Bedbugs on mattresses and how to get them out of here as quickly as possible

Why do bedbugs appear in bed?

Bedbugs always enter premises from somewhere outside, except when you move into an apartment where they have already lived before you. Insects can accidentally “arrive” in the house for:

• Your clothes and shoes
• Pet hair
• Packaging materials for goods
• Books and magazines
• Used purchases
• Furniture, including new
• Luggage and bags

If bedbugs live somewhere in the house - in the basement, in the attic, with neighbors, they can crawl into the apartment themselves through ventilation shafts, communication channels, cracks and open windows. The main reason why bedbugs appear in bed is purely practical - for parasites this is the most convenient place to feed.

At night, a person, practically without moving, spends a lot of time in bed, which gives bedbugs the opportunity to feed slowly and at the same time remain in relative safety, because the food literally comes to them and kindly freezes for several hours, even at that time of day, which is when pest activity peaks.

Bedbugs in a mattress: why do they appear and how to get rid of them?

If you have the slightest suspicion that someone is “sleeping” in your bed with you to drink your blood, act immediately: check the mattress, pillowcase, sheets and bed frame. If bedbugs are not visually visible in a bed, this does not mean that they do not exist; they know how to hide well.

Inspect your body for a bite in the mirror; if there is one, you may have bed bugs.

In this article, we will take a closer look at why bedbugs appear on a mattress and whether they can live inside a mattress, as well as how to remove bedbugs at home without the help of special services. All instructions on how to remove bedbugs from a mattress are illustrated with photos.

Where did bedbugs come from in the mattress?

The appearance of parasites in your bed can come as a complete surprise if you keep your apartment clean. So where do bedbugs come from and can they settle in a completely new mattress from the store?

In the photo: bedbugs in a mattress, old and new. Traces of their vital activity are visible; dark spots are bedbug excrement.

We list the main ways a bedbug can enter a house:

• ventilation system - through it insects move freely from one apartment to another;
• windows - in the warm season, bedbugs can move from the basement or neighboring apartment directly along the walls and enter your home through the window;
• guests - they can, without knowing it, bring parasites with them;
• hotels, hostels - by staying in unverified places on a trip, you risk bringing bedbugs home in a suitcase with clothes;
• workers - if they are doing repairs at your place, they may have brought bloodsuckers from the previous repair site;
• shops - from a furniture store you can bring new furniture or a mattress already infested with bedbugs into your apartment, because the warehouses in which goods are stored are not sparklingly clean.

Prevention of insects

It is easier to avoid such a problem than to subsequently continuously fight blood-sucking pests. In order to prevent bedbugs from choosing upholstered furniture and mattresses located at home, you should regularly keep the premises clean and constantly carry out wet cleaning using detergents and disinfectants. Bed linen is changed promptly, rooms are ventilated. Old furniture is cleaned and disinfected before use and only then brought into the house. Animals can also cause insects, so you should carefully monitor the cleanliness of your pet and its sleeping area.

How to tell if there are bedbugs in a mattress

A bedbug cannot get inside bedding because its body is larger than the size of the pores in the fabric. A similar statement applies to parasite larvae. The only way for an individual to end up inside is if the tissue is damaged or if there are holes.

There is a common misconception among people that blood-sucking parasites live only in bedding, pillows, and blankets. This is due to the fact that larvae and adults prefer to go out in search of food at night. Waking up, a person sees red spots and realizes that he was attacked by bedbugs. Therefore, it seems that insects live only in beds and sofas. But sometimes they actually colonize the filling of pillows, blankets and other bedding.

How can you tell if there are bedbugs in a mattress? If you notice bites and red spots in the morning, start by visually inspecting the bed. The presence of bedbugs is indicated by dark spots on the sheets, mattress, or pillow. These are traces of crushed individuals and their excrement. At the seams there may be a light translucent husk - the remains of the chitinous shell. Another indirect sign is a sharp unpleasant odor, vaguely reminiscent of the aroma of fermented raspberries or cognac.

If the parasites have managed to seriously increase the population, then their larvae, live adult insects and clutches of eggs can be found on the back of the mattress and in the joints of the wooden elements of the bed. When treating a room, remember that nests of blood-sucking parasites should be looked for behind cabinets, under baseboards, in cracks in the flooring, behind the carpet.

Thus, the following signs indirectly indicate the presence of bedbugs in a mattress:

• marks on the skin from bites;
• dark spots on bedding and pillows;
• unpleasant and pungent odor;
• chitinous shells on the surface of a mattress, furniture.

It will not be possible to be 100% sure that bedbugs have settled inside the mattress based on visual signs. You can find out if you open the product and carefully turn out the filler. But if you suspect that there are bedbugs living inside your old mattress, it is better to get rid of it and buy a new one.

Where to look for bedbugs indoors?

You can start looking for nests from the mattress. To do this, you need to lift him out of bed, and then carefully examine all the fabric and its seams. You can see bedbugs and their eggs on them, and on the fabric you can find blood stains that remain if a person accidentally crushes a well-fed bedbug at night. You also need to inspect the bed slats on which the mattress lay. They may contain remnants of the chitinous coverings of bedbugs, as well as their excrement, which looks like small black dots. There may also be eggs and larvae of parasites. Most likely, if bedbugs have been infested for a long time, then during an inspection of the bed all these signs will be revealed.

Then you should unroll the bed and pay attention to the joints of the wooden structures. Many people are very surprised to find bedbugs there. They believe that insects cannot live in such small cracks and therefore decide that they have climbed into the mattress. In reality, everything turns out to be the opposite. They cannot climb into a whole mattress, but they feel great in the cracks.

Continuing the search for nests, you need to move all the furniture away from the walls and inspect its back walls; it is also worth looking under it. Then you need to remove the baseboards and, if possible, bend the edge of the linoleum or remove several laminate boards.

The video below shows treatment in an apartment in Balashikha, where bedbugs were hiding even under the parquet:

You need to check everything, otherwise it will simply not be possible to determine where the nests of parasites are and where to start poisoning them.

However, it is impossible to know for sure whether there are bedbugs inside the mattress. You can find out only by cutting it open and examining the contents. It is impossible to detect the presence of parasites inside it by any external signs. In addition, it makes no sense to carry out such an inspection when purchasing a new mattress, since they are almost never infected.

