How Do Bed Bug Control or Exterminators?
You’ve come to the right place if you want to know how exterminators manage or bed bug control Melbourne to get rid of one of the most resilient household pests we have to deal with!
- In this article, we’ll go over the three main methods an exterminator will use to get rid of bed bugs in your home.
- You’ll also learn how bed bug treatment has evolved over the last fifty years. Many of the things you thought you knew about how to get bed bug control Melbourne may be out of date!
- At last, we’ll connect everything in to teach you about the three critical things a good exterminator will do before beginning the bed bug control procedure.
Isn’t knowledge power? So let’s get you ready to deal with these annoying, embarrassing, and ridiculously resilient little pests.
Remember, if you’re looking for Cincinnati bed bug extermination, we’re here to help!
Three Methods for Bed Bug control Melbourne
There are numerous bed bug treatments available. Mattress covers, furniture interceptors, vacuuming, and steaming are all methods you’ll hear about on YouTube or in pest eradication forums.
Customers frequently inquire about these, wanting to know if they are effective solutions.
The short answer is no
They’re all useful in their own way.
When we work with a client to eliminate bed bugs, we almost always use a combination of these methods. However, none are powerful enough to make a difference in isolation.
Chemical treatment, cold treatment, or heat treatment are the mainstays of bed bug control. This article will go over these three bed bug treatments in greater detail.
Treatment with Chemicals
Seeking quick and easy solutions is a fairly common and understandable trait. Ask most people who are ill whether they would prefer a single pill or a course of physical therapy for treatment. For obvious reasons, nine out of ten people will take the pill.
The same is true for pest extermination.
Here’s a brief (but informative!) history lesson. For many years, if you wanted to get bed bug control Melbourne, you had to use an insecticide, which was usually delivered via fumigation. For the last century, we’ve relied on a plethora of toxic substances ranging from Sulphur to mercury chloride.
Then there was Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (don’t worry, we couldn’t say it either). Everything changed when DDT was introduced. Suddenly, we were armed with a compound that would not only kill your current infestation, but would also continue to kill new waves of bugs. Furthermore, this magical substance could eliminate bed bugs at every stage of their life cycle, from eggs to adults.
So, why isn’t this the silver bullet we’re using today?
Insecticide resistance is a two-word phrase.
In the 1960s, we thought we’d nearly eradicated bed bugs in the United States. Today, however, we are dealing with a nationwide epidemic.
The reason is quite frightening.
Bed bugs have gradually developed resistance to DDT. Science attempted to keep up with the bugs by developing successive waves of DDT alternatives – lindane, chlordane, and diazinon – but all eventually lost their effectiveness.
Bed bugs, being the adaptable creatures that they are, have developed a slew of behavioral, morphological, and biochemical defenses against chemical treatments.
Simply put, they kept coming back strong.
The more chemicals we threw at them, the more resistant they became to chemicals.
Chemicals are still used today, but hopefully this brief history of our chemical war on bed bugs demonstrates why chemical treatments are rarely the final solution to a bed bug infestation these days. They can be of assistance. However, in order to eradicate bed bugs, we needed to develop more effective weapons.
When chemicals are used, they almost always necessitate multiple applications, causing more disruption to your home and a higher overall financial outlay.
Cold Therapy
When the full extent of chemical resistance became known, exterminators were faced with the challenge of devising a new line of attack.
Cold treatment was one method we came up with.
It’s pretty self-explanatory. The exterminator’s goal is to snap-freeze and instantly kill all bed bugs and bed bug eggs on a treated surface using a device that distributes frozen Carbon Dioxide.
Cold treatment manages to avoid the issue of chemical resistance, and because it concentrates on extreme environmental change, bed bugs have little chance of evolving biological resistance.
This is a non-toxic solution, which further strengthens the case for cold over chemicals. We’re talking about no residues, no harmful pollutants, and a much better overall outcome for the environment.
Do you hear a “but” coming?
Here’s the big issue with using cold treatments: Sure, bed bugs may not be able to adapt resistance as they have with chemicals over the years, but bed bugs are naturally highly resistant to cold.
Did we mention how tough these things are?
Cold isn’t the best way to bed bug control Melbourne. A bed bug can survive in temperatures as low as -15 degrees Fahrenheit.
Furthermore, you’ll need to keep temperatures near that level for several days before you can be certain the population has been eradicated.
If you think that’s difficult to accomplish, you’re absolutely correct.
Oh, and did you know that bed bugs live in cracks and crevices such as mattresses, bed frames, cushions, and clothing? It just so happens that all of that stuff is insulation. The deeper a bed bug burrows, the more difficult it is to expose it to lethal cold. The bed bugs that you should be most concerned about are mostly unaffected.
Treatment with Heat
Then there’s the heat. Again, no complicated diagram is required to understand why this extermination strategy works.
To circulate hot air throughout an affected home, a carefully positioned battery of ultra-powerful heaters is used in conjunction with fans.
What kind of heat are we talking about?
The goal is to raise the temperature of the air above 130 degrees Fahrenheit.
According to the research, a bed bug population will begin to die out at temperatures around 110 degrees. Increase that to more than 120, and you’ve reached a biological tipping point, and the bed bugs die – almost instantly.
And we’re finally getting close to a workable solution.
Bed bugs are tough, but heat is their most vulnerable – and possibly their only! – Vulnerability.
Another advantage of heat is that it is easier to achieve than cold.
Now, 130 degrees Fahrenheit sounds like a scorcher. Don’t get us wrong: you wouldn’t want to be out there in that heat. However, raising the ambient temperature of a house to this level of heat is much easier than lowering it to minus 15 Fahrenheit.
Furthermore, all that insulation that bed bugs like to hide in? It is far less effective at resisting heat than it is at resisting cold.
Heat enters cracks and crevices where cold and chemicals are less likely to enter.
So, all of this begs the question. Is heat treatment the one-and-done method for bed bug control Melbourne? Is this the answer we’ve all been looking for?
In a nutshell, yes and no.
Bed bug infestations are still difficult to control. Bed bugs are the perfect storm of sneakiness, toughness, and spread ability when it comes to insects.
Heat, on the other hand, is without a doubt one of the most effective treatments we have for striking the little blighters where they’re most vulnerable.
In most cases, adding more chemical treatments to the mix is part of the solution. However, in our many years of experience, heat is by far the most effective way to eliminate bed bugs. Even if it isn’t the entire solution, it should be a component of any bed bug extermination strategy.
You must also consider simple logistics. Heat treatment is defined as:
- Chemical treatment is less disruptive.
- It is easier to achieve than cold treatment.
- The industry’s safest and most cost-effective option.
How to Select a Reputable Pest Control Service Melbourne?
You now have a better understanding of bed bugs and the methods available to us for bed bug control Melbourne. But there’s one more important aspect to the bed bug picture: the people who exterminate them.
How do you choose a good’un?
This is an extremely crucial question.
There are many people who claim to provide a same day pest control service melbourne, but finding the genuine article – businesses with cutting-edge equipment, years of collective extermination experience, and backed up by hardcore entomological expertise – is more difficult.
To begin, you should understand what a good exterminator is not.
