Bed Bug Exterminator San Antonio is more than just a guy with chemicals. He has a deep understanding of the bug’s biology.
Detailed inspections help identify the extent of an infestation and locate hiding spots. Exterminators examine mattress seams, the backs of headboards and box springs, and cracks in furniture.
Before treatment, remove clothing, shoes, bags, and purses infested with bed bugs.
- Visual Inspection
Due to their small size, ability to latch onto clothing or luggage, and tendency to spread wherever humans settle, bed bugs are a nuisance pest that can invade homes, businesses, and apartments. They are also difficult to manage, given their quick reproduction rate and propensity for hiding in hard-to-reach places. The best way to detect a bed bug infestation is through frequent visual inspection. The bugs’ excrement causes dark splotches on mattresses and bedding, and itchy bite marks are often left behind when they are disturbed.
Adult bed bugs are flat and about the size of an apple seed. They are usually brown to black in color, although they can be almost white when they are molting or have just been released from their exoskeleton. Bed bug bites look like red, itchy welts.
In addition to the dark splotches and bite marks, you should also be on the lookout for a whitish liquid in the affected area. The liquid is the bed bug’s secretion, and it contains enzymes that break down proteins in the host’s skin cells. The bugs’ saliva will also irritate the skin and cause a rash that may appear on the face, arms, or legs.
The most common place to find a bed bug is in a mattress or upholstered furniture, but they can hide just about anywhere. They like to hide in crevices, and can be found behind picture frames and loose wallpaper as well as inside electrical outlets.
While bed bugs are not known to spread disease, they can still be a significant irritation that makes living, working, or sleeping in an infested environment unbearable. Fortunately, there are a variety of methods to manage this pest, including non-chemical treatments that can be used in conjunction with professional treatment.
If you suspect a bed bug infestation, call in the pros as soon as possible. The sooner you address the problem, the less likely it will spread to other areas of your home or office. In addition to a comprehensive visual inspection, your treatment may include steaming and vacuuming, using traps, and caulking and sealing the places where the bugs are hiding.
- Heat Treatment
This non-chemical option for eradicating bed bugs involves slowly increasing the temperature in your home until it reaches levels that are lethal to every stage of the bug’s life cycle. Your pest control expert will use specialized equipment to heat rooms in your home, which allows them to reach hidden areas such as behind picture frames and inside electrical switch plates.
A big advantage of this method over liquid treatment is that it does not require the use of toxic chemicals. It’s also less disruptive to your day-to-day routine. You’ll have to remove clothes and other items from your home for about 24 hours, but that will be about it in terms of the overall disruption to your life.
Before the heat treatment is conducted you’ll need to take a few precautions, including removing all items from closets and dressers that are infested with bed bugs. If you want to keep these items, they should be sealed in bed bug proof encasements. You should also deflate airbeds and drain water beds to allow for better heat penetration in those areas.
You should also move cluttered items away from walls and off of floors to allow for proper heat penetration. Items stacked up on and against walls and shelves will never be brought to the lethal level of heat, so these areas should be cleared as much as possible before your heat treatment.
The final step is to prepare the home for heat treatment by moving all upholstered furniture 2 feet away from walls and allowing for easy access to mattress and box spring joints. This process is very thorough and requires a great deal of effort on your part, but it will pay off in the long run.
After the treatment is complete, a technician will apply a residual insecticide in all areas of the home where bed bug activity has been reported. This will ensure that any surviving insects and eggs that didn’t die during the heat treatment are killed as soon as they emerge from their hiding places. It will also help to prevent the spread of the bugs to other areas in the home.
- Chemical Treatment
In some cases, a full eradication of bed bugs may require chemical treatment. This is often necessary because of the difficulty in removing a stubborn infestation by spraying alone. During a chemical application, exterminators may use insecticides, dusts, and aerosols to treat areas of the house where a bed bug colony has been detected, as well as their potential travel routes. It is essential for an exterminator to thoroughly cover the entire infested area, as missed spots will likely result in a new outbreak.
A good exterminator will be able to explain their chemical treatment methods in detail, which is important for building trust. They should also provide you with written information about the steps they will take to ensure your home is bed bug free. This should include what cleaning tasks you will need to do, as well as how long it will take for your home to be free of bed bugs.
For example, a reputable pest control company will have an integrated pest management (IPM) strategy that minimizes chemical usage while still eradicating the pests. This approach is important for your health and the environment, so you should look for a pest control company that prioritizes this approach.
Some companies utilize desiccants, which are chemicals that destroy the bed bug’s protective outer coating. This causes the bugs to dehydrate and die. Two examples of desiccants used by bed bug exterminators are silica aerogel and diatomaceous earth.
Another common chemical used to kill bed bugs is neonicotinoids, which target the nicotinic receptors in the nerve cells of the insects. This disrupts the insects’ ability to signal their nervous system and causes them to die. A good bed bug exterminator will use neonicotinoids only when it is necessary, and they will not be applied in a manner that can lead to exposure for people in the household.
It is also possible to kill bed bugs with heat treatments, which are a good option if you want to avoid chemicals. However, it’s important for a pest control company to perform a thorough inspection of your home before using this method because there are many hiding places in which a bed bug can hide. The best way to find these hiding places is by meticulously inspecting every surface, including inside box springs, behind headboards, and around electrical outlets and switches.
- Monitoring
The best way to know if you have bed bugs is by doing a visual inspection. Look carefully in mattress seams, behind picture frames, and along baseboards. Also check for rusty red spots of excrement and shed skins from nymphs. Bed bugs are very small (5 mm across) and narrow (about the width of a pencil eraser). Unlike other pests, they can fit in tiny spaces. If you think you have found a bug, ask an extension agent or other expert to confirm that it is a bed bug. Be sure to take the bug in a sealed jar for identification.
There are several commercial monitoring devices for bed bugs. Passive pitfall-style traps are designed to exploit two specific bed bug behavioral characteristics: their active search for a host upon which to feed, and their tendency to climb vertical coarse surfaces. The traps are placed under the legs of beds and upholstered furniture, or on top of them. The traps are triggered by the foraging insects and capture them in sticky traps, thus preventing them from leaving and reaching other harborages.
Another monitoring device uses a chemical cocktail to mimic harbourage cues: it emits natural or synthetic cocktails of the aggregation pheromones released by the foraging insects. These devices are able to detect low levels of infestations, much more effectively than either visual inspections or information obtained from interviews with occupants.
Other monitors use a combination of sensors to measure temperature, humidity, light and sound levels. The readings are sent to a server over WiFi and processed by software. If the gathered data exceeds certain thresholds, an alert is transmitted to a mobile phone or computer.
Even with the most diligent efforts to eradicate a bed bug infestation, it is possible that some eggs and adult insects survive and continue breeding. To minimize recurrence of an infestation, follow up with regular follow-up inspections and preventive measures. These include encasing mattresses and box springs in insect-proof covers, using interceptors, and taking other preventative steps. In addition, careful cleaning and laundering of clothing, sheets, pillowcases and draperies is recommended to reduce the spread of pesticide-resistant bed bugs.