Bed Bugs on Ceiling after Treatment
Bed bugs do not die easily. It takes weeks before they completely disappear. The PMP will likely conduct multiple treatments before the bed bugs are completely eradicated.
If they tell you that it is okay to continue sleeping in your bed to attract bed bugs to the trap in your room, do so. If you see bed bugs on your ceiling after a treatment, do not try to get rid of the bed bugs on your own. It is best to leave the job to the professionals.
What to Do After Treatment
Cooperate with the pest management professionals and follow everything they say. If the treatment involved pesticides, you need to wait a few hours before entering your home to limit your exposure to the chemicals.
You also need to air the treated rooms for 1 hour. Washing in hot water and drying the clothes and linens on the hot setting for 30 minutes is advised.
The areas that were treated should be monitored for any surviving bed bugs. If the pest control company used a standard chemical treatment program, the surviving eggs will most likely hatch and start another infestation.
Follow-up treatments are necessary to eliminate all surviving eggs. Chemical treatment programs usually need at least 1 follow-up treatment after 2 weeks.
You can continue sleeping in your bed after the bed bug treatment. Mattress and box spring encasements can prevent bed bugs from entering or escaping.
These critters will not be able to live in other areas of your room thanks to the mattress encasement. The pest management professionals will also inspect your home to determine whether the process has been effective.
If they did not see any improvement, they may combine various methods or use an alternative to the process they had used. Follow all steps stated by the pest management professionals before the follow-up treatment to prepare your home. Bed bug interceptors or sticky traps may help in monitoring and trapping bed bugs in the weeks after treatment.
There are different reasons why the treatment was not effective. One of these is that the PMP failed to identify and treat all possible sources of bed bugs during their inspection. It is also possible that the insecticides they used were ineffective.
If they used heat treatment and it did nothing to reduce the bed bugs in your home, it is because the contact time with the critters was not long enough to kill them. You might have unknowingly re-introduced bed bug-infested items in your home. Avoid moving items out of the infested area without asking the PMP first.
Signs of Bed Bugs
It is best to find a bed bug infestation early. Treating a low-level infestation is easier and cheaper than treating a widespread infestation. However, minor infestations are harder to find and identify.
Carpet beetles or other insects can be mistaken for bed bugs. Misidentifying a bed bug infestation gives these critters more time to invade other areas of your home. You can identify an infestation by looking for actual signs of bed bugs.
Look for reddish or rusty stains on your mattress or bed sheets. These are crushed bed bugs. You should also look for dark spots because these are bed bug excrements. Live bed bugs, pale yellow skins, eggshells, and eggs are other signs of bed bugs.
Why Bed Bugs Thrive Even After Treatment
Bed bugs can scale curtains, walls, wooden furniture, bed frame and ceilings to look for food or hiding spots. The wall is not perfectly smooth. The wallpaper and paintwork can have small notches and bumps.
Bed bugs use the claws on their legs to grasp these nicks and bumps. They are also lightweight, so their legs can support them perfectly. Some of them use the walls, especially the cracks and crevices as hiding spots.
When bed bugs get hungry, they crawl to your bed. If they are not searching for food, they may be looking for a place to lay eggs.
Bed bugs are mostly active at night and feed by piercing the victim’s skin and sucking blood through their elongated beak. They feed on 3 to 10 minutes and then leave without being noticed. Bed bugs leave itchy bites.
Unlike flea bites, bed bug bites do not have a red dot in the center and can be found on exposed areas of the skin while you are sleeping. Those who do not know that they have a bed bug infestation may think that the welts and itching are caused by other factors such as mosquitoes.
Conclusion
You do not want bed bugs to invade your home again. To prevent them from coming back, you should check any known hiding spots in your home. If you are travelling to another city or country, do not forget to inspect your hotel room for these bugs.
Bed bug infestation is still prevalent in the United States. Do not panic if you find a bug hiding in the cracks of your walls or on your ceiling. There is always a way to get rid of these pests.
