FAQ: How do I prepare for pest control treatment? Should I put everything in bags?
By nobugsonme on Mar 27, 2007 in FAQs, bed bugs, bedbugs, clothing, professional pest-control services: reviews, suggestion, treatment, treatment preparations
Don’t prepare too much for a pre-treatment inspection visit! Your PCO should be able to inspect your premises as they are, which makes it easier to spot bugs and signs of bugs. You don’t want to vacuum and change the sheets before the PCO comes to inspect, or s/he may miss obvious signs of bed bugs. You also do not want to move things or throw things out, since you can actually spread the bugs this way. Get the PCO in ASAP, obviously, and remember don’t start sleeping elsewhere. Read the Do’s and Don’t’s to learn why not.
Once a treatment is agreed upon, your Pest Control Operator (PCO) should give you instructions on paper (or online) for preparation in advance of treatment. These are essential and should be followed to the letter. If they do not provide instructions, this is a warning sign that you might not have a PCO who knows how to get rid of bed bugs.
The most universal request PCOs make is to prepare your clothing / linens/ bedclothes in advance of treatment. The standard prep is to take these out in sealed bags, wash them all on hot and dry on hot for a long time, say 90 minutes, and then seal them in bags like huge XL ziplocs or even 2 gallon ziplocs (or garbage bags you’ve sealed in an airtight manner, which is not easy).
The items must be kept sealed until use, and not returned to dressers or other non-airtight storage until the bed bugs are gone for sure (I recommend this to be at least a month after you last felt a bite or saw signs of bed bugs). Some of us find it helpful to use a smaller range of clothing during this time, so we aren’t constantly juggling lots of big resealable bags. Items may also be dry cleaned, but you have to tell the dry cleaner the items may have been exposed to bed bugs, keep them sealed when you go in (though some dry cleaners may refuse to deal with them). Dry cleaned items must be sealed when they come home too (and it can be nearly impossible to keep them nice.)
Protecting the mattress with a cover that seals it against bed bugs is also pretty universal (and necessary even for non-Bedbuggers, as preventative!) but ask your PCO when to do this. They may want to inspect and treat the mattress first–so ask before you cover. Buy the best quality cover you can–the nicer ones have cloth outsides and vinyl inside (making them less uncomfortable, less likely to tear). Cover the mattress and box springs if you have them and the PCO says you should keep them (which they probably will in most cases.) The PCO may sell mattress covers which may or may not be better than those you can get yourself.
Other instructions may include moving certain items of furniture, removing all unnecessary clutter (you probably won’t have much time, but weed out what you can), and vacuuming.
They may also tell you to inspect and seal up all your other stuff. Since it won’t be washed, you may be sealing in bugs and eggs. The idea, for PCOs who ask this, seems to be to keep the stuff out of the way, so bugs can’t flee the insecticides and hide out in your stuff.
The downside is that those bed bugs who managed to hitchhike their way inside the containers may hide inside them, until released.
PCOs have differing protocols, when it comes to “stuff besides clothes”:
Some PCOs say, “seal all your stuff in preparation, open it after treatment begins” (when, depends on the PCO: could be right away or after a few treatments),
some say “seal it in preparation, and keep it sealed for 18 months,” and some say, “don’t seal it”. I hear that at least one well-known PCO in NYC tells people to seal stuff throughout treatment, but I am not sure for how long. They do have people carefully clean and inspect items like books and CDs before storing them, but some stagglers are bound to get in. And since their system is, from what we’re told by customers, not to subsequently expose all your “stuff” to pesticides during treatment, and bugs may be harbored within the containers, I think the idea is the stuff is sealed for 18 months.
I have not heard of any PCOs who don’t tell you to wash and seal up linens, clothes, bedclothes. They should have been washed on HOT and dried on HOT and sealed in bags at the site of washing, so they should not be infested.
If a PCO tells you to seal up all your stuff, this might mean sealed bags inside rubbermaid-type plastic boxes, for easy stacking (don’t use cardboard, since bed bugs can hide inside the boxes’ walls). Bags can be sealed and left in the middle of a room, but you must ensure they’re sealed. The XL ziplocs can come open.
Make sure you find out from the beginning when you will be “releasing” the stuff (not the clothing and linens, remember, which get cleaned on HOT and sealed the same way until its all over). If they want it exposed soon after treatment, it’s to let the bugs come out and encounter poison and die.
If they never want you to seal it up, it’s the same logic: bugs exposed to poison die.
But those PCOs who want you to seal stuff for 18 months are working on a different premise: bed bugs are known to live up to 18 months without a blood meal, and you want to be sure those bugs are dead. We’re not sure how long they can live without fresh air, but suffice to say, it’s a long while.
