A bed bug infestation is bad enough under the covers, but how can you remove these pesky insects whenever they invade carpeted objects around your home?
Wondering how to get bed bugs out of carpet? We have you covered! With our advice, you’ll be sleeping soundly in no time.
Read on to learn more about bed bug carpet control and the steps to avoid a growing infestation.
Ants, silverfish, mice, or beetles. All common pests have to come from somewhere, right? So, how do these annoyances differ from bed bugs?
Unlike the above pests, bed bugs can’t sneak in from the great outdoors. An indoor ant infestation stems from a nearby colony, while rodents flee from their outdoor homes into yours whenever the weather grows cold.
Bed bugs instead stem from other infested areas. If you’ve recently visited a place rife with bed bugs, there’s a good chance a few could hitch a ride back home with you.
Many homeowners encounter bed bugs in hotel and motel rooms, but these pests can pop up frequently in any space that people cycle through. Vacation rentals and cruise ships can even be vectors for these invasive insects.
Bed bugs aren’t afraid to travel for a meal and can go up to a year without feeding. If you have bed bugs in your room, they will crawl into your clothing or luggage, staying alive long enough until they can feed again.
If you’re curious about hotel bed bugs or want to know how to get bed bugs out of carpet wherever you’re staying, you should thoroughly check your sleeping area before settling down for the night.
Remove the sheets from the bed, and check around the edges and seams of the mattress. Look inside the sheets to see if any stranglers are stuck inside the fabric or elsewhere.
Don’t forget upholstered items, either! Bed bugs don’t always hang out in your bed and may have set up shop inside couches or chairs. Remove cushions to examine the seams for hoards of pests.
If you’re looking for a more in-depth overview of DIY bed bug inspections, check out this article from the University of Minnesota!
So, you have bed bugs in your carpet. What next?
Unfortunately, removing bed bugs from long, shaggy carpets may be more challenging than eliminating them from your bed. To find their home base, you need to know their exact location on your flooring.
When in your bed or other furniture, you can generally find the pests gathered together either in the seams of cushions, mattresses, or around walls, baseboards, and bed frames.
If you’re noticing bed bug bites or have seen one roaming around, search the floor under your bed or the edges of your walls. Bed bugs can hide away in or around the carpeting of baseboards.
Once you’ve located the site of your bed bug infestation, you’ll need to take measures to prevent them from circulating in your home. Don’t try to remove any furniture from your room, though! Hidden bed bugs may live within and spread to other rooms.
Instead, use a protective mattress casing or cover to prevent these pests from finding a new location to infest and keep bed bugs in place. You can find these products online or in a store carrying pest control products.
To prevent the pests from traveling, you can similarly wrap other objects in the affected room, like chairs, couches, or futons.
Avoid visiting other areas of your home without thoroughly checking your clothing for bugs. These sneaky pests can attach themselves to any fabric without you noticing!
Want to know how to get bed bugs out of carpet easily? Try vacuuming them up.
While this won’t eliminate every hidden bug, a good vacuum cleaner can quickly get rid of pests you see and trap them within your vacuum bag until you’re ready to toss them away.
But don’t just break out your vacuum without a plan! You’ll need to carefully clean the area and swiftly dispose of everything afterward to prevent these pests from thriving further.
Instead of covering the area once, continually vacuum a few times to catch everything in your carpet. The more you clean, the less likely you’ll miss any stragglers stuck to your carpet fibers.
After thoroughly cleaning the space, remove the vacuum bag in your yard far away from your home, place the disposable bag in a trash bag or another durable covering, and leave it outdoors for a few days for extra measure.
Want to boost your pest control efforts? Sprinkle some diatomaceous earth on the ground as you vacuum. As the pests roll around with the corrosive powder, the crushed diatoms cut the insects’ skin and cause the bed bugs to dehydrate.
You can also steam clean or shampoo your carpet to remove bed bugs. Here’s how to get bed bugs out of carpet with some elbow grease and cleaner!
If you have a steam cleaning machine or can purchase one, simply move all objects out of the way and begin steam cleaning your carpeting. Slowly run the object over your carpet, paying particular attention to areas where you’ve seen bed bugs.
This method works best after vacuuming, so consider combining these methods for effective bed bug elimination. After everything has dried, recheck your carpet and repeat these steps as necessary.
While these methods can remove visible bed bugs in your home, other pests may hide away out of sight and continue to cause you trouble.
Unless you eliminate all the bed bugs inside, their population can continue to grow and eventually culminate in another difficult infestation!
For small-scale infestations, you can try out these methods or use them in conjunction with other pest control methods, like Zunex’s bed bug treatments.
Bed bugs are tough to handle, and we suggest you turn to professionals for safety and peace of mind! For those in Washington state struggling with a bed bug infestation, contact Zunex Pest Control today!