Having experienced bedbugs and found ways to get rid of them I created Bed Bug Denver to share this with you. Those nasty little bloodsuckers will make your life miserable given half a chance so read my story and find out how to get rid of them. Here is a link to information provided by the State of Colorado.
Disclosure Note: Just so you know or are wondering, I am not a professional exterminator. Bed Bug Denver is based on my experiences, but I probably have more knowledge than a lot of other people and I want to tell you how we got rid of bed bugs that infested our apartment. I will give you ideas on what to look at when choosing an extermination company and even a few good companies that I have run across from time to time.
You probably are starting just as I did, finding itchy red spots or blood smears on your sheets. You may have heard about an infestion of bed bug denver in your building so you do what I did, go online to find more information. Here is another source for free information that I have created.
I want to use Bed Bug Denver to get rid of some common misconceptions:
Finding that you have bed bugs does not mean that you or your home are dirty. These bugs don’t care about how clean or dirty you are, they just want to blood feed on you.
Another major misconception is that the bugs are easy to kill. All you have to do is let the landlord know and with one spraying they will be gone. WRONG!! These bugs are nasty conniving and very resistant to the normal pesticides that you can get or that an exterminator can get. To get rid of them and keep bed bugs out of your home you will need to do some work.
Although a landlord can make the problem worse by ignoring it, they can also do everything in their power and a building can still have bedbugs.
Here is the Truth
The Denver Bed Bug is an excellent hitchhikers. They can come into your home on your clothes, through holes for a buildings pipes, and HVAC systems. They can come in the mail from shipments that are sent from infested warehouses. They can get into your home in used furniture or find their way there from a neighbors.
So, Here is My Story
I live with my brother in a building located in the downtown area of Denver. The building is a low income disabled building that my brother first moved into after receiving disability. I moved in some time later to help him manage his disability and because we are very close.
We are probably luckier than a lot of other folks because the managers here try to maintain a nice building and are right on it as soon as there is a call about an infestation in someones home. If your building manager find out the contact numbers that you need and what your rights are at this City of Denver resource.
Like a lot of people I’d never seen an actual bed bug before moving into this building with him. When I first moved in I was amazed to see all his furniture, his mattress and other belongings piled into the very center of the rooms. I asked him why he had done this? So my brother grabbed a notice he had taped to his front door that was from the management. It recommended that when an apartment was scheduled to be sprayed the resident pull furniture and such a few inches from the walls so the exterminator would be able to spray there. His apartment was scheduled to be sprayed the next day so he had everything pulled to the rooms centers.
I had managed apartmesnt so had dealt with exterminating cockroaches but had never run into bedbugs before. But I suspected what was meant was a few inches but he still insisted everything had to be pulled to the rooms center. Then I found out the reason that he was overreacting was because the apartment was infested and he showed me the bed bug bites he had gotten to prove it. The bites never bothered me as much as him but the thought of these blood feeders crawling over me in the early morning freaked me out so I decided that I needed to create Bed Bug Denver to make more information on how to get rid of bedbugs available.
It took us on a steep learning curve to creating Bed Bug Denver and educating ourselves on the proper products and procedures that we would need to use. We threw away several infested mattresses and chairs along the way, but eventually we started to learn how to take care of them.
If you are going to fumigate for bedbugs then you are dealing with some chemicals that can be dangerous, especially for children and those with comprimised health. If you fumigate yourself make sure that you carefully read and follow the directions on whatever chemicals you are using. Never, ever, use a product meant for outdoor use inside your home no matter what anyone tells you.
If you are dealing with a bed bug professional then they should give you instructions on how to safely handle their work and the chemicals that they use. If they don’t, or fail to give you a complete plan for how they are going to treat you may be using the wrong company.
Bed bugs are extremelyhard to kill and they are not a one stop and they drop situation. If you live in an apartment building, or any building with a number of residents, then these bugs can and will travel between units. Plus there is stuff that you and the exterminator both have to do to successfully kill an infestation.
Whether you just found out you have an infestation or have been dealing with bed bugs for a while, one important question that you want answered is how to combat bed bugs. How can you get rid of them once they start to make you life miserable? or maybe you want to know how to keep from getting them in your home.
The answer to each question is the same. Whether to keep them out or get rid of them you need to take certain steps ti insure bed bug elimination.
First you need to know what the chance are that you might get infected. If you are already infested are have a high chance of becoming infested then you need to bedbug proof your home. You do this with mattress, box spring, and pillow enclosures. You de-clutter your home so they have fewer places to hide, treat as soon as a bug is spotted, and learn about how they get into your home so that you can cut off as many of those access points as possible.
