Bed bugs are a public health issue and can even cause insomnia and anxiety. It’s not hard to imagine why either. If your home was infested with bed bugs, you’d be worried about getting bit while sleeping and about how to get rid of them.
Once bed bugs enter a home, it’s only a matter of time before they begin laying eggs and growing in population. Because of this, you’ll need to know how to eliminate the bugs themselves and how to kill bed bug eggs.
The best way to prevent an infestation from occurring is to eliminate the issue as soon as possible or before it even happens. To do this, you must know what bed bugs look like and how to stop the bed bug spread.
If you know what bed bug evidence looks like and how they spread from one place to another, then you can stop the problem before it happens. Are you wondering if you brought bed bugs into your own home?
Continue reading below for the 5 most common ways bed bugs can spread!
1. On Your Clothing
Bed bugs don’t have wings and can’t fly. In many cases, they’ll attach to your clothing and hang on like hitchhikers until you arrive home. When you travel outside your home, you’re taking the risk of picking up an unwelcome pest.
Bed bugs can cling onto your clothing from just about anywhere. Some popular places are movie theaters, airplanes, hotel rooms, and just about any public place where people and cloth materials are. Bed bugs can crawl from one person to another and if one person has bed bugs on their clothing, sits down to watch a movie, and then you sit down after them or even next to them, the bed bugs can attach to you.
2. On Luggage
Your clothing isn’t the only thing to be concerned about. Bed bugs can also find their way into your luggage. Traveling is a good way to pick up bed bugs and bring them into your home, so you should be extra careful when doing so.
When you enter your hotel or motel room, what’s the first thing you do? For many people, they place their luggage down on the bed. This is something you should avoid.
You should also avoid unpacking your clothes into the hotel furniture. When you bring your luggage in, place it on a table, counter, or another hard surface. You should then check the bed for signs of bed bugs.
You should also thoroughly check your luggage for possible hitchhikers from the plane.
3. Through Their Own Traveling
Although bed bugs love to catch rides on things, they can also travel from one location to another themselves. If the infestation is significant enough, they will crawl their way from one room to another. This is true for hotel buildings, condos, apartments, and even rooms inside a house.
If you do happen to find bed bugs inside one room of your home, then you need to treat the entire house. Not only can they crawl, but they’ll also cling to your clothing and make their way from one room to another. If a neighbor of yours in a condo, duplex, or apartment has bed bugs, then you need to be on the lookout for them in your home as well.
They can make their way through vents and small cracks in the walls.
4. On Pets or Animals
Humans aren’t the only ones who can carry bed bugs from one place to another. Pets and animals can transfer them as well. This is why you should be careful when taking in strays and always check your pets when they come back inside after running around outdoors.
Bed bugs won’t use an animal as a host, but they will attach to their fur coat and then release once inside the home. Be sure to know the difference between fleas, ticks, and bed bugs, and how to spot bed bugs so you know what you’re dealing with. If you find any of these pests on your pet, however, you should have them treated as soon as possible.
If your pet catches a few hitchhikers from another animal outside and then jumps on your bed, the bed bugs now have a perfect landing spot to call home.
The same is true for furniture pieces such as couches.
5. Furniture and Other Items
Although bed bugs are more commonly found on beds, hence their name, they can invest other items inside the home as well. Bed bugs do need to feed off humans’ blood, but they can infest all different types of furniture aside from beds.
Because of this, you need to be careful about bringing in used furniture into your home. If someone’s home is infested with bed bugs, and they decide to sell a piece of furniture, then you take the risk of bringing bed bugs into your own home when buying these items.
If you do bring furniture into your home, then be sure to give it a good inspection first. You’ll want to remove any pests you find before bringing the furniture items inside your home.
If you do discover signs of bed bug infestations in your home, then you’ll want to examine all furniture pieces as well.
Is There Bed Bug Evidence in Your Home?
Have you spotted bed bug evidence inside your home? If you’re not sure if you brought bed bugs home, consider these 5 ways of spreading them. If you’ve traveled recently or if you relate to any of the points listed above, then you might have a bed bug infestation.
Are you ready to free your home of bed bugs?
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