A best way to avoid bed bugs is to stop them from infesting your house. Once your house is infested, it can take weeks to get rid of them completely. These pesky tiny bugs live in your mattress, couches, headboard, and any other sort of bedding where they can feed on human blood. They cause rashes on your skin when they bite. They are brownish in color and get reddish after feeding on blood. Bedbugs have a rapid reproduction rate, producing more than three generations every year. Their tiny and flat bodies make it easier for them to hide.
While you should turn to a professional exterminator to remove bed bugs from your home successfully, here are six tips you should follow to prevent infestation from occurring in the first place.
1. Clean up the Clutter:
A cluttered home provides more hiding spaces for the bed bugs. This means bed bugs are more likely to infest a cluttered house as its harder to locate them treat them in a messy house. Thus, the first preventive measure you can take is to clean up the clutter. Get rid of all the clutter against the wall. Decluttering your home involves organizing and storing your belongings properly and throwing away the things you no longer need.
2. Wash Your Bedding:
Wash your bedspreads, mattress covers, bedsheets, and blankets regularly. This way, you will be able to notice any signs of a bedbug infestation. Also, change your bedsheets twice and clean the hampers when you do the laundry.
3. Avoid Buying Second-hand Items:
Second-hand electronics or furniture you bring to your home may be carrying bed bugs. Old furniture can be perfect hiding place for these pests. Thus, you should think twice before getting any second-hand item in your home. But if that’s the only choice you have, make sure that you get the second-hand item checked and treated for bedbugs before you take it home.
4. Protect Your Mattress:
Use special bed bug covers to prevent bedbugs from hiding and residing in your mattress and box springs. Protective mattress and bed covers help prevent the bugs from hiding in your bed. Use high-quality encasements that won’t tear easily and regularly inspect them for the signs of bedbug infestations like blood spots, cast skins, and bed bugs.
5. Use Active Guard Liners:
As their name suggests, bedbugs mostly live in your bed so that they can feed on your blood when you are asleep. If your mattress is quite old, consider replacing it with a new one. If your mattress is not that old or even if you have bought it recently, cover it with active guard liner. It can be used to prevent and kill bed bugs. These liners are designed to protect your bed from bed bug infestation and also kill any bed bugs and dust mites in your mattress within a few days.
6. Beware of the Bedbugs when Traveling:
When you are traveling, you are at risk of carrying bed bugs in your luggage and your clothes from the hotels you stayed in. Therefore, you should inspect the hotel room, especially the bed when checking in. Avoid staying in cheap hotels. Don’t place your belongings and clothes on the floor of the hotel room. Get your clothes washed and heat dried before you leave check out the hotel.