Almost always, when bedbugs appear in the house, all rooms have to be treated. When calling an exterminator, many are surprised when the specialist finds and shows them bedbugs that are hiding throughout the apartment. When deciding to fight against bedbugs yourself, this also needs to be taken into account. It is necessary to treat with special means all places where nests or traces of bedbugs have been found, as well as possible paths along which they can move. It makes no sense to destroy parasites in only one place. There they may die, but their other relatives will survive and continue to bite the resident with no less intensity.

How long do house bugs live?

The average lifespan of a bed bug is 10-12 months. In particularly extreme conditions (for example, during a sharp cold snap or the absence of a person in the house for a long time), they fall into suspended animation, in which they can remain for more than a year until the return of a source of food or normalization of external climatic conditions.

IMPORTANT! Household bugs are also called bed bugs, and their clutches instantly die at temperatures of +50°C and -10°C.

Lifestyle

Bed bugs are predominantly nocturnal. Only a certain danger or alarm can force them to become active during the daytime, for example, destruction of their habitat or the action of third-party chemicals.

The parasites are most active between 3 am and 6 am. At this time, they are especially dangerous for humans, since they go out in search of food, this is their feature. Insects are mobile and fast, they can get from any corner of the apartment to the bed in a matter of seconds, spend about half an hour feeding and return to their previous shelter.

Bed bugs spend most of their life cycle preferring to hide in various shelters, emerging at night to satisfy their hunger or to find a new home if the old one has been destroyed.

IMPORTANT! Parasites usually eat once every 5-7 days. If you notice new bites on your body every day, this is a sure signal that there are a huge number of parasites in the house.

After a single feeding, bedbugs digest the blood somewhere in a secluded corner of the home.

Reproduction and development

Bed bugs mate through traumatic insemination:

1. The male, using his genital organ, pierces the female’s abdomen and injects seminal fluid into it.
2. After a few weeks, the female begins to lay eggs (up to 5 eggs daily). Over the entire life cycle, one adult female is capable of laying about 250-500 eggs.
3. An insect in an egg will develop to the adult stage on average 30-45 days, but in extreme conditions development can take up to 100 days.
4. Bedbug larvae immediately begin to look for food on their own, because to move to the next stage of development (and to molt) they need a certain amount of blood they drink.

How to find bedbugs in a mattress

Is it possible to independently detect blood-sucking parasites inside a product? How to find bedbugs in a mattress? This is a difficult and almost impossible task, since larvae and adults lead a nocturnal, secretive lifestyle. When a person appears, they immediately hide.

It is very difficult to detect a small bug, and even more so its larva, inside the filler. The presence of dark spots on the surface of the mattress and other indirect signs usually indicate the presence of blood-sucking parasites in other parts of the apartment - in the joints of upholstered furniture and wooden elements of the bed, in closets, in cracks in the flooring. A high probability of bedbugs entering the mattress occurs only if there are holes or other damage to the mattress cover.

Where do they come from?

Bedbugs
The appearance of bedbugs in a home does not indicate the unsanitary condition of the premises. Bloodsuckers settle in close proximity to humans. Waste and garbage, unlike cockroaches or Prussians, are not of interest to them. Therefore, bedbugs can appear even in a new apartment where the cleanest housewife lives.

The main ways bedbugs appear in an apartment:

• Passed on from neighbors. Especially if they have started pest control, but not effectively enough;
  

  Review

  After the owners of the neighboring apartment changed, they began to find cockroaches in their kitchen and bedbugs in their beds. The treatment was done more than once, trying to cope with the pests on their own, but the result was very short-lived. Which only made the situation worse. In addition, it turned out that this problem arose not only in our apartment. This continued until the neighbors got together and called a pest control service to kill the bedbugs. But I still had to part with the mattress.

  Maria, Omsk

• You can find a bedbug in a bed in a cheap hotel, sanatorium or train carriage. As a result, there is a high probability of placing such a “tenant” at home;
  

  Review

  While on a business trip I had to stay at a hotel. When I found a bedbug on the bed, I understood the reason for the red itchy spots on my body. And looking under the mattress, I was horrified - insects were simply swarming there. I had to look for another hotel. And upon arriving home, I urgently washed all my things, I was very afraid of bringing bed bugs home.

  Valentina, Moscow

• When buying books, clothes, paintings and other used items. Also, when purchasing furniture secondhand, you can often find bedbugs in a mattress or sofa.

Bedbugs in a mattress, what to do

If a person finds out that he has bedbugs in his mattress, the first question that appears to him is: “What should I do?” Everyone will have a desire to get rid of unwanted neighbors as quickly as possible. The most effective method of exterminating blood-sucking parasites is to seek help from a professional pest control service. Qualified specialists, after a visual inspection of the premises, will develop an optimal strategy on how to get rid of bedbugs in a short time.

Today, two main methods are used to treat a room - hot and cold fog. They involve spraying a chemical using a special device - a generator, which supplies the insecticide in the form of tiny particles. They hover in the air and gradually settle on all surfaces of the apartment - walls, floors, ceilings, furniture and other interior items. This allows for the treatment of all hard-to-reach areas in a short period of time.

The hot and cold fog methods differ in the temperature of the chemical preparation. Preference is given to a heated insecticide if the room materials allow. But in most apartments and houses, treatment is carried out with a cold fog so as not to damage the wallpaper and furniture.

The chemical preparation has a great influence on the effectiveness of the event. Professional pest control services use a substance with a prolonged action, which has a detrimental effect on bedbugs for several more days. This allows you to destroy not only adult individuals, but also blood-sucking parasites that emerged from the egg after spraying the insecticide.

For maximum results and to prevent the reappearance of bedbugs, it is recommended to use comprehensive control methods, organize a protective barrier and carry out preventive measures. This may include the use of repellent aromas and preparations, the installation of a ventilation grill with small cells through which small insects cannot penetrate.

