Dealing with Bed Bed Laundry Problems
Dealing with bed bugs can be a homeowner’s worst nightmare. These small blood-sucking insects love to get into your bed, couch, recliner, and other pieces of furniture so that they can come out at night and feast upon members of your household.
Bed bugs are quite small, which means it’s easy for them to hide in all sorts of places and makes control and prevention somewhat tricky. It isn’t uncommon to find them in clothing that’s been sitting in a pile or recently brought home thanks to a bed bugs’ tendency to hitch a ride. Today, we’re going to take a look at what you should do when you discover a bed bug laundry issue.
Start with a Little Rubbing Alcohol
As soon as you identify a bed bug laundry problem, spray any colorfast, infested items with a small amount of rubbing alcohol. This will kill bed bugs upon contact, but keep in mind that it won’t eliminate the eggs. Non-colorfast and dry clean only items should be placed in a sealable plastic bag so they can be washed separately or taken to the dry cleaner as needed.
Keep Separate from Other Clothes
It’s important that you keep any infested clothes separate from unaffected and/or clean clothes. Put the infested ones into a trash bag or other type of large plastic bag. If any items meant for the dry cleaner have become infested, bag and seal them separately, then set them aside.
Put Clothes into Machine Carefully
When placing infested clothing items into the washing machine, be sure that you do so very carefully. After all, you don’t want to risk clothes falling out and bed bugs getting loose unseen. Flip the bag upside down so the opening is past the lip of the machine and allow the clothing to gently tumble out.
Wash and Dry Using High Heat
As you may already be aware, pest control companies typically use a heat treatment to kill bed bugs and their eggs. The same principle is used when washing and drying your clothes to eliminate these pests. Wash the clothes for at least 30 minutes on the highest temperature and then dry them at a setting that exceeds 120 degrees F.
Inspect Clothes Once You’re Done
Once your clothes have finished drying, don’t immediately throw them in with the rest of the clean clothes. Instead, inspect each item carefully to ensure that there aren’t any lingering bed bugs or eggs. Then, simply fold the clothes in an area that has already been inspected.
Handling Dry Clean Only Clothes
If you have a bag of clothes intended for the dry cleaner, run them through a dryer cycle at above 120 degrees F to kill any bed bugs. Once that’s done, inspect each item of clothing and then take them to the cleaner to be cleaned and pressed as soon as you possibly can.
Hire Professional for an Inspection
Whether or not you find bed bugs amongst your clothing items, you should hire a professional pest control company if you believe that these blood-sucking critters have gotten into your home. An experienced exterminator will know exactly where to look and what to look for. If a bed bug presence is discovered, they’ll provide you with a game plan.
Contact ProHealth Pest Control for More Bed Bug Laundry Tips
ProHealth Pest Control uses safer, green products and solutions for bed bug control in Clearwater. Our experts can also assist you with eliminating cockroaches, ants, rodents, spiders, mosquitos, bees, wasps, and other pests. If you have any concerns with bed bug laundry problems or would like to schedule service, reach out to our experts at (727) 472-9420 for a free consultation.