If you travel often you need learn how to check your luggage when you come home and how to keep the bugs out of the luggage when you are staying in hotels and motels. Knowledge is the key here. You basically have just three choices if you are infested. Live with them, treat your home yourself, or hire a professional.
My personal choice is to combine those last two options. Hire a bed bug professional to apply chemicals and help monitor the situation and do everything that I can to kill bed bugs yourself.
Once you know that you have in infestation of bedbugs, whether by finding and actual bug or from the bites, the next step is creating a plan for fighting them.
The only way to win this fight is to have a plan that you follow to get rid of them. You need to do certain things in specific order to get rid of them and stop the bug from feeding on you and your family.
First: You need to de-clutter your home. Clutter doesn’t help create the bugs but it does give them a place where they can hide from treatments.
Second: Enclose your mattress and pillows with a commercial enclosure that says it is bedbug proof. There are a variety of sizes for every type of mattress and pillow. Also get one for your box springs if you use one. Make sure the enclosures are tightly sealed. If you happen to rip it getting one on your mattress just use duct tape to reseal it.
Third: Treat your entire home or at least anywhere that you find bedbugs. Be careful because spot treatment will just drive the bugs from one are of your home to another. Remember that treatments usually don’t kill the eggs so retreat in 10 days to kill everything that has hatched.
Fighting bed bugs can be a whole lot easier using a professional that knows what chemicals to use and where to treat. Even though you can treat your home yourself getting a professional can be a good idea.
Bedbug bites are small and easily mistaken for other pests so if you think you might have bedbugs you need to make sure that the bites you are experiencing are from actual bedbugs. Since the bites are pretty generic looking they can be difficult to identify.
Bites can often be no more than a little red bump that itches. Identifying them is further complicated by the fact that the reactions to a bite can differ from person to person. One thing that the bites do have in common is a bite pattern that can be in a pattern of three or four as the bug works its way along a vein. This is often referred to as the “breakfast, lunch, dinner” pattern. While there can be single bites, if there is an infestation usually there are multiple bites both from other bugs and as the same bugs come back for repeat meals.
The reactions to the bites can also vary from person to person. When feeding, the bedbug uses two tubes. One injects a substance that is a combination of anesthetic and an anti-coagulant to keep the blood flowing and keep the victim from feeling the bite and interrupting the feeding. The other tube does the actual sucking of the blood. Some people are much more sensitive to the substance injected into them than others and get immediate itching and rash symptoms. Other people will have no reaction at all or no reaction until there are a large number of bites.
The best tactic, if you suspect that you are being bitten by bed bugs is to carefully search around any area where you slee for actual bugs, blood smears, fecal droppings, or discarded shells. Finding any of these is a sure sign of an infestation.
One thing that you hear a lot about on the subject of these bedbug infestations is whether they are a health risk or not.
Many cities and their health departments still consider the bugs as a nuisance rather than a health risk. This is based on the opinion of many scientists that have found that because of the way bed bugs feed it doesn’t transfer any diseases from one person to another.
The bug is a creature of habit and generally feeds on just one person even if there are two in the same bed. Even if that person is not available when the bug comes to feed and it draws blood from the second person, no blood from previous feeding is released into the new victim.
However, this becomes a bit more problematic when the infestation is in a hotel, motel, or looking for a new victim to avoid an area that has been treated. The one thing that I can never get an answer to is regarding to an instance where a bug is crushed and blood is out in the open. If a second person touches this blood with an area that has a cut could they be infected with anything in the first victims blood?
I admit that the chances of this are pretty small but I have never received an answer to this question. The best thing to do obviously is to treat for the bugs and get them out of your home.
One of the reasons that bedbugs are harder than ever to deal with is the fact that they are becoming resistant to pyrethoids, the most common insecticide used by exterminators. By learning how the bed bugs become resistant it could someday help drive them out of our homes.
Researchers in Ohio and Mississippi are studying the DNA and RNA of laboratory raised bedbugs to find insights into how the bugs develop resistance. Although these findings are not likely to be of immediate help, the long term findings could be extremely useful.
Initial findings seem to indicate that long term resistance of the bed bug could be manipulated to make them easier to exterminate. Findings also indicate that the bugs can develop different levels of resistance which means that what kills bedbugs in one area may already be ineffective in other areas.
These studies also indicate that it is probably easier to take steps to avoid an infection than to kill one once it has established a foothold. More on this article can be found here.