Signs of presence

It is not always possible to see bedbugs due to their small size. Insects go hunting only in the morning, when their future victim is in the deepest sleep. The following symptoms will help you understand that there are bed bugs:

• waste products - the presence of black crumbs (excrement) resembling ground pepper, as well as dry chitinous covers shed during the molting process, indicate the presence of pests; they can often be found in the seams of the mattress;
• if the mattress is saturated with a specific smell reminiscent of sour raspberries;
• blood stains on the bed left after bed bug bites;
• bites on open areas of the skin - they can appear in different places, pests especially often attack children's skin, since it is more delicate;
• yellow spots on the sheet indicate that bedbugs have settled in the bed.

Below are the bedbugs in the mattress in the photo.

Bedbugs

How and with what to treat a mattress against bedbugs?

First of all, you need to remove the bed linen from the mattress and wash it well at high temperature and steam or iron it.

The next step is to remove the mattress from the bed frame. To prevent the spread of parasites, carpets or other things located near the bed must be removed.

After the area is cleared, we begin to examine the mattress. We pull it out from the base, turn it over on its edge and examine it from all sides. Most likely, signs of bedbugs will be detected instantly. If they are not visible on the outside, look inside the mattress; perhaps this is where bedbugs live and breed.

If the covering is removable, then remove and wash it, then steam it thoroughly with a home steamer or hang it to dry in the sun. Treat the insides of the mattress with an insecticide against bedbugs; Xulat Micro or any other effective preparation is suitable for this. If the casing cannot be removed, begin processing immediately, but be sure to follow the manufacturer’s instructions and take safety precautions! Treat the entire area of ​​the room, especially furniture located next to the bed, baseboards, corners and hard-to-reach places.

At the next stage, you need to disassemble the sleeping area and provide access to all hard-to-reach areas in order to destroy the parasites that have settled in them with a bedbug repellent. If the mattress is more than 5 years old, it would be better to throw it out and buy a new one, this way you will get rid of bed dust mites and allergies to them.

How to get rid of it and what to treat it with to get rid of the insect?

Before you begin getting rid of pests, do some prep work to increase your chances of success:

1. Make sure all bedding, carpets, curtains and clothing close to the bed have been cleaned or thrown away.
2. Get rid of the secret habitats of bedbugs - books, magazines and other things lying under the bed.
   Attention. Do not move items from an infested room to another room - you may help the bedbugs spread.

Insecticides can help rid your home of bedbugs. To do this, choose products that have a special o. Types of insecticides that you can use to get rid of insects yourself:

• Pyrethrins and pyrethroids are the most common compounds used to control bedbugs and other indoor pests.
  1. Pyrethrins are botanical insecticides derived from chrysanthemum flowers.

  Pyrethroids are synthetic chemical insecticides that act like pyrethrins.

Both compounds are lethal to bedbugs and can bring them out of hiding and kill them. However, where resistant strains of bedbugs exist, these treatments may result in them being moved to a new location or temporarily removed from existing locations.

Important. Some bedbug populations have become resistant to pyrethrins and pyrethroids. Sometimes using a combination product (either multiple pyrethroid or pyrethrin active ingredients, or one that combines different chemical classes into the same product) can improve bed bug control.

Read also:  Why bed bugs do not bite all people in the family - can they bite one person in the house, why do they bite some and not others, can they bite drunk people

A different class of chemical should also be used to completely control and eliminate persistent bedbug populations.

• Chlorfenapyr is the only pyrrole pesticide currently registered for use against bedbugs. The new chemical disrupts certain functions in the pest's cells, causing its death.
• Neonicotinoids are synthetic forms of nicotine and act on receptors in the nervous system, causing it to constantly fire until it fails. Neonicotinoids can be effective in controlling bedbug populations that do not respond to other forms of insecticide.
• Dehumidifiers – destroy the waxy, protective outer coating of the bug. Once it is destroyed, the insect slowly dehydrates and dies. Dehumidifiers are a valuable tool in the fight against bed bugs. In addition, they have a long-lasting effect. Examples of dehumidifiers include:
  1. Diatomaceous earth.

  Boric acid.

When using dehumidifiers, it is important to use ones that are labeled for bed bug control. Dehumidifiers intended for other purposes, such as food or for use in swimming pools, pose an increased risk of inhalation to humans. The use of desiccants is only possible in cracks and crevices to avoid toxic inhalation.

• Foggers or bug bombs kill bedbugs that are on the surface. The drug does not penetrate into cracks and crevices, which are the secret places of beetles. Read the label carefully before use as it may be toxic to humans.
• Insect growth regulators are chemicals that mimic juvenile growth hormones. They work by altering the production of chitin (the compound that makes the hard outer "shell" or exoskeleton) or altering the insect's development into adulthood. Some growth regulators cause the insect to develop too quickly, while others stop development.
• Oil-based plant products are less toxic than chemical insecticides but also work well in killing bedbugs.

If you can't eliminate bedbugs yourself, it's time to call in the professionals.
Pest control companies have the advantage of using chemicals and other methods that are not available to you. They have insecticides that kill insects on contact. Many are left inside furniture to kill bed bugs in the long term. Attention. Getting rid of bedbugs is a difficult process, in most cases requiring the hands of a specialist.

He will be able to recommend forms of deep cleaning such as:

• cleaning contaminated surfaces with a stiff brush to remove eggs;
• treatment with diatomaceous earth;
• steaming or heat treatment;
• dismantling bed frames and furniture;
• cold fog under carbon dioxide pressure;
• filling cracks in floors and walls;
• use of vacuum.

Insecticides are an effective way to kill bedbugs, but they are not the only way. You or a family member may be sensitive to chemicals, in which case use heat treatment. Temperatures above 50 degrees kill all offspring of bedbugs.

Professional heat treatment is one of the least invasive ways to get rid of pests. Combating bedbug infestations requires a professional approach, a combination of non-chemical and chemical methods, as well as pesticides.

How to treat a mattress to get rid of bedbugs?

We have already briefly described how to independently treat a room from bed bugs, now we will discuss what other ways there are to get rid of bed bugs in a mattress. There are four main ways:

• freezing;
• heat treatment;
• contacting a specialized company;
• self-removal of bedbugs using chemicals.

