Lice and scabies covers what bedbugs are, how to recognise the bites, and the temperatures that kill them. This page is the operation: how to actually clear a household, which is a different and harder problem.
Why this needs a campaign
Bedbugs are not a hygiene problem and they are not cleared by a single treatment. Four properties make them difficult:
- They hide in cracks, not on the body and not in the open. Mattress seams, bed frames, headboards, skirting, behind sockets, under carpet edges, in furniture joints, behind pictures.
- They survive months without feeding, so waiting them out fails.
- Eggs are glued in place and are tougher than adults, so a treatment that kills adults leaves a next generation.
- They spread within a building. Along pipes, through wall cavities, on clothing, and they will move to the next room when a room is disturbed.
Any half-measure leaves survivors, and survivors repopulate. That is why this is a campaign with a schedule rather than a job.
In this app's scenario it also matters more than usual, because destroyed sleep degrades every decision a household makes, and because there is no pest control company to call.
Confirming it is bedbugs
Worth being sure before committing to the effort.
- Bites in rows or clusters on skin exposed while sleeping. Reactions vary enormously, and some people show nothing at all, so bites alone are not proof.
- Small dark spots on sheets, mattress seams and the bed frame, which are droppings and smear when wet.
- Small blood spots on the sheet.
- Shed skins, pale and translucent, in the seams.
- Live insects, flat, oval, reddish brown, about apple-pip sized when adult.
- A sweetish musty smell in a heavy infestation.
Look at 3am with a torch if you are unsure, along the mattress seam and the bed frame joints. They feed at night and that is when they are visible.
The campaign
Do the whole room in one go. A partial treatment scatters them into the rest of the house, which converts one infested room into a whole building and multiplies the work several times over.
Heat, which is the weapon
Heat kills all stages including eggs, needs no chemicals, and is available with no power beyond a fire.
The tumble dryer is the single most useful tool if you have power, because it handles items that cannot be washed: shoes, cushions, soft toys, curtains, bags. Thirty minutes on hot.
With no power, boiling is the equivalent for washable items, and the haybox trick from the laundry page makes it affordable in fuel.
Steam is very effective on seams and frames and needs only water and heat. Move slowly; the heat has to penetrate.
Do not rely on insecticide sprays alone. Resistance is widespread, sprays do not reach into the cracks where they live, and they do not kill eggs.
Containing the room
The step that decides whether this works or spreads.
- Do not carry anything out of the room untreated. Anything leaving goes into a sealed bag first, and is treated before it is opened elsewhere.
- Bag everything at the point of removal, in the room, sealed, then carry it to the washing.
- Do not move the bed to another room. This is how a bedroom problem becomes a house problem.
- Do not throw the mattress out unless it is genuinely finished. Dragging an infested mattress through the house sheds them the whole way, and a new mattress in an untreated room is infested within weeks.
- If a mattress must go, wrap and seal it in the room, mark it clearly so nobody takes it, and get it out in one movement.
The repeat schedule
Between treatments:
- Encase the mattress and base in a proper zipped bedbug encasement, which traps anything inside and stops re-infestation. Leave it on for a year.
- Isolate the bed: pull it away from walls, remove bed skirts and anything touching the floor, and stand the legs in smooth-sided containers or on interceptor cups so nothing can climb up.
- Keep the bed as the only route to the sleeper. If they cannot climb the legs and nothing touches the floor or wall, they cannot reach the bed.
- Vacuum daily, seams, edges and floor, disposing of the bag outside each time.
- Reduce clutter, which is hiding space.
- Fill cracks in skirting, frames and furniture with filler or sealant. Fewer harbourages means fewer survivors.
- Monitor with sticky traps under the legs, or by inspecting weekly with a torch.
Not sleeping elsewhere
When it is over: keep the encasements on, keep the bed isolated, and inspect monthly for a few months. Reinfestation from a surviving pocket elsewhere in the building is common, and catching it early means one room again rather than the whole house.