Recent news reports say that Denver is number six in number of reported bed bug calls in the Nation. This is according to extermination giant Terminex. Their branch manager, Peter Andres, says that the number of calls for infestations of bedb bugs soared about three years ago from 55 to 10 calls a month to hundreds of calls a month.
He reportedly said, “”The nicer hotels get them just as easy as the lower end hotels. (Bedbugs) don’t discriminate.” While it may comfort yo know that bedbugs are an equal opportunity infestation, it certainly doesn’t help you feel better when they are eating you.
This article was reported in local TV station KDVR. Terminix, on their web-site, offers an unprecidented guarantee that they can totally kill any infeststion. I do however find the wording interesting. They say that, “If in the end you’re still not satisfied with your Terminix® bed bug control in Denver, Colorado we will keep working until you are satisfied or we will credit or refund the cost of your last service.”
Note that it is their last service not the total spent that will be refunded. Not that I blame them of course. You can easily treat an entire building only to have it reinfested by the next person who moves in.
I was in a neighbors apartment the other day. This is in a building that has had ongoing issues with bed bugs since we moved into it seven years ago. My neighbor was someone who to all outward appearances would be considered a normal, regular old neighbor. But what I saw in the neighbors house appalled me. First, lets start with the hoarding.
There was stacks of papers and boxes everywhere. The living room was completely filled, nearly to the ceiling except for one path that led to the balcony. The small kitchen was packed. Another path led from the front door to the bedroom and the bathroom. Again, a narrow path with stuff piled nearly to the ceiling. In the bedroom the path led to a bed that had piles looming over it on both sides. Just enough room for one person to crawl into bed and sleep. It was a bed bug nervana with hiding places galore.
But the sheets were the shocker. Marked by bloodstains from hundreds of bug bites with the walls that were visible smeered with fecal droppings and discarded shells from bedbugs. After I left the apartment I felt like I should be de-contaminated. But this apartment was only two floors above mine. I know that there are other apartments in the same shape in this building. Even if an exterminator was allowed to spray inside, what could they do? The only alternative would be to fog the place, and that would only be possible with the tenants permission.
This apartment was a bedbug black hole. A place that bedbugs could hide while the property was treated for these vermin in every other apartment. THe bugs could hide out in here, wait till the coast was clear and reinfect the intire building – again.
This demonstrates the difficulty faced by the average apartment owner. Even if you have an owner that is totally willing to spend the thousands of dollars that it takes to treat for bed bugs, it just takes one or two neighbors with apartments like this and the effort basically becomes a stalling action. All that can be dome is to try and keep the bugs at bay from the residents that are willing to have their apartments sprayed with pesticides, who are willing to allow an exterminator into their home.
As a rough estimate I would bet that at least 5% of the residents of any apartment or condo building could be creating perfect hideouts for bed bugs because they were physucally or mentally incapable of caring for their homes. They might not be able to tolerate the chemicals that are used to exterminate bed bugs, or they might have emotional problems that leave them the perfect victim.
So how can a landlord deal with this type of resident? In any building for the elderly or the disabled there is probably little that they can do. So if there are bedbugs in your building you need to make sure that you are taking care of your space and making it bedbug proof.
If you are moving into a new apartment or condo the last thing that you want is to wake up in the morning and find a bed bug crawling on you, sucking your blood, and infesting your furniture. So what can you do?
1.Always check any place that you are moving into for signs of bed bugs. If you don’t know what to look for ask a freind or pay a little and ask an exterminator. Finding them doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t move into that apartment or condo, it just means that you need to take extra precautions.
2.Ask the leasing agent if there are any bedbugs in the building. Again, this should not affect your decision about whether or not to move into a new bulding. But it will give you a sense of what could happen if there is a problem. You could also ask directly whether there are bedbugs in the building and if there were what would the management company be willing to do?
3. Any time that you move into a large building make sure to take precautions. Use bed bug mattress covers, pillow covers, treat the new home before you move in and retreat at the first sign of them after you have moved.
4. Make sure to Google the building. A lot of times if you search on-line through google using the name of the new building you may find information that could influence your decision.
In ways moving to a new building could help you get away from bed bugs. Just make sure that you take steps to check out the new place, and avoid bringing them with you.
Having experienced bedbugs and found ways to get rid of them I created Bed Bug Denver to share this with you. Those nasty little bloodsuckers will make your life miserable given half a chance so read my story and find out how to get rid of them. Here is a link to information provided by the State of Colorado.