Professional Pest Control Tips To Avoid Bed Bugs This Holiday

Avoiding bed bugs during the holiday season can be more challenging than during the rest of the year. With people traveling to see friends and families for the holidays, there will be even more bed bugs around than usual. Visiting hotels, using public transportation and even visiting the homes of friends and families can all cause you to come into contact with bed bugs. And when you’ve come into contact with these hitchhiking bloodsuckers, there’s a very good chance you will unknowingly pick them up during your journeys.

Here is a quick example of how you might pick up bed bugs in a commercial lodging setting:

Joe Doe has bed bugs at home, although he doesn’t realize it. These bed bugs are in his clothing, his personal belongings and even the luggage he stores in his bedroom closet. When travelling, Joe packs some clothes in his luggage and hits the road, staying at his favorite hotel. While at the hotel, the bed bugs hanging out in Joe’s luggage climb out and seek shelter around the bed, behind pictures on the wall and even in bedside tables. When Joe wakes up in the morning, he packs his belongings back into his suitcase, checks out of the motel and heads on to his final destination. That afternoon, you rent the same room that Joe Doe has just left. Despite the cleaning staff doing a great job preparing the room for you, bed bugs have been left behind and are still hiding in the room. You bring your luggage into the room, unpack your belongings and store them in the dresser. While you are staying in the room, bed bugs may bite you while you sleeping and they may climb into your suitcase, ready to head home with you.

This scenario is more common than you think, but it’s not the only way bed bugs hitchhike home with us. They can be picked up in public transportation, movie theaters, retail stores, libraries and even in a friend’s home. To prevent picking up these nasty blood suckers, the Madison pest control professionals at Wil-Kil Pest Control can offer a few tips:

1. When staying in a hotel or a friend’s home, check around the bed for signs of bed bugs. These include shed bed bug skins, brownish red bed bug fecal spots on bedding or furniture and even live bed bugs that scatter in the middle of the night when you turn the light on.
2. Before entering the room you plan to stay in, leave your luggage outside and do a thorough inspection for bed bugs using a flashlight and magnifying glass. If you locate bed bugs, do not stay in the room and notify management immediately. You also don’t want to stay in the adjacent room, as bed bugs could have spread there as well.
3. If you use public transportation, look around for signs of bed bugs and always keep your belongings on your lap (when possible).
4. Be aware that bed bugs can live in the seams of your clothing. If you suspect you’ve picked up bed bugs on your holiday travels, have your luggage treated for these pests before you return home to catch the problem before it has a chance to spread.

The professionals at Wil-Kil Pest Control offer effective bed bug control services to identify bed bug infestations and eliminate them quickly. If you think you could have bed bugs in your home, give us a call to schedule an inspection by our trained bed bug dog teams. Dogs are known for being able to detect odors that humans cannot and our bed bug dog teams can find even a single bed bug in a room in often less than 5 minutes. Our dogs are accurate and fast, helping you locate an infestation without fuss. Should an infestation be found, we can offer a bed bug treatment to solve the problem. At Wil-Kil Pest Control, we offer a bed bug heat treatment as well as conventional services for complete bed bug control.

Wil-Kil Pest Control is a highly trusted pest control company located in Wisconsin. If you need bed bug control in your Milwaukee home, contact us today to schedule your first inspection and you will see why so many home and business owners choose Wil-Kil Pest Control.