperature. It’s like putting something in a 400 degree oven, your food may be in there an hour or more and not break 150 degrees, it certainly won’t reach 400 degrees in that time.
I got rid of mine about six years back by the sheer dumb luck of it being in the middle of a winter with multiple, multiple day periods where the temperature reached -20. I put my mattress in a vinyl case, all my bedding, clothing and the contents of my linen closet in bags and threw them out on the deck for three days.
Cold is a little different, in that it can take a lot longer than heat. Bedbugs can survive for several days at zero Fahrenheit.
Then I put diatomaceous earth in the corner I suspected they were coming from (the apartment below), around the entire edge of the bedroom and around the bottom of the linen closet. I bought this peppermint extract spray that allegedly kills them on contact and heavily sprayed the linen closet, the dresser and bed frame, etc.
That took care of it before it came to the point where there was a mass infestation.
I dried most of my clothes for an hour, then put them in a large bag and tied it up. Only the mattress and box spring (no frame) hasa them. Apparently, the couch didn’t get hit yet, considering I had no idea why my legs were being bit up for 2 weeks.
I’ve dealt with bedbugs before. There was an infestation in my apartment building years ago and I was one of the people tasked with handling it. I also had bedbugs in a small apartment I rented when I was temporarily displaced. That situation sounds a lot like yours, it was relatively easy because I didn’t have a lot of stuff there.
You need to either replace your mattress or get an encasement designed for the purpose of protecting it. Check it regularly and make sure it is completely zipped up.
I used a lot of double stick tape. Once I was satisfied that the bed and bedding were clean, I made a barrier of double stick tape on the floor and walls around the bed. Put down wide masking tape first then put the double stick tape on top to keep from damaging the floor finish and wall paint. I also made a closet that I knew was clean into a safe zone by putting double stick tape completely around the door frame.
In theory, the tape trick can help you find out what direction the bugs are coming from. In my case, I never trapped a bug. Someone later told me the tape itself acts as a repellent. But it kept me from getting bit until extermination was complete.
Also, when you are searching out bugs and exterminating, don’t forget to look up. Some exterminators even miss this. But when we had stubborn cases in our building it frequently turned out the bugs were nesting in wall hangings, drapery valances and behind picture frames and the exterminators were missing these.
Good luck.
Black trashbags in the car in the sun on a hot summer day work as well or better than dryers.
Formula 409 kills the bugs, and apparently the eggs, without any nasty nerve gas side effects.
Cite?
This site says “Using bleach, 409, roach traps and other common household items will not work against bed bugs.” And this one agrees: “Unfortunately, the approaches you are using such as using 409 and Febreeze, will have little or no impact on bed bugs.”
Febreze is useless. It’s a crown ether, not a decent surfactant. 409 includes surfactants which block the bugs breathing apparatus. It’s like spraying ants with soap, but less messy. You have to cover the bug pretty well, but their little legs will curl up, and they’ll still be curled up there two days or two weeks later when you arrive with a vacuum cleaner. Eggs are harder to pin down, but the population of tiny ones goes down fast after 409 treatment.
Steam works too, where it can reach. And 409 isn’t as good as the acetylcholinesterse inhibitors (nerve gas) sprays that’ll make you sick too, but do you honestly expect a website run by a company that sells you on paying for ‘professional’ steaming to point out that you can do just as well or better with some plastic bags, and a cleaner you can buy in any American grocery store?
-You have to watch for the agenda of your refs on the internet. Here, dig around: 409 bedbugs at DuckDuckGo
If they need blood, won’t they die if I am staying at someone else’s house?
Today I bought one of those covers for the mattress after it is sprayed.
Yes, if you stay away for a year or more.
There are a lot of sites online that say that home remedies don’t work, but then again, if you look closer, most of those sites are hosted by exterminator companies. I’m not sure I trust their objectivity.
Another thing you’ll want to do is to document where you’re seeing them and when. The “where” part might help you track down nests that you missed on the first round (and you will miss some on the first round), and the “when” will help you know when you’ve finally gotten all of them.
Having killed the things with surfactants, bugs breathe through pores in their skeleton, I’m certain that they are spreading misinformation. 30+ years a chemist helps too.
Learning to track them to their lairs is important. They leave little black dots of poop there. They are not big travelers, but if one climbs on you on the bed, it’ll still be there when you move to the basement sofa. Population goes exponential surprisingly fast, so vigilance is the watch word.
I’d never seen one before, so when I got little red dots on my lower legs (nowhere else amazingly) I thought it was fleas. They are spraying now, they didn’t see any on the loveseat, oddly. They told me to stay out for three hours. Should I wash the sink and tub when I return? I don’t think they will spray everywhere. Should I ask them to do it again in a few weeks, as a friend told me?
I have plastic covers to be put on the bed and box spring when done.
I’ve been here.
I’ve lived this nightmare.
I bought a used leather couch from a friend who was moving south… short version, my kids and I became an endless buffet. It didn’t help that it was the start of summer and we just thought it was mosquito bites… by the time I realized, they had already moved upstairs to our bedrooms (Via blankets that went from the couch to the bedrooms).
Once I found out, I looked at the options and they were all VERY VERY expensive.
But I got a cheaper way out…
I had a friend who was an exterminator and he gave me the following advice (Which worked):
[ul]
[li]All stuffed animals (If you have kids) placed in a contractor bag and tied tight for at least 6 months[/li][li]buy bedbug-proof mattress covers for all your beds - Keep on for 6 months to a year[/li][li]buy bedbug-proof couch cover - Keep on for 6 months to a year[/li][li]wash ALL CLOTHES in the HOTTEST WATER POSSIBLE and Dry in the HOTTEST DRYER POSSIBLE (Better yet, take it all to a laundromat and do it there).[/li][/ul]
But, the most important thing of all he told me was:
BUY THIS STUFF FROM AMAZON AND SPRAY IT IN EVERY NOOK AND CRANNY OF YOUR HOUSE
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007VFL2WM/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Repeat the process every two weeks for the first two months, and then once a month for 3 more months.
That spray kills most bedbugs and neuters any eggs and just-borns so they can’t reproduce.
My house was bedbug free within a year and I saved over 1000 bucks.
Even by bedbug standards, “free within a year” is pretty slow. And I’m sure it’d have cost a lot less than $1000 to heat-treat the whole house.
I dunno, Chro-ole-buddy-ole-friend…
https://www.thumbtack.com/p/bed-bug-heat-treatment-cost
It does say prices range from 400 to 2000 bucks, but the lower end prices usually require a follow-up…
In choosing my own path (From my friend the exterminator’s advice) I spent ~300 bucks and my legs have been back to their pale-Irish-white-man status for over a year.