Many children grow up learning nursery rhymes, but few of us know the origin of these little ditties. Do you know that the little song "Hickory, Dickory Dock" was inspired by a small hole cut in a door? The door opened to the room containing the gears of the clock at Exeter Cathedral, and the opening was to allow the resident cat to keep rodents away. As a child, your parents may have told you, "Goodnight, sleep tight. Don't let the bed bugs bite." What does that mean? It references the need to tighten the ropes that held up the best lest the mattress sag and the bed bugs get onto you.
Whether or not that explanation is truthful is debatable, but one thing that is not questionable is bed bugs. When these tiny insects invade your home, they crawl onto your body, draw blood, and cause itchy, red bumps to appear. A bed bug infestation causes a loss of sleep and anxiety.
If you suspect bed bugs are inside your home, you need pest control services in Salt Lake City from Uinta Pest Solutions. Our locally owned and operated company offers affordable and exceptional pest control services. As a customer-oriented company, we provide prompt service using local experts.
You probably found this article because you suspect bed bugs are the source of the itchy bites on your body. Please keep reading to learn bed bug signs, why they are almost impossible to eliminate without expert help, how to end the current problem, and what you can do to stop a future bed bug infiltration into your Salt Lake City home.
Examining Your Home: Where To Look For Bed Bugs
Bed bugs are only 1/4-inch long insects that are active only at night. If you don't know where to search and the signs of a bed bug infestation, you will likely never find them.
So, let's put on our detective hats and start our investigation by searching in the following locations:
- Mattress seams
- Box springs
- Wood flooring cracks
- Crevices between baseboards, floors, and walls
- Picture frames
- Headboards
- Electrical outlets
- Drapery folds
- Nightstands
- Upholstered furniture
- Wallpaper
Because bed bugs are tiny, a necessary piece of equipment is a magnifying glass. As you keep reading, you will understand why this component is needed.
Let's start our search by understanding what bed bugs look like. These insects have six legs, two straight antennae, no wings, and a crinkly-looking body. A bed bug that has recently enjoyed a blood meal will have an elongated, reddish-brown body; an unfed bed bug has a flat, oval mahogany body. While adult bed bugs are visible to the naked eye, nymphs require magnification. Bed bugs progressing through the five growth stages (instar) are almost translucent and difficult to see due to their color and size. For example, the bug is only 5/64 inches long in its first growth stage.
Eggs are another sign of bed bugs, but these pearl-white indicators are only 3/64-inch long and are in crevices in dark, secluded areas near the host. Contrary to popular opinion, bed bugs do not lay eggs in their host's skin or hair. After five days, the eggs develop a black spot, making them easier to locate with a magnifying glass.
Sixty percent of the eggs hatch in six days, and 90% hatch in nine days when the room temperature is <70?. The emerging nymphs discard the eggshells and join a nearby group hiding in a crack. Cream-colored abandoned shells are another sign, but you'll need your magnifying glass to find them.
Like all insects, the skeleton of a bed bug (exoskeleton) is on the outside of its body. For the animal to grow, it must shed its shell at each growth stage to enable its body to expand. Discarded exoskeletons indicate bed bugs in your Salt Lake City home.
Look for these bed bug signs in cracks and crevices in nightstands, upholstered furniture, wood flooring, and baseboards. Furthermore, search behind picture frames, headboards, wallpaper, inside electrical outlets, and mattress seams.
In addition to finding adult bed bugs, other more obvious signs are fecal stains and bites. Bed bugs produce reddish-brown feces as they feed and move to and from their host. Fecal stains on mattresses, box springs, bed linens, and walls indicate that bed bugs are inside your house.
When bed bugs feed on your blood, your body reacts to their saliva by dispatching histamines to the wound location, causing red, itchy bumps. Although bed bug bites may be random, they are usually in clusters or a line since they typically probe your skin several times while searching for an area with dense capillaries.
If you see these signs, you need the bed bug control in Salt Lake City from Uinta Pest Solutions. Our service technicians know where to search for indications of a bed bug infestation.
Bed Bug Problems: They Aren't Just Going To Go Away
While tempted to believe you can eradicate bed bugs by spraying a room with a store-bought product, you will soon discover such thinking is foolhardy. Historical records indicate bed bugs have been problematic for humans for over 3,000 years. In the mid-twentieth century, it appeared that scientific progress had all but eliminated bed bugs in the West, but by the end of the century, they had returned with a vengeance. Today, pest control professionals overwhelmingly rank bed bugs as the most difficult pest to remove from a home.
Due to their high reproduction rate, once a bed bug population gets established in a home, it will not disappear but will only exponentially increase. A bed bug population can double every 16 days due to the ability of the females to produce one to five eggs daily for ten days after each blood meal. One single bed bug can deliver over 500 offspring during its short lifetime. In addition to their ability to rapidly reproduce, bed bugs have developed a resistance to some previously effective treatment products. Also, they have an uncanny ability to detect treated areas by some consumer-grade sprays.
Since 79% of pest control professionals in the National Pest Management Association survey identified bed bugs as the most difficult pest to eradicate, it is clear why you need the best bed bug pest control near you from Uinta Pest Solutions.
Don't Let Bed Bugs Take Over Your Home: Call Us Right Away!
Eliminating bed bugs is not easy, but Uinta Pest Solutions is up to the challenge. When you contact us, we dispatch a trained technician to investigate your home for signs of bed bugs and to identify hot spots in the house. If we identify bed bugs as the problem source, we will provide you with a preparation sheet and schedule the service.
Because bed bugs hide in cracks, crevices, and gaps in hard-to-reach locations, and due to their ability to evade treated areas, we use the one weapon they cannot avoid; heat. Bed bugs cannot withstand sustained temperatures over 120?. Since heat penetrates clothing folds, mattresses, and every crevice inside a home, bed bugs cannot escape. Our effective bed bug heat treatment involves heating the house for a few hours to destroy adult bed bugs, eggs, and nymphs. Although this process is 95-99% effective, we vacuum to eliminate the maximum number of pests.
Since we know that if only one fertilized female survives, it will immediately begin producing eggs, we follow up 48 to 72 hours later with treatment products that bed bugs cannot detect or resist to ensure that no bed bug survives.
Effective bed bug removal involves expensive equipment, preparation, and professional-grade treatments unavailable to consumers. Save yourself frustration and money on worthless products and partner with Uinta Pest Solutions to end a bed bug infestation in your Salt Lake City home.
Maintaining A Bed Bug-Free Home: Prevention Strategies
You do not want a repeat problem after we eliminate a bed bug infestation in your home; however, it is possible due to how these tiny insects infiltrate homes.
These strategies will stop a future bed bug problem in your Salt Lake City house:
- Place luggage on racks in hotel rooms
- Inspect luggage and bags before entering the house
- Directly place luggage contents into the wash.
- Wash and dry fabrics, bed linens, and clothing at the highest tolerable temperatures for at least 30 minutes
- Avoid purchasing used furniture from a previously bed bug-infested location
- Check clothing, shoes, and bags upon returning home and before you enter the house after riding public transportation
- Keep clothing off the floor
- Encase the mattress with a bed bug-proof cover
- Vacuum the house regularly
- Suction out corners, cracks, and crevices
- Empty sweeper contents into a sealable bag and place them in an enclosed outdoor container
When a Uinta Pest Solutions technician arrives to inspect your Salt Lake City home for bed bug removal, we can provide additional suggestions for your situation. Call us today to learn more about our residential pest control services in Salt Lake City and to get a free quote.
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