Bed bugs truly are everyone’s worst nightmare. Once you have bed bugs digging into your mattress and furniture, permanently getting these disgusting creatures out of your home can be incredibly painful and difficult. Hiring a service can also be very expensive, and they don’t come quickly enough. That’s why many want to know how to get rid of bed bugs overnight.
Well, we are here to tell you. There is a lot of ground to cover when it comes to how to get rid of bed bugs in one day. It’s no small feat. But we are going to tell you how to get rid of bed bugs fast. Let’s start with some of the most important information.
What Kills a Bed Bug Instantly?
First, let’s start here. Some may want to know the cause immediately, and we will get to that. However, once you already know you have them, the most important thing you can do is take action. Rubbing alcohol will kill bed bugs immediately. Now, don’t throw a whole bottle of rubbing alcohol on your future. If there is acetone in it, it can permanently ruin the dye in your furniture since it removes dye.
While we will get into a longer discussion on how to get rid of bed bugs, you can put the rubbing alcohol into a spray bottle and start spraying infected areas to stop them from moving around. In some cases, the furniture may already be ruined, and you may need to replace it anyways. But spraying the rubbing alcohol will prevent further damage to other areas of your house.
What is the Main Cause of Bed Bugs?
There are tons of causes for bed bugs, such as buying old furniture, bringing luggage home from hotels, and a lack of pest control. Either of these three causes can lead to more bed bugs as it spreads easily. We can take a look at each one.
- With people who travel more frequently, it is common to bring something like bed bugs home. Furniture in hotels can get dirty, and with more people passing through easier, it is for bed bugs to hitch from one place to another.
- Buying used and old furniture is no different than if you were traveling around yourself. Sometimes the furniture is already infected, and moving it into your home can spread it to other areas.
- Bed bugs start in your own home when you don’t take care of your furniture and properly clean it. Once you get an infestation, it can be tough to fix. It’s better to always do preventative care.
How Long Does it Take to Get Rid of Bed bugs?
So once you have the bed bugs, it can take multiple treatments over several weeks, depending on how bad the infestation level has gotten. While you can instantly spray rubbing alcohol on the matter to start killing them, it still can take multiple tries to get rid of the problem completely. It is not an easy fix.
How to Get Rid of Bed Bugs Without an Exterminator?
Exterminators are not cheap. That’s why some people want to know how to get rid of bed bugs. We will also cover how to get rid of bed bugs on a tight budget. Keep in mind, just because you are on a tight budget does not mean you can afford to go light on the treatment. If you don’t completely eradicate the situation, then bed bugs will keep coming back over and over again. This is why most people do call a professional exterminator to ensure the mess is cleaned up.
How to Get Rid of Bed Bugs Home Remedy
Here is an extensive step-by-step guide on how to fix a bed bug situation.
1. Find the Source of Bed Bugs
You may notice some irregular itchy spots and bites on your skin. This is usually a sign of bed bugs. You’ll also want to do some bed bug bite treatment by putting on cortisone itch cream and antibacterial creams.
When you know where the bites are coming from, collect a sample to give to a pest agent. This does not cost anything and is important to identify what kind of pest you are dealing with. You can also ask local pest control to do this for you, so you don’t risk spreading it more.
If you live in an apartment, any pest control is the responsibility of your landlord and you should notify them immediately.
2. Track Your Progress From The Start
The next step includes writing down the date on which you first noticed the bed bugs and every step you have taken since then. This helps you track the number of treatments and whether you are making progress in getting the bed bugs out.
You will want to make note of the following:
You will want to keep this for future notes so that you can continue to check on the areas once you have disinfected the place.
3. Isolate The Area
Move quickly to isolate the area so that it doesn’t continue to spread. This is an extensive process.
- Seal up all the hiding areas that bugs can go into. This means using caulk to get into crevices and wrap to close any gaps. This forces the bugs to get out into the open rather than hide and come back out later.
- Any furniture that has been infected needs to be sealed off completely. Remove them from the home because you will need to treat them. You don’t want to do this out in the open area of the home. Some furniture may need to be thrown out.
