Bedbugs: Treatments

Bed Bugs are one of the hardest insects to control. An adult bed bug can lay up to 28 eggs a week. Treatment options can require stemming, bed bug covers for all the mattresses, adulticides to control the adult populations, and Insect Growth Regulators (IGR) to control the reproduction and egg laying, dusting of voids, and fumigation of miscellaneous items.

Bed Bug Covers conceal the bed bugs and eggs within the cover. This allows you to keep your mattresses. Concealing the bed bugs within the cover will kill everything in the mattress. The covers need to be kept on the mattress for 6 months and longer if possible. All bedding and clothing should be washed in hot water and dried hot. Hot water and hot drying along with steam cleaning will kill bed bugs.

Bagging everything that you can and fumigating each bag with a pyrethrum will kill adult bed bugs that may be hiding in other things other then the bed or bedding.

Dusting electrical outlets and other voids help keep bed bugs from traveling from one unit to another or from one room to another.

Chemical treatment of furniture, mattresses, carpet, and every thing else that can not be covered, fumigated, or bagged needs to be treated with an adulticide and a growth regulators. The adulticide kills the adult bed bugs and the insect growth regulators are designed to keep the adults from reproducing. The chemical treatment also is designed to leave a residual to keep killing over the next few weeks. After treatment glue boards or monitors should be left to monitor the results of the treatment. These monitors should be checked weekly to determine if additional maintenance is required.