Let's consider the first method - cooling. In winter there is nothing complicated about it, since insects die from a temperature of -20C in about a day. Take your mattress out into the yard and leave it for two days. And when you bring it in, don’t forget to shake it off. This method is effective, but not 100%, since some of the bloodsuckers remain in the house, behind baseboards and in other secluded places.

Let's move on to the second method - exposure to hot air or steam. To do this, you need to thoroughly treat the mattress with a steamer or steam generator on all sides, without missing seams and joints. The method, like the previous one, has disadvantages.

You can seek help from a specialized company or city SES. They can be found in almost any city, all newspapers are full of such advertisements, and there are even more offers on the Internet. Do not be fooled by the low cost of the procedure; most likely, cheap treatment will be carried out with low-quality drugs that will not completely eliminate the problem. The average cost of services of a professional exterminator in Moscow is 2-3 thousand rubles.

Specialized chemicals, of which there are plenty on sale, will also help in getting rid of bloodsuckers. They differ in chemical composition and cost. It is better to buy new drugs rather than old ones that were used 10 years ago. Insects adapt to chemistry and become immune to it.

Modern insecticides have a complex composition and cost a lot - from 500 rubles. If there are children or pets in the house, be sure to take this into account when choosing a poison, choose a less toxic one, or take them away from the house during treatment.

There are also mechanical and manual methods of exterminating bedbugs, these are: crushing, destroying nests, sucking with a vacuum cleaner. These are very dubious methods that do not provide any guarantees.

Rules for getting rid of bedbugs

It is possible to get rid of bed bugs. It is not always possible to call a professional exterminator to your home; Therefore, manufacturers are actively introducing products to the market that allow them to destroy pests themselves.

Before you start processing the room, you should consider a few basic rules:

1. Chemical insecticides should only be used in a protective suit, which should include long sleeves and long pants, rubber gloves and a respirator for respiratory protection.
2. There should be no strangers or pets in the room at the time of treatment. Cover aquariums and cages that cannot be taken outside with thick fabric to prevent pets from being poisoned by toxic fumes.
3. Food, personal hygiene products and other things with which a person comes into direct contact with unprotected skin should be taken out of the room or placed in thick plastic bags.
4. Cover door jambs and window openings with paper tape or cloth, secure fire safety sensors and ventilation holes with something during treatment.
5. Before using pesticides, ventilate the room to get rid of foreign odors and improve air circulation in the room.

These rules will help not only ensure the safety of family members, but also increase the effectiveness of the treatment. Some substances continue to act after direct etching; harmful particles can remain on walls and other surfaces, in cracks. They must be washed with soapy water or washing powder.

What to do with bedbugs found in bed

What to do if you find bedbugs in the bed and in other places in the room? They need to be destroyed. To do this, these places need to be treated with products that quickly kill bedbugs. These can be, firstly, insecticidal preparations based on organophosphorus compounds or neonicotinoids, or with a complex composition, which may also include pyrethroids.

On a note

It is better not to poison bedbugs with pyrethroids - they often develop resistance to these substances.

To treat the room yourself and prepare a working solution at home, you can take Get, Executioner, Lambda-Zone, Hector, Xulat, Tetrix - they are quite effective and resistance to them is extremely rare. They need to treat all the places where bedbugs are found, the entire bed and the entire mattress, all baseboards and those surfaces on which bedbugs move when they crawl from hiding places to your bed. Accordingly, you need to choose the appropriate amount - not only for the bed, but for the entire room.

The same Executioner, for example, according to customer reviews in online stores, you need to buy at least 5 bottles per room. If you take less, then there is often a need for re-processing.

Just when you buy a product, ask the seller how much you need to take for a specific area, taking into account the number of beds. The beds themselves with mattresses usually spend the same amount as the rest of the area.

Another way to deal with bedbugs is to warm the room to 50-55 degrees using a powerful fan heater, and maintain this temperature for 1-2 hours. Moreover, you need to remove the mattresses from the beds and place them against the wall. Furniture needs to be moved away from the walls. In this case, all the places where bedbugs hide will warm up to this temperature and the insects will die. We conducted an experiment and verified that at +50 degrees, bedbugs die in 10 minutes. That is, in an hour at this temperature in the room, all parasites will die.

Theoretically, it is possible to destroy bedbugs using a steam generator, but in practice it is not possible to get rid of them using a steam generator alone. Typically, a steam generator is used in addition to the application of insecticides. The steam is passed over the mattress, along the baseboards, and other places are treated with chemicals.

And it is important to treat the disassembled bed in this way so that the product reaches all the places where bedbugs can hide.

There is no need to treat the bed with anything. It is enough to wash it at the highest possible temperature so that those bugs that accidentally end up on it die.

Folk recipes

Methods of struggle that are gentle for household members are folk remedies. This often involves the use of herbs or chemical-based home solutions. Folk remedies are especially useful if the problem has appeared in the children's room, and you do not know what to do if there are bedbugs in the child's bed mattress. This mattress can be taken out into the cold, or vice versa, into the heat above 30 degrees.

Using ammonia:

• benzene – 45 g;
• denatured alcohol – 155 g;
• ammonia – 15 g.

1. Mix all ingredients together.
2. Pour the finished mixture into small saucers.
3. Place where insects gather.

Naphthalene solution:

• naphthalene – 15 g;
• cresol – 110 ml;
• kerosene – 220 ml.

1. Dissolve naphthalene and cresol with kerosene.
2. Take a clean small brush, dip it in the solution and treat the areas where insects were noticed.

Turpentine solution:

• kerosene – 20 g;
• turpentine – 15 ml;
• liquid soap – 335 g;
• water – 110 g.

1. Dissolve all ingredients, mix well.
2. Take a brush and rub the mixture into the parasites’ habitats.

The above recipes are only suitable for dealing with the problem at home, where there are no small children or pets. If there are parasites inside the bed, you need to pay careful attention to the treatment means, since treating the mattress against bedbugs is quite problematic due to the toxicity of the aerosols. Therefore, first of all, you need to protect yourself, work according to the instructions.

Ready-made products

Nowadays there are many ready-made products that can be used to treat a mattress against bedbugs quickly and effectively. The result becomes noticeable almost immediately after treatment.

"Executioner".