Make sure you know when you sign on which method your PCO uses. No matter what protocol the PCO is using, no matter their instructions, you need to follow them to the letter. We’ve known people who had success with all these three approaches! But mixing them does not work. Find out what your PCO expects, when you sign on, and ask questions. If what they’re suggesting seems particularly difficult, ask another qualified PCO. Killing bed bugs is not easy, but there are some variations between good methods.
(Note to readers: since there are so many approaches, I need you to alert me to any I’m not aware of, or correct me where I am wrong! Mention any preparations I am forgetting. Comments open below. Also, a moving FAQ is coming, it will be VERY tentative. Stay tuned.)
content rss
S. | Mar 28, 2007 | Reply
When our PCO treated our entire apartment, he asked us to “get our stuff out of the way.” What he needed was simply access to our baseboards and furniture - the things he was going to apply chemical to. He needed our non-clothing “stuff” gone just so he could treat. If our apartment was large enough, we would have simply piled all that stuff in the middles of the rooms, leaving it as “exposed” as possible.
But we couldn’t fit it. And he wanted our furniture EMPTY. So we bagged it all up, in airtight ziplocs, and brought it to a storage unit. We kept it there for about 3 days, just because it wasn’t convenient to bring it back that night. (Ideally we would have brought it back the very same night he sprayed).
When we did go back to the storage locker, we did a big sort. We evaluated everything we had. There were 2 categories, a) stuff we needed, and b) stuff we could live without for 18 months. The stuff we needed, we took home, opened up, and put on our 2 big metro shelving units. The stuff we could live without is still in the storage unit. It is super sealed - the Rubbermaid containers have clear tape all around their lids. They will stay there until August of ‘08.
If you can fit all your stuff in your current apartment, I’d advise keeping it all there. If you can’t fit it all, then you may want to sort like we did. It feels good to live lightly, and not have a ton of books, papers, purses, artwork and random tchotchkes lying around.
But whatever you keep in your apartment, I’d put on metal shelves if possible, just because bedbugs aren’t good at climbing slippery surfaces (metal, glass). You want any bugs in the stuff to come DOWN, but you don’t want new bugs from the rest of the house to climb UP. We put carpet tape around the legs of the shelving units, and the room they are in has residual on the baseboards as well as dust under the carpet.
Hope this clears up some confusion - we struggled a lot with this very topic and feel good about our final decisions.
nobugsonme | Mar 28, 2007 | Reply
HI S–
Part of the “keep it home” theory is that you don’t have to live without things for 18 months or to pay for storage for 18 months (which many can’t afford).
I just want people to know there isn’t just one way to do this and that they have options.
I think it can be confusing…
willow-the-wisp | Aug 5, 2007 | Reply
2 bits worth of advice:
A–Do not panic (if you can help it.) In my case I did–as, I was told I could not get the treatments I needed, in a timely fashion, and, in a way that would even be possible.
So … when they did finally come to inspect–they would not treat. They said I no longer had an “active” infestation. This in CA means live bugs seen on the bed or in the room during the daytime–I guess.
However–if the PC0 sees the place as isâ€â€and knows his/her stuff–they can get a much better idea of where to treat and how much and how often. If you move, stuff or change your sleeping place–not good. Dragging stuff around? This could mean spreading bed bugs.
B–Do not go with the first one, but get a good one in ASAP. More than a week is stretching it. If you know, they are bed bugs! Act swiftly on arranging that Bed bug Qualified PCO appointment.
P.S. I spell-checked this 3 times–if it comes out wrong, or with typo’s it is not my fault. Sometimes my spell-check does not work.
nobugsonme | Aug 6, 2007 | Reply
Willow,
I seem to remember you self-treated before the inspection, right?
This is another good reason for folks NOT to self-treat, or even try to clean bed bugs away, but to get a PCO in to inspect right away. (Even a thorough cleaning can remove the signs, sadly, so it is just best to get someone in there ASAP to inspect.)
willow-the-wisp | Aug 6, 2007 | Reply
Correct. You may TRY to clear most of the signs away–the visible surface signs to be more correct. However, by doing so it may cost you the chance of receiving timely PCO treatments, paid for, by law, in the majority of USA, by your Property owner. (Laws vary from state to state, but in most cases, the Landlord is, at least in part, financially responsible.)
More importantly–people need to realize the reasoning as to why we suggest continued treatments every 10-14 days until at least two full weeks go by without any signs or symptoms: It is the many eggs that adult Bed bugs lay that are a big part of the problem. Not only are they extremely hard to killâ€â€but they are extremely difficult to find. You can almost never get to all the eggs, as the female often lays them inside walls. Therefore, if you kill off the surface signs, it is like only getting 60 to 80% of them at best.
