A few years ago our family had a battle with bed bugs in our house. I remember getting the call from my wife that the welts on our son were from bed bugs. Immediately I thought about how expensive it would be to get rid of them and how our friends would probably avoid our house until we could get rid of them.
My wife called the pest control company, but the wait was four weeks and I knew that we couldn't wait a month while bed bugs continued to multiply in our son's room! So I got to work researching how to get rid of them without spending lots of money and without using chemicals in our house that could make us sick.
Most of the info that I found was generated by product ads so it was only pushing for a purchase rather than a full education on how to get rid of bed bugs. The two most common ways to treat bed bugs are with chemical sprays and heat treatments. The chemical spray method used by most pest control companies is only partially effective as it only kills the bugs that come in contact with the chemicals and bed bugs are great at hiding away until the effective life of a chemical spray has expired. Also, chemicals are known to cause cancer and I didn't want to expose my family to that risk. The heat treatment method is effective at killing all bed bugs and their eggs if the entire house is kept at a temp above 120 degrees for 4-6 hours. This method's first weakness is expense. An average treatment is $3,000-5,000. The heat treatment's second weakness is follow up. There is none. If you don't know the source of your bed bug problem and they return, you will have no recourse but to pay for another full house heat treatment.
So after lots of reading and youtube video watching, the info you're getting in this blog series is what I was able to use to get rid of bed bugs in about 4-6 weeks. By the way, anyone who tells you that they can get rid of your bed bugs in one day who isn't charging you $5,000 for a heat treatment is lying to you. Bed bugs can go months without feeding and still survive, so it is impossible to say you are rid of them in one day.
The very first step to get rid of your bed bug problem is to isolate the bed bugs. This means you have to find out where they are in your house. If they are throughout the house you are going to have a longer battle as there is more ground to cover. If they are in one or two rooms try to limit your traffic in and out of these areas as much as possible. Usually it's a bed room as bed bugs are lazy and like to remain close to their food source which is human blood. In order to isolate the bed bugs in your room make sure you do the following. Take all bedding and blankets off the bed and wash and dry them. Check all over the mattress and box spring and frame of the bed for signs of bed bugs. When you find them spray rubbing alcohol on them which will kill them on contact. Make sure you get a mattress cover that keeps out bed bugs. Vacuum the room thoroughly twice a day until you are able to complete part 3 which is the dehydration process. This means vacuuming the edges of the room and curtains as well. Pick up any loose items around the room and run them through the dryer if possible. Put any items that you want to isolate inside large trash bags. Continue this kind of thorough cleaning process until you have won the battle with the bed bugs. It's hard work, but you will need to remain vigilant in order to get the upper hand.
If you do have bugs in other parts of the house it will be harder to isolate the problem and avoid spreading them to other places that you go. A few ways that you can do that is to keep your clothes right out of the dryer in large garbage bags so that you don't carry any bugs out of your house on your clothes. Any bags such as children's book bags that are taken out of the house should also be stored in a trash bag where the bed bugs cannot get to them. For the most part bed bugs are going to stay close to where you sleep, so most other areas of your house should be relatively bug free unless you have a major infestation.
In addition to the isolation process try to find out where your bed bugs came from if possible and avoid contact with this place so that you don't bring additional bugs home.