How to prevent bed bugs

Bed bugs usually enter a property by being carried on clothing or inside furniture. The most common places for bedbug infestations are hotels, cinemas, lodges, auditoriums, and overnight busses. Bedbugs often get introduced into homes with second hand furniture. Bedbugs or their eggs get into clothing or suitcases and are then transported home. If there are any signs of bedbugs when staying at a hotel, particularly being bitten when sleeping or seeing blood spots on sheets, take great care in bringing your personal belongings home. 

Consult with hotel management to assess the risk. It may be necessary to launder, fumigate or treat clothes to ensure they are safe. The same applies in transferring furniture. Rentokil can treat furniture for bedbugs before bringing it into your home if there is a risk.

Bed bug prevention tips

There are some steps you can take to ensure bed bugs don’t follow you home, especially if you are a frequent traveller.

When you reach the hotel:

• Head straight for the bathroom - Before you check out your hotel room's minibar or oceanfront view, give it a thorough bed bug inspection - and until you've done that, stash your luggage in the loo.

• Check your bed first before you enjoy the view - Here's how to check for a bed bug infestation: Pull back the linens, and check all the way around and under the mattress and behind the headboard. Look for blood stains or small black dots that look like mold or ground pepper, keep a look out for these signs.

• Keep luggage off the ground and wrap suitcases in plastic - Do not leave suitcases and bags on the floor - or on a second spare bed. Bed bugs can travel (from) room to room. For the duration of your trip, keep your bags on the desktop, on top of the dresser, or on a luggage rack in the room. (Don't leave clothing lying out, either!) For extra protection, keep your suitcase encased in plastic during your trip.

In your home

If you are worried you have brought bed bugs back home after your travels, there are a few things you can do to reduce them from spreading to your home:

• Leave your luggage in your garage or in the bathroom - Bed bugs don’t like the tiles or concrete and if they are present you will see them easier than on carpet!

• Remove clothes immediately once you reach home and wash/ dry clothes at the highest possible temperatures.

• Put your suitcase/ luggage in the sun - away from the house for a couple of days, to help eradicate any bed bugs.

• Vacuuming - can greatly reduce the size of the bed bug population, but only when they’re clearly visible. It cannot guarantee total elimination. (Empty and clean the vacuum to avoid transferring eggs to other rooms.)

Treatment by a professional pest controller is always the best solution to get rid of bed bugs.

In your hotel or dorm

With the number of guests moving in and out of your hotel or dorm rooms, it is impossible to completely deter bed bugs. However, there are ways you can avoid an infestation taking hold with early detection:

• Train your staff on how to identify common signs of bed bugs.

• Ensure thorough checking for bed bugs is written into your room cleaning processes.

• Have a procedure in place for handling bed bug complaints.

• Inspect adjacent rooms to identify if the bed bugs have spread (although Rentokil will do this as part of our emergency response survey).

• Immediately contact Rentokil to arrange a thorough inspection and bed bug control program.

Call Rentokil PCI today on 1800-212-212-5 or contact us online for a free consultation.