Name: Central Extermination
Price range: $$$

You wake up one morning to find yourself absentmindedly scratching your arm. You look and see three or four tiny red dots on your skin. Then, you spot it; a flat, brown, creepy crawler the size of a seed. Oh no—you’ve got bed bugs! Now what?

Make sure they’re really bed bugs.

If you think you have bed bugs, but you’ve only maybe spotted one or made the conclusion based on the bumps on your skin, you need to identify them for certain before you do anything else. Grab a flashlight and look for physical evidence of an infestation. Search cracks and crevices near your bed and around the room for tiny eggs, discarded skins, brown or black dots (fecal stains), and the bugs themselves.

Call an exterminator.

You may be tempted to head to the store and get some DIY insecticides to eliminate the bed bugs in your home, but this will likely just make your problem worse. Without professional tools or skill, it’s going to be difficult to ensure you’ve eradicated all of them. If you only get rid of some bed begs, the rest will scatter throughout your home away from the chemicals and multiply elsewhere.

You need a trained specialist who has access to and knows how to use professional-grade chemicals or heat treatment equipment to fully exterminate an infestation.

In the meantime, clean items and areas that have been infested—but don’t get rid of anything.

An (understandable) gut reaction when you realize you have bed bugs is to throw away the infested items. If you do this before eliminating the bed bugs, however, you’ll spread them throughout your home as you move the items and possibly to others outside of your household. As uncomfortable as it might make you, it’s best to hang onto your items, at least until they’ve been treated. There are steps you can take to reduce a bed bug infestation and clean your belongings until an exterminator arrives though.

Anything that can be washed in the washing machine—bedding, clothing, carpets, linens, etc.—should be washed in hot water and dried in high heat, as heat kills bed bugs. You can also eliminate bed bug hiding spots by reducing clutter in infested areas (but remember to keep everything in the same room until it’s treated). Finally, you may use a vacuum to remove any visible bed bugs from the floor or furniture and dispose of the bag.

If you suspect you’re dealing with a bed bug infestation in your home, call the team at Central Extermination to take immediate action.

We’ll perform a complete inspection of your residence to identify problem areas, and then provide you with the cost-effective pest prevention, treatment, and elimination services you need.