- You can purchase covers and put furniture into storage to ensure they all die in the storage if you can’t afford to throw away the furniture.
If you do end up throwing things away. You can spray-paint the furniture or anything else to indicate that it is not up for grabs.
4. Prepare The Area
Preparing means doing a big decluttering of the home. The first thing people should know is that they shouldn’t move anything from an infested area to a non-infected area. This spreads. But things such as magazines, newspapers, and items that aren’t going to be kept should be discarded.
The cardboard should be thrown out as bed bugs love to hide in there. Clothes should be put into a trash bag but do not necessarily need to be thrown away. We can talk about how to wash your clothes and treat them in the next section.
If bed bugs are in the room then your bed should be moved to the middle of the room and off the walls and away from any other furniture. Discard all the sheets and covers and put this in a trash bag for now.
- It doesn’t hurt to label the trash bags if you are going to try to save the clothes or the sheets.
5. Treat The Area
For all clothes and sheets that you want to save you can heat treat them. This is one of the natural ways to get rid of bed bugs. Put them in a dryer on high heat for minimally 30 minutes. We like to run it twice to be extra safe. Do not put anything back in the infested area. Bed bug heaters can also be bought in stores for how to get rid of bed bugs in a mattress.
Something good to know is that not every method of cleaning bed bugs is legal because you risk others when you don’t do it properly. Here are the most common ways to do it at home.
- Hot treatments are what we mentioned with the dryer. This is how to treat anything that can go in the dryer so that you kill them with heat. If you place all the items in a black bag you can kill them in the heat of summer as well. Some people put them in a closed car, but this risks bringing them into the car. The dryer is a safer method.
- Cold treatments are the exact opposite. This can be dodgy as the environment, and freezer needs to be set to zero and below. In general, you won’t find that most homes don’t have a freezer that supports this kind of temperature.
- Steam cleaners are among the most popular methods for the home approach. Use a steam cleaner to treat your carpets, baseboards, and furniture. You want to set it to at least 130 degrees Fahrenheit to make sure it kills the bed bugs.
While you may do all the steps here the job is still not done. You have to keep reevaluating after every treatment. You want to run through these steps multiple times and again every week to ensure no bed bugs are coming back.
6. Re-evaluate
Come back to your progress tracker and reevaluate each time you do a treatment. You also need to reevaluate every month to make sure once you have got the bed bugs out that they are not coming back. How can you tell if you have a bed bug infection? You will continue to get bits and you can have someone come in and inspect the area for you.
Ways to Prevent Bed Bugs
Bed bugs are a problem you never want to have. Even if you can figure out the big question, “how do I permanently get rid of bed bugs at home?” The problem is a hassle and can cause a lot of damage. That’s why preventive care is the absolute best care you can do.
- Continually wash sheets and clean furniture. A dirty home is a home that attracts bed bugs.
- If you do travel you want to check your bags before you leave your travel destination and again when you get home. Wash clothes innately and empty the contents of the bag. Never leave your clothes in the bag.
- If you buy furniture that is not new do a proper inspection. Don’t bring it into your house immediately. Give it a good steam and cleaning before bringing it in to ensure if there is anything already on it it’s gone before it enters the home.
Take Lots of Care
Once you have bed bugs there is no way around it. It’s better to not live inside the house if you have the option of going somewhere else. You should isolate the area as best as you can so you can keep the bed bugs from continuing to explore the home. It’s not always completely necessary to call a professional but if you have the money to do so it is well recommended.
The process of tackling it yourself as a homeowner is not easy. It’s extensive work and you need to protect yourself at the same time. For instance every time you clean you need to discard your clothes to keep it from tracking around the house. There is no such thing as overcaring for the situation.
There are a number of methods that you can try and approach from the hot method to the cold method. The hot method works better because the cold only works in freezers that can truly be set to zero degrees. But by all means, if you have the ability to tackle the bed bugs, get to it! The longer you wait, the worse.
