Bed Bugs Gearing Up For A Busy Holiday Travel Season

As we get ready to travel for the holidays, so do bed bugs. These insects are excellent hitchhikers, catching a ride on anything they can find so that they may follow you to your next destination. If you have bed bugs in your home, they may hide away in your suitcase, joining you on your holiday travels. If you don’t currently have bed bugs and you are planning to travel, it is important to know the signs of bed bugs so that you may recognize them while travelling, making sure you don’t bring them home with you! Here are some helpful tips from the pest control pros at Wil-Kil Pest Control to help you to identify a bed bug infestation while travelling:

• When visiting a hotel, leave your luggage in the hallway or with a bellhop so that you can investigate your room for bed bugs. Bringing your luggage into a bed bug infested room is how you will pick up bed bugs, so you should check your room over before you bring in your belongings.
• When checking for bed bugs, always check for the little brown fecal spots they leave behind. Because hotel bedding is changed often, you may want to pull the sheets up and examine the mattress and box spring- if these appear to have little brown spots on them, shed bed bug skins or even bed bugs themselves, request that management move you to a different room, preferably not near the infested room.
• Along with beds, signs of bed bugs can be seen around the room in many places. Check behind picture frames on the wall, inside bedside tables, along the edge of carpeting and in the seams of curtains for signs of bed bugs.
• When travelling on public transportation, always keep your personal belongings in your lap. Not only can this help prevent your belongings from being stolen, but it can also help to keep you bed bug free in your travels.

If you suspect that you have picked bed bugs up while travelling, you should contact a pest control company right away for a bed bug inspection. At Wil-Kil Pest Control, we can perform manual inspections for bed bugs, or we can bring in our bed bug dog teams that will detect bed bugs through the power of the canine’s nose. If we locate bed bugs within your home, we can offer a bed bug treatment to eliminate these pests. Our bed bug heat treatment is a very effective and eco-friendly pest control option that gets rid of bed bugs in as quickly as one day, allowing you to re-enter your property shortly after treatment.

If you plan to travel this holiday season, be aware that bed bugs in Milwaukee and throughout Wisconsin are very present, as they are throughout the world and picking up them on your travels is a very real possibility. Just keep an eye out for these pests and be able to recognize the signs of bed bugs and you should hopefully enjoy a bed-bug free holiday!

For more information on the bed bug control services provided by Wil-Kil Pest Control, please contact us today!