The eggs will hatch … start feeding on you again. Before you know it–you’ve got an insidious type of “unseen†infestation going on†The bugs are now more likely to have spread out around the place too!
Not good!
By day, these babies are hiding inside the walls and in other hard to get areas.
Getting a good PCO is rather like buying your Wedding dress: You do not want just any old dress–you want the one that will work best for you in your “dream wedding.â€Â
Shop around yesâ€â€but do it swiftly. Waiting more than a week for your first treatment is not a good idea.
maria X | Sep 30, 2007 | Reply
a question, not a comment: how do I find a trustworthy PCO in NYC ?
i live in a coop and the board is trying to minimize the problem and use their old exterminator who knows cockroaches, but no BB-s.
just started getting biten, they came from my neighbour, they took forever in treating her apartment. i’m beyond upset and scared.
thanks.
nobugsonme | Sep 30, 2007 | Reply
Sadly, you may need to educate your coop board as others have done. Come to the forums where you should get some good advice on that:
http://bedbugger.com/forum/
Anonymous | Oct 19, 2007 | Reply
Nobugs:
I am planning to call the PCO who will be treating this rooming house for BBs next Wed. and ask them some questions: What questions can you suggest that I ask? So far they have not provided us tenants with any written instructions for prepping, and I don’t know if they will be using a fogger or not, nor what type of pesticide. The landlady tells me that they plan to return in 30 days to re-treat the place. Sound weird?
Also, can you tell me how to check to see if they are licensed. (just ask them, or, anonomously, contact state license agency?).I am in Cincinnati, OH.
I did check what I could last night with the BBB and found this PCO listed as a member with a satisfactory rating, for whatever that’s worth.
You know, as I guess I have told you, the landlady is trying to sell the house and I just wonder if she is trying to get off as easily as she can with this BB problem and move out, instead of trying to do a thorough job of eliminating them. Who knows?
Mr Bill.
Anonymous | Oct 19, 2007 | Reply
Nobugs:
I forgot to mention that the landlady has said that they will discard the mattresses and box springs of the beds here when the PCO comes again next week to treat for BBs, even though they have each been wrapped in vinyl bags since the first treatment in July and no bugs could have entered them , I would think. That does not seem necessary, does it? They are new. I guess that was part of the PCO’s instructions to her. But since the vinyl covers were put on, there has not been a large infestation as there was before, even though I did see a couple of bugs in my bed a few weeks ago, after which I laundered the bed cloths and the mattress cover and pasted vaseline around the legs of the bed, there have been none since that I could see in my bed. I have seen them on my desk and one crawled across some papers, though.
Mr Bill
Eva | Oct 20, 2007 | Reply
I stay in SF downtown and I found my first bedbug bite about a month ago. Since then, I get 1-2 bites every 3-4 days but my other 2 roommates never had any signs. Maybe because I stay at home to do my work. As I sit motionless in front of my computer for hours, the BB would come bite my feet and hand even during the day. Eventually the bites grew incredibly itchy and swollen (allergic reactions?)so I did some research online and started to vacuum my floor every week and stick carpet tape around my bed legs. Still, I get one new bite every 4 days or so. Then I resorted to spraying essential oil in attempt to repel them. My other 2 roommates were not concerned because they’d never heard of BB and didn’t get any bites.
All changed 6 days ago, when one of them had around 10 bites on her when she woke up from an evening nap. On the same night, I had 2 new bites on my right index finger which swelled and prevented me to draw.
The next day, I made a desperate call to our landlord and learned that our neighbor upstairs had also just reported a BB problem. Our landlord said that he would give us some foggers to try out but I insisted that according to my reading, it doesn’t work and so an exterminator had to be hired.
The PCO came the same day to inspect, tossed my bed box, found a big adult and nymph (along with some poo)and a smaller bug in my 1st roommate’s room. My 2nd roommate whom I’m sharing a walk-in closet with, was not infected. But just to be safe, he arranged a time to treat all 3 rooms.
Our instructions were to seal all clothings and bedding, wash and dry on hot, and empty all shelves into sealable containers and bags. We bought Sterlite special-priced Halloween orange containers at 3.99/ea. We taped the 2 tiny holes at the handle and all around the cover to make sure they’re airtight.
On the treatment day,which was yesterday, the guys came in and did a thorough inspection first, then checked our closets and ripped our bed boxes. The guy said that it seemed that we’d caught the BB infestation right away but was surprised when I told him that I had BB bites for a month already.
They requested us to leave and only return around 4 hours later because they don’t want us to be exposed to any of the “materials” which they would be laying down. According to them, they would treat all our mattresses and sofa with vacuum and heat to kill any bb or eggs.