Used as a solution for treating areas where insects live. Pros:

• budget;
• effective and fast action;
• non-toxic to people and pets;
• convenient to use.

Minuses:

• not practical packaging.

"Delta Zone".

A product used to remove many insects.

Pros:

• completely eliminates various insects;
• has no smell;
• has economical consumption;
• convenient packaging;
• easy to use.

Minuses:

• not a cheap price.

"Sinuzan."

The product is an emulsion that effectively fights any outbreaks of bedbugs. Pros:

• affordable price;
• high efficiency;
• suitable for prevention;
• long lasting effect;
• quickly disappears from the treatment site.

Minuses:

• prohibited use in children's rooms;
• Not for use on bedding or clothing.

The table contains information on how and how to remove bedbugs from a mattress at home, where and at what price you can buy the drugs.

What is not recommended to use

Proper treatment of mattresses against bedbugs guarantees good results and safety for all household members. For example, if there are children in the apartment, then the following products cannot be used:

• caustic substances containing poisons;
• wormwood and tansy (tansy has toxic substances that are harmful to people and pets);
• special crayons (easily accessible to children and animals).

How to get rid of the problem without a trace on your own - just throw away the mattress. If insects have settled inside the baseboard, it would be better to call a competent service or use sprays.

How to get rid of traces of life activity?

Almost always, bedbugs on a mattress leave behind marks, black dots, which are traces of their vital activity; they are easy to see even on dark material. These marks are accurate indicators of how to tell if there are live bedbugs in a mattress. Since these are organic contaminants, they are easy to destroy. First you need to wet these stains with cold water. Warm or hot water should not be used; on the contrary, it will cause stains to eat into the fabric.

1. A good cleaning product is a 5% hydrogen peroxide solution. Use a cotton pad or cloth to wipe the surface with the solution; this method is suitable for sheets, mattresses, blankets and pillowcases.
2. Washing – wash soiled bed linen with cold water. The powder will help deal with the problem in a 30-minute cycle.

Would a mattress cover help?

If parasites still remain after chemical treatments, a bedbug mattress cover can help. Before installing it, you need to vacuum the bed well, treat it with special products, then put a cover on top and fasten the zipper tightly. It should remain like this for more than a year, this is exactly the period needed for all the insects to die. Thus, they will not have access to the victim, and there will be nothing to eat. But can there be bedbugs in a new, clean mattress? When buying a new mattress, it is quite possible that you can bring these parasites home with it. In the warehouses where they are stored, proper sanitary measures are not always observed, and parasites settle there in large quantities. Therefore, the sooner you find parasites, the faster you can get rid of them.

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How to kill bedbugs in and around a mattress

There are several ways to remove bedbugs from a room. One of the most common is treating the apartment with special modern drugs that cause the death of parasites. This is the fastest, most effective and safest way. However, it is effective only when high-quality effective products are used, and safe if all rules for their use are followed.

We conducted several experiments and tested the effectiveness of such remedies as Hector, Get and Executioner. All of them poison parasites quite quickly. In particular, if the drug Executioner comes into direct contact with the body of a bug during spraying, it dies after 8 and a half minutes. Here is a video from the tests:

If a bug runs across a surface that has received the product, it dies after 19 hours. In one of the videos, we showed an experiment where we planted bedbugs in a container that had been sprayed with insecticide a week ago. The parasites died after 20 hours.

This information should be taken into account when processing an apartment. For example, if you find nests of bedbugs and poison them only in these places, they will die, but some of the insects that have taken refuge somewhere else will survive. For pest control to be effective, you need to follow several rules. Firstly, the entire room needs to be treated, including areas behind skirting boards, behind furniture, in cracks, and so on. It is also worth spraying the walls to a height of up to half a meter. Of course, the bed and mattress also need to be treated with the drug. Then you can put a clean mattress pad on the mattress and lay down a sheet. This will protect you from contact with the insecticide, but bedbugs that survive the treatment will crawl onto the treated surfaces and be poisoned. As a result, all parasites will die within a few days.

This is effective even in cases where the mattress is full of holes and bedbugs actually live in it. They will come out and come into contact with the insecticide, some of which remains on the fabric and other surfaces.

You can kill bedbugs in other ways. For example, you can warm up or, as people say, fry the room. To do this, place a powerful heater in the center of the room, with the help of which they raise the temperature to 50-55 degrees and keep it at this level for one to two hours. In one of the videos, we filmed an experiment during which we found out that at a temperature of 55 degrees, bedbugs die in just 10 minutes. Of course, a large cotton, wool, foam or bamboo mattress filled with coconut shavings, like any other orthopedic mattress, will not warm up so quickly. This may take an hour or more.

Sometimes they try to iron the mattress with an iron, but this is ineffective. It heats only the upper part, while the temperature inside does not rise to a dangerous limit for parasites.

Also, to kill bedbugs in the mattress, you can take it out into the cold. At temperatures below -20-15 degrees it will need to be left for 1-2 days. It is known that bedbugs die at a temperature of -17 degrees during the day, and even faster at lower temperatures. It is impossible to use this method to destroy parasites in an entire apartment. If you lower the temperature in it to this level, the pipes of the water supply and heating system will begin to burst.

If the mattress shell is intact, then there are definitely no bedbugs inside and it is enough to treat the outside. It can be sprayed with insecticide, paying special attention to the seams. This is where parasites often hide.

Our subscribers also talk about other ways to combat bedbugs. For example, some hid the mattress in an airtight cover with a lock, while others tightly wrapped it with cling film. As a result, the insects could not get out and died over time. These subscribers also said that they covered the legs of the bed and other adjacent surfaces with adhesive film. Because of this, insects that tried to get to the residents from their other escapes simply stuck to the adhesive tape. We have not tested how effective such methods are, but from a theoretical point of view and according to reviews, they can also work.

It should be borne in mind that there is no point in placing the mattress in a cover without covering the legs with adhesive tapes. The bedbugs that remain under the cover will die, but others will continue to bite you. In addition, they can quickly climb onto the cover and settle in its folds. During disinsection, specialists often find not only individual individuals, but also entire nests.

In some cases, if the mattress is very old, full of holes and infested with parasites, it is easier to throw it away and then buy a new one. There will definitely be no insects in the new one.

