All year long you have saved and planned so that you and your family could go on summer vacation, yay! You can’t wait to spend a solid week with your family reconnecting away from the hustle and bustle of day to day life and responsibilities. To help make sure that your family’s summer vacation is everything you have dreamed of and full of only great memories, the Evansville pest control experts here at Action Pest Control want to provide you with the information you need to avoid bed bugs while on summer vacation.
The key to avoiding bed bugs while on vacation this summer is to know what they look like and where they are most likely found. Adult bed bugs are the easiest stage for people to spot; they are about 1/4 of an inch in length with six legs and an oval, flat shaped body. They are usually a reddish-brown or rust color. The bed bugs body allows them to easily hide and live in the seams of mattresses, box springs, upholstered furniture, plane, train, and bus seats, along with inside the cracks and crevices of wooden furniture, walls, floors, and behind pictures, baseboards, and outlets.
Now that you know what they look like and where to find them, let the following tips help to prevent bed bugs from crawling into your belongings and hitchhiking their way into your home after returning from vacation.
- Before reserving a hotel for your vacation, check the website bedbugregistry.com or do a detailed search of the term "bed bugs" and your hotel location. It is important to note that bed bug infestation can happen in any establishment; it is how quickly they handle an infestation and how many reports of infestations that is important.
- Pack a flashlight in your luggage and carry-on bag. Use the flashlight to inspect the seats you will be sitting on to travel and your hotel room for bed bugs. Using a flashlight makes the process go much faster and helps to make for a more accurate inspection.
- Before bringing your luggage and belongings into your hotel room, perform a detailed inspection. If during your inspection you discover signs of bed bug - red dots, black streaks, shed skins, or dead bed bugs - immediately ask for a new room that is not above, below, or next to the infested room.
- Before packing personal items and clothing into suitcases, place belongings into sealed plastic bags and keep items in the bags until you need to use them.
- Keep your suitcase off the floor; and, if possible, avoid placing clothing inside hotel closets and dressers.
- When you return home from vacation, immediately unpack your suitcases and wash and dry all your clothing on the hottest temperature setting. Bed bug adults, nymphs, and eggs cannot survive high temperatures. Also, make sure to vacuum out and wipe down suitcases before storing them away for next year’s vacation!
If you do happen to bring home some unwanted souvenirs with you from your vacation, don’t panic. It happens. The best way to quickly eliminate a bed bug infestation in your Evansville home is to contact the Indiana pest control experts at Action Pest Control. We will quickly send one of our highly trained professionals over to complete a free, no obligation inspection. We will then sit down with you and develop a tailored plan of action that will quickly and completely eliminate bed bugs with our bed bug control services in Evansville.