When we returned, I called to inquire if we can put all our laundered clothings back into the cloest and vacuum the floor. They said it was okay. I also asked if the next treatment will also involve the same procedure and they replied that they would only come to inspect the bed again.
As an experiment, I dipped the adult bedbug found on my bed, sealed in packaging tape, into a small tub of hot tap water for 30 secs.
It hasn’t moved its legs since…
nobugsonme | Oct 20, 2007 | Reply
Eva,
Sorry you have bed bugs.
Please do NOT unpack yet. Most cases need more than one treatment (in fact, 3-5 is much more common). Cases I have heard of that needed only one were NOT cases in which there were so many bugs, so many affected people, multiple affected apartments. So I would guess one will not do it for you.
Keep your clean things in the bags. Unpacking them will mean washing, drying and rebagging before the next treatment. The PCO will need to retreat you and all the affected neighbors every 10-14 days until you see no bugs and have no allergic reactions. See our FAQs.
Eva | Oct 23, 2007 | Reply
nobugs: Thanks for your advice! Our PCO just called to schedule 3 more treatments spaced 2 weeks apart. I asked about the bagging thing and he told me to keep them in the large bags. Obviously the secretary and technician whom she referred to doesn’t know much about BB treatments. My LL later called to check things up. He told me to speak to Herald directly, who was the guy in charge of our BB problem, instead of talking to the secretary although she was a very nice lady.
What crept me out was that our neighbor upstairs reported bites even after our recent treatment. We suspect that they didn’t follow the instructions to launder and bag everything. So I immediately laundered my remaining bags of clothes and sealed everything I have in the closet (although it is in another room). I even separated the ones which I took out on the night of treatment.
I work at home so I’m the prime bait for BB in my apt. So far I didn’t get any new bites for a week since they captured the adult bug and nymph on my bed box during the very first checkup. However it’s too early to say they’re gone from our apt, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
PS: We suspect buildings around our area in SF downtown are getting infested, so we’re keeping our clothes bagged for a long time….
nobugsonme | Oct 23, 2007 | Reply
This is a good reminder to customers that they should talk to the management if any of the tech’s or receptionist’s info seems odd. It is also a shout out to PCOs: we hear this kind of crap surprisingly often. You need to make sure your staff–even the office staff–know about bed bug treatment protocols. Or at least agree to send all questions to someone who does.
Simply soulful | Jul 2, 2008 | Reply
It’s Tuesday. I have getting bit since last Wednesday/Thursday. The Exterminator came today (Tuesday afternoon)to inspect and see what was going on and found a bed bug. The sofa bed that it was on (that i had been sleeping on) was wrapped in plastic and removed. The exterminator is coming tomorrow to treat this apartment and others i guess. Building management put flyers under all residents doors informing them of tommorrow’s “preventative I was given a sheet that told me among other things to wash all of my clothes on hot and dry them for at least an hour. The paper also says to VACUUM the apartment.
Is this safe practice? I just purchased a vacuum this evening and have not been able to wash all clothing. That’s going to take more than a day, especially since you have to run the dryer for the complete cycle. I have started to bag clothes up, tie them and tape the top shut. I have every bag labeled with it’s contents and the bags are clear, so when I get ready to wash I can just place the bag load in the machine. instant presorted laundry.
After vacuuming, I am suppossed to put EVERYTHING in the apartment in the center of the floor. I guess there was a reason I played so much tetris as a child.
What about my shoes that I will be wearing since i’m out the house during the extermination. Can bed bugs get into your shoes? Kind of a creepy thought.
Simply soulful | Jul 2, 2008 | Reply
I meant to type “preventative pest control”.
nobugsonme | Jul 2, 2008 | Reply
Simply Soulful,
Is vacuuming safe? Yes, but you must either seal the vaccum bag in a ziploc or other airtight bag and dispose of it right away, or clean the canister thoroughly. Boiling water poured in a canister would work, though it might harm the canister.
If you are wearing shoes it is of course possible that there might be a bed bug in them. This is more likely if the shoes are kept under the bed or near an area where bed bugs were known to harbor.
If there were one in your shoe, I doubt it would hang out there all day.
However, I assume the PCO will put a residual pesticide down (and possibly a mechanical killer dust as well). If you came home with a bed bug, keep in mind, it will probably be exposed to poison and die.
Read the FAQS in the travel section which detail how to avoid spreading bed bugs to others:
http://bedbugger.com/faqs/travel
And make sure your home is retreated every two weeks until all bed bugs, bed bug bites, and signs of bed bugs are gone. If you do not react to bites, I’d get retreated anyway, since one visit almost never does it. If you have further questions or need support, click “forums” at top right to come to our forums.
Good luck!