Stopping Your Holiday Guests From Bringing Bed Bugs Into Your Dallas Home

Holidays are synonymous with cheer and reunion. It’s a time for families and friends to gather in celebration. This means travel. Sometimes a lot of it. And travel can mean bed bugs. Just like us, bed bugs in Dallas like visiting people around the holidays, and if they like them enough, they might even stay with them into the new year. If you are looking for a way to stop this from happening, you are in the right place.

Why Bed Bugs Love The Holidays

Bed bugs are not like your typical pest. They don’t have wings, they aren’t very fast, and they don’t survive alone in the wild. Typically, bed bugs only live where humans are and they need our help to get from place to place. Bed bugs volunteer unsuspecting people to help them by climbing onto something they are going to carry. This could be anything from some luggage you are packing, to a used couch being bought at a second-hand store. Understanding this is your first step in learning how to avoid bed bugs this holiday season.

Where Bed Bugs Hide

When inside homes, bed bugs are not the most social of creatures. They will not crawl around in your kitchen, or rest on your TV while you are watching your favorite show. Bed bugs prefer to remain unseen until people are asleep and it’s time to feed. This leads them to hide in some creative places. 
 
Because of their size, bed bugs can hide practically anywhere there is a small crack. It is not uncommon for them to seek shelter during the day under and between baseboards. They can also hide beneath mattresses, within bedsprings, inside furniture, and behind electrical switch plates, wallpaper, and picture frames. If the place is hidden and they can squeeze into it, they will.

How You Can Avoid Bed Bugs

We have already talked a lot about where bed bugs hide and how they get into homes. Now let’s use that knowledge to avoid bed bugs in Dallas. Here are some prevention tips.

• When traveling this holiday season, check rooms you are staying in for signs of bed bugs. Look for blood spots on bed linens, dark specks of fecal matter on baseboards and around cracks in the room, and white see-through egg casings inside of cracks and crevices. If any signs are found, consider switching rooms, or letting your friends or relatives know what is going on.
• Before you leave on vacation, check your own home for signs of bed bugs. The last thing you want is to be the cause of a spread infestation.
• When coming home, store your clothing inside plastic sealable bags. When you get home, wash your clothing in hot water to kill off any potentially hidden bed bugs.
• Tell your family and friends about bed bugs so that they can check their homes before coming over for the holidays.
• Inspect items that could be hiding bed bugs before they leave or enter your home.

What To Do If Bed Bugs Get Inside

Sometimes bed bugs are inevitable. It only takes one infested item getting past your radar for problems to start. For this reason, we offer quality bed bug elimination services here at Cantu Pest & Termite. With over 30 years in the pest control industry and friendly services you can rely on, no-one is better for the job than we are.
 
If you have questions or would like to schedule services for your Dallas home, pick up the phone and give us a call today!