The same applies to blankets and pillows. If they are intact, then parasites cannot penetrate inside them. On the contrary, they climb into holes with holes with pleasure. Like a mattress, sometimes it is better not to treat them with anything, but simply replace them with new ones.

In general, if you have bedbugs in your home, you need to treat the entire room, not just the mattress and bed. They spread to all hidden places, and treating only some of these places has no effect. If you don’t know where bedbugs might be hiding in your house, call us and call our specialist for an examination - he will show you the parasites themselves and their nests.

Accurate diagnosis

Small individuals of a nuisance species cannot be noticed immediately.
Most often, enough time passes from the moment the first representatives of a species appear in a residential area for their number to increase significantly. In order to prevent large-scale spread of pests, it is necessary to understand at a very early stage whether foreign organisms live in the mattress. You can determine the health status of your own bed yourself. To do this you need to use three basic senses:

• sense of smell,
• vision,
• touch.

No matter how strange it may seem, you need to smell the mattress in order to feel that foreign inhabitants live in it. They are characterized by an unpleasant odor emitted by a special secretion, and it is impossible not to feel it. First of all, you can catch the specific “aroma” of pests that live and breed in pillows.

At the second stage, the mattress is carefully inspected. Signs of active life can be the remains of chitinous shells (almost transparent dust) or excrement (small dark crumbs).

The most unpleasant fact is touching insects with your own body. To finally make sure that bedbugs have begun to live in close proximity to a person, their bites will “help”.

The presence of all these signs allows us to say with confidence that the correct diagnosis has been made - real bloodsuckers live in the bed, who will not allow a person to sleep peacefully at night, developing active life on the mattress and in the pillows.

Surgical treatment

Preparatory stage

Blanket and pillows

Pests can also live in blankets, and especially in feather pillows. In winter, in order to get rid of them, it is enough to take the bedding out into the cold and leave it there for a day.

Before bringing things into the house, they are carefully beaten to remove dead parasites and packed into bags. If you can’t freeze the blood-sucking aliens living in your pillows, then you should pay attention to dry cleaning services.

Dry cleaning is guaranteed to remove all unwanted visitors.

Having decided to remove the blood-sucking inhabitants from the bed at home, you need to be patient and prepare for a stubborn struggle.

Mattress

It is necessary to remove remaining adults, larvae and laid eggs from the surface. After this, the mattress is opened. The process is problematic, but without it the treatment will be in vain: the remaining bugs will live and develop inside, forcing you to repeat the entire procedure for removing them again.

Source: https://VrediteliStop.ru/unichtozhenie-klopov/kak-vyvesti-klopov-iz-matrasa.html

Folk remedies that kill bedbugs

It is already known that such control methods are inferior in effectiveness to drugs. Folk remedies are used as an auxiliary measure, but they do an excellent job of killing bedbugs if they are used to fill the nests.

However

It will take a long time to remove the smell of the substance after this. This means that it is better to use such products carefully.

Using ammonia

It is recommended to treat the bed frame, then the parasites will try to hide from the unpleasant odor. If you apply this substance to textiles, the smell will remain on the fabric for a long time. Use a mixture of vinegar and ammonia.

The smell of ammonia disappears very poorly

Solution with naphthalene

If the question of how to remove bedbugs is being decided, they are expelled from the mattress using such a substance. Take 10 g of naphthalene. It is rarely used as a stand-alone measure. Naphthalene is mixed with denatured alcohol. The last of the components is taken in an amount of 150 ml.

Turpentine solution

You can use this substance in its pure form, but it is mixed with kerosene, the smell of which is not tolerated by parasites. You will need 100 ml of each component. They are mixed and the infected areas are treated.

Do not use near open fire!

Safety precautions

When using insecticides, follow these rules:

1. make sure that the substance is correctly selected for the existing problem;
2. spray only in areas that are susceptible to contamination;
3. mix and use the proportion of the substance necessary to do the job - do not overfill or use a large amount of concentrate;
4. close the windows to prevent drafts from spraying insecticide;
5. make sure family members and animals are kept away from the spray area; at best, they left her;
6. If you cannot leave the room, open the windows in other rooms to get rid of excess chemical smell.

Preparing the bed for processing

Before you begin processing, you should take the following precautions:

• remove pets from the apartment;
• use gloves, shoe covers, and a mask.

Personal protective equipment is necessary not only when using chemicals, but also to avoid the spread of bedbugs to other rooms. After processing, throw gloves and shoe covers into a street trash container, wash your face and hands with soap.

Step-by-step instructions on how to prepare a sleeping place for processing:

1. Remove everything that can be removed from the bed and mattress: bed linen, covers, etc. Place in sealed plastic bags. It is very important to use sealed containers for transporting things around the apartment to avoid the spread of bedbugs throughout all rooms.
2. Carefully shake out the items in the bathroom, then put them in the washing machine and wash them at a temperature not lower than +60 0C. Rinse the bathroom with boiling water.
3. The mattress is placed horizontally against the wall and treated separately from the sleeping area. It should be carefully inspected for tears and damage. If any are found, the mattress is opened and processed not only outside, but also inside.
4. The bed is moved away from the wall, the frame, if possible, is dismantled, and the elements are placed on the ends. If possible, the sofa or bed is turned upside down - this makes it easier to examine and process them.
5. Use a vacuum cleaner to collect all the debris (which will probably include larvae and parasite excrement). The dust bag is thrown into a garbage container (under no circumstances should it be left in a vacuum cleaner). If the bag is reusable, or a container is used, then they must be treated with boiling water.

After the preparatory activities, they proceed directly to processing.

Ways to fight

If you find signs of bedbugs in your bed, you should immediately begin fighting them. The question of how to get rid of bedbugs in a mattress arises for everyone who has encountered such a problem. In this situation, you can use the services of a pest control service and order professional treatment of the apartment, or carry out the pestering yourself, using chemicals or folk remedies.

