Controlling Bed Bugs Bed bugs are almost certainly the most ghastly of household pests in most peoples' eyes. Cockroaches are bad enough, but they do not suck on you. Mosquitoes suck blood and are maddening, but we accept them more than bed bugs. But bed bugs suck your blood when you are asleep and then defecate in your bed as a thank you note. Luckily, these bugs do not carry any human illnesses that we are aware of, so they are quite 'safe' in that way, whereas there are quite a couple of deadly illnesses that you can acquire from mosquitoes such as malaria, dengue fever and yellow fever amongst others. Still, most of us would rather mosquitoes to bed bugs. If your house is infested with these insects, you will surely want to eliminate them, so you will have to know something about the lifestyle of these creatures. Bed bugs like to conceal themselves during the day time in cracks, crevices, torn wallpaper and linoleum, fractured plaster, a ripped mattress and stacked clothing, books, magazines etc.. The popular belief prevalent until a couple of decades ago was that bed bugs just liked filthy households, but this is not true. Cockroaches like to forage for dropped food as do ants, but bed bugs only eat blood and do not even have mouth-parts to eat fallen food if they were starving. Therefore, bed bugs do not have to live in a messy house, only in one that is rundown, poorly taken care of or cluttered. If you would like to clear up an infestation of bed bugs, the first thing to do is launder all your clothing in hot water or dry-cleaning fluid and then store them in sealed plastic bags. The next stage is to repair anywhere they could be hiding. Stick back or replace any ripped wallpaper and seal off any wobbly woodwork such as skirting boards and architraves with a line of mastic or filler. Seal the woodwork top and bottom, so that any bed bugs hiding in there will not be able to get out again. This saves trying to kill them. Put away all books, piles of newspapers, toys and general clutter and inspect your furniture for wobbly joints. For example, if a seat or table is a bit ricketty, tighten the screws or mastic the joints together. Seal nail and screw holes with filler or mastic. Roll up your carpets and inspect the floor boards. Plug the crevices, fill screw holes and check the bead of mastic at the bottom of the skirting boards. Check the framework of your bed and renovate as mentioned above. Are there red or brown smears on your mattress? if so, they could be living in your mattress. Sew up any tears and put the mattress in a mattress case which can be zipped closed in order to seal any bugs inside. Otherwise, maybe it is time to replace it. Regular pesticides do not have a lot of impact on bed bugs, so be careful what you purchase. You want something that has an abrasive element in it. Some use finely ground up glass, which might pose a health hazard to you or your pets.
Diatomaceous Earth is safer. Sprinkle or spray it under your carpets and around the base of the skirtings, where bed bugs like to scuttle. Relay your carpets and steam clean them. Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on several subjects, but is now involved with pictures of bed bugs. If you would like to know more, please visit our website at Picture of Bed Bugs.