1. If the mattress is heavily infested with bedbugs, it is better to get rid of it. Since baiting a mass accumulation of insects requires very high costs. To prevent parasites from spreading throughout the house, the mattress is wrapped in plastic and taken outside in this form.
2. If the mattress is slightly contaminated, the bed linen is removed, which must be washed and heat treated. Do the same with the mattress cover (if there is one).
3. Using a vacuum cleaner, eggs laid by bedbugs are removed from the mattress.
4. If the sofa or bed has armrests, it is better to unscrew them. This way it will be possible to more thoroughly treat the favorite habitats of bloodsuckers.
5. In the winter season, when it is frosty outside, the freezing method will help rid the mattress of bedbugs (the air temperature should not be higher than -17 degrees).
6. You can also treat a mattress against bedbugs using a steam generator (high temperature is also detrimental to insects).

   
   Steam generator

7. Many people use kerosene to kill parasites. It is mixed with water in a ratio of 2:1, after which laundry soap is added to the resulting mixture and mixed thoroughly. It is better to treat surfaces and hard-to-reach places with the resulting solution using a spray bottle. After a week, the treatment process should be repeated.
8. You can also get rid of bloodsuckers using turpentine, phenol and salicylic acid. They are taken in a ratio of 40:20:3, respectively. Processing is carried out in a similar way.
9. If there is no result when using the methods described above, you should use effective chemicals to treat the bed and mattress. In this case, it is necessary to pay attention to the composition of the product, since bedbugs quickly develop immunity to many insecticides. The degree of contamination, presence of odor and level of toxicity should also be taken into account. The products that are most in demand among consumers are Get, Executioner, Fufanon or Cucaracha. They have a long residual period of action, which allows you to count even on the death of larvae that hatch after treatment.

   
   Get remedy for bedbugs

10. After treatment with insecticidal preparations, the mattress is re-cleaned with a vacuum cleaner to remove dead insects.
11. If a crib is infested with pests, it is recommended to replace the mattress and wash the wooden parts with hot water. After this, the structure must be treated with an antiparasitic agent. It is important that it is as safe as possible for the child’s health and does not have a specific odor. An example of this is Pyrethrum powder. If the bed is treated with a highly toxic drug, the child will be isolated from the room for several days.

Anyone can find a bedbug in their bed. In such situations, it is important not to get lost and not leave the situation to chance, but to urgently take countermeasures. Only timely treatment will give quick and effective results and help get rid of bedbugs.

Mattress and bed treatment

They use chemicals, high and low temperatures, and folk remedies. You can call professionals from the SES (Sanitary and Epidemiological Station).

SES will carry out professional pest control and provide a guarantee for its services (usually three months). The negative point is the high cost of the procedure, which is carried out with professional means, a hot or cold fog generator.

Chemicals for self-treatment:

• aerosols,
• crayons,
• gels,
• dry powders.

Depending on the type of effect, chemotherapy drugs are:

• imagocidal - for the destruction of adult individuals;
• larvicidal – have an effect on larvae;
• ovicidal - destroys egg-laying insects.

Advice! Treatment with any poison is carried out more than once with an interval of one to two weeks in order to destroy not only adults, but also larvae.

Sprays and aerosols are sprayed around the perimeter of the bed, paying special attention to the joints of the frame. The mattress is sprayed along the seams, from the ends and, if necessary, over the entire surface. After treatment, the mattress is sent to dry cleaning.

Attention! Sprays and aerosols may leave stains.

When using highly toxic drugs, it is not recommended to spend the night in an apartment for a period of two days or more. The products are not used for treating clothing and bedding.

Silica gel can be used as a remedy for bedbugs if there are no animals or small children in the house

You can use silica gel or diatomaceous earth powder. Sprinkle along the baseboards and around the bed. The substance sticks to the insects and they die from dehydration.

Attention! It is not recommended to use the product if there are children and pets in the house.

High temperature is created:

• steam generator,
• steam cleaner,
• boiling water,
• iron,
• washing and drying machines,
• construction hairdryer,
• thermal gun.

The mattress is treated with steam, furniture - with steam or boiling water. Use an iron, steam generator or steam cleaner to treat all seams and surfaces of the mattress, blanket, and pillows. Pillowcases, sheets, duvet covers are washed and dried at maximum temperature.

When the room is heated with dry heat to a temperature of at least 50 0C, bedbugs and eggs die within 6-8 hours. You can achieve this temperature yourself using a heat gun (equipment can be rented).

Safety rules for high temperature processing:

1. Do not point the steam generator at electrical appliances and electrical sockets, wallpaper, wooden, varnished surfaces and other materials that are unstable to heat and humidity. Set the minimum humidity in the device settings.
2. Wrap the steam cleaner nozzle with a cloth to prevent insects, their larvae and eggs from being blown away.
3. Wardrobe items that cannot be treated with high temperatures should be dry cleaned.

Low temperature:

• freezer,
• sprays and cans.

In winter, things are taken out into the yard or onto the balcony for at least two days. It is not recommended to freeze the entire apartment, as heating pipes may burst and wallpaper may become unusable.

Note! The outside temperature should not be higher than -22 0C.

Pillows and bed linen are packed in bags and left in the freezer for a week at a minimum temperature.

Important! A positive result is achieved provided that all places where bedbugs accumulate have been detected and treated.

It is more difficult to treat a sofa and an orthopedic mattress due to the fabric covering and the presence of a large number of rough edges and pockets. The sofa is treated in the same ways as the mattress (insecticides, steam, freezing). After treatment, the surface where it will stand is treated with chemicals. The legs are covered with adhesive tape and traps are set.

An orthopedic mattress is an expensive thing, so replacing it is problematic. The destruction of parasites that have settled in it is carried out similarly to the treatment of a regular mattress.

If insects are found, it is recommended to treat the entire apartment. In multi-storey buildings, bullying should be carried out in the entire entrance, calling the special service of the management company. Before treating the premises, personal hygiene products and dishes are wrapped in cling film and packaged in plastic bags. All clothes, bed linen, towels, soft toys are washed, ironed, dried and put into plastic bags. The electronics are covered with polyethylene.

At the end of the treatment, dead parasites and traces of their vital activity are collected with a vacuum cleaner, the apartment is ventilated, the dust bag is thrown away or doused with boiling water. Dishes and personal hygiene products, floors and furniture surfaces are washed. The apartment is ventilated for an hour.

Methods for controlling bedbugs

The most reliable method of pest control was and remains calling specialists from the appropriate authority. It is worth mentioning, however, that treating only your apartment in an infested apartment building will not provide long-term results. It is absolutely not a fact that parasites will not appear again. But what if, due to objective reasons, you cannot use the services of a sanitary and epidemiological station? Definitely, you have to fight bedbugs tooth and nail!

Preparatory activities

Before starting the main processing, a number of preparatory steps should be carried out.

1. Carefully remove the linen from the bed, put it in a bag (a large trash bag can be used), tie it, and take it to the bathroom. This is necessary so as not to accidentally spread parasites throughout the rooms. Wash at a temperature of 60°C. Secure washed laundry until the procedure is completed.
2. Remove the mattress from the bed frame, thoroughly vacuum it from all sides, collecting excrement, chitinous shells, eggs, larvae and parasites that did not have time to hide. Seal the mattress until processing is completed. Vacuum the bed box. The vacuum cleaner bag used for this purpose will also have to be treated afterwards.
3. If you have a dryer, use it to process everything that is possible at medium and high temperatures - toys, shoes, clothes, backpacks for 10-20 minutes.

Fighting temperature

As already mentioned, bed “monsters” are afraid of high and low temperatures. If the type of mattress filler can withstand frost, and the problem was discovered just in winter, leaving the mattress on the balcony for 2 days at -20°C is a reliable way to get rid of “guests.”

If you can get a steam cleaner or steam generator, great! Thorough steam treatment kills pests instantly. The problem, however, can be that the steam only penetrates to a certain depth. Therefore, if parasites have settled inside an old, unreliable mattress, steam may not help.

Reference! Warming up the room for 6-8 hours with dry heat (not lower than +48°C) completely exterminates bedbugs.

Chemicals

Without certain knowledge of the system for combating parasites, you may not achieve 100% success right away, but it’s worth a try. Chemicals, although toxic, are more reliable compared to traditional methods. These include:

• Household aerosols and sprays. Available options: “Dichlorvos”, “Clean House”, “Raptor”, “Raid”, “Combat”. Not the most effective strategy. The use of these products requires two or even three times of processing. Surviving insects may produce offspring that are resistant to the drug used.

• Concentrates (emulsions, suspensions). Long-acting contact preparations are more effective, although more difficult and troublesome to use. Recommended products include: “Delta Zone” suspension, “Executioner” oily emulsion with a consumption of 1 bottle per 5 m², “Lambda Zone” microencapsulated emulsion concentrate, “Forsight” professional product, “Cucaracha” potent insecticide, Danish “Fufanon-super” , microencapsulated suspension "GET".

Folk remedies

The most ineffective method of struggle. It is unlikely that it will be possible to completely destroy bedbugs using only traditional methods. However, to be fair, it is worth mentioning them. Opponents of chemicals in the fight against bedbugs usually use:

• Bunches of tansy, calamus, chamomile, wild rosemary and wormwood are laid out around the house.
• Repeated treatments are carried out with 9% vinegar or vinegar essence.
• Solutions of denatured alcohol, ammonia, benzene, as well as kerosene and turpentine are used.

Safety precautions for chemical processing

It is recommended to carry out any work with insecticides with protective gloves. If you have to use liquid substances or aerosols, it is necessary to protect the outer coverings by wearing closed clothing. In addition, a respirator and safety glasses are used. Clothes will have to be washed after treatment, or better yet, thrown away.

Some surfaces

on which the drug is applied are subsequently partially cleaned, since they have to be used in everyday life. General cleaning is carried out after 1-2 weeks.

Prevention

There is no 100% protection against bedbugs in your home. Maintaining cleanliness and order in the apartment will help to detect their appearance in a timely manner and avoid further spread.

Prevention measures:

1. Washing bed linen at maximum temperature followed by ironing.
2. At least twice a year, the mattress is turned over and inspected. If a trail of feces or remains of chitinous shells is detected, they immediately begin to bait the bedbugs.
3. Upon returning from vacation, travel bags are checked for parasites. As a preventive measure, suitcases are treated with steam.
4. Periodically check and install new sockets.
5. Cracks and crevices are sealed with sealant.
6. They are making cosmetic repairs to the apartment - gluing up wallpaper and baseboards.
7. Periodically inspect chairs, sofas, and cabinets for the presence of bedbugs.

Advice! When inspecting, use a flashlight and a magnifying glass.

1. Parasites love to settle under parquet floors, and it is almost impossible to get them out of there. Therefore, do not use this material as a floor covering.
2. Used items and furniture should be washed, ironed, steamed, and dry-cleaned.
3. If there are a large number of books, they are periodically inspected.
4. Check the back and back walls of the bedside tables, having first removed all things from them.
5. When staying at a hotel, they check the mattress and bed. If there is any doubt about the presence of parasites, personal items are packed in sealed bags.
6. When returning from guests who have bedbugs, wash bags and clothes and wash shoes.
7. Purchase a special removable sealed cover for the mattress, which will prevent the spread of parasites.
8. Before moving into a new apartment, carry out pest control.
9. Use bait and traps. For example, wrap the legs of a bed with duct tape and place traps on four sides.

Barrier protective treatment is an effective way to limit the entry of parasites from other apartments. Invisible fat capsules are applied throughout the room using a fog generator or manual irrigation. Upon contact with an insect, the substance covers its chitinous shell, preventing further reproduction.

Prevention of bedbugs

Bedbugs can get into any home; it is impossible to guarantee yourself against their appearance. But you can reduce this risk to a minimum. To do this you need:

• regularly clean the apartment, including hard-to-reach places;
• regularly lift and shake carpets, capes, coverings;
• carefully check things entering the house;
• cover the ventilation holes with a special fine mesh;
• eliminate gaps, cracks, glue loose wallpaper;
• if bedbugs appear in neighboring apartments, use sharp-smelling herbs or substances (ammonium, vinegar, etc.).

Getting rid of bedbugs that have settled in an apartment is a difficult but doable task.

It is important not to miss the first signs of their appearance and immediately begin destroying the parasites. The most effective combination of preventive folk remedies and chemical treatment