Keep in mind an encasement will not solve your problem. If you have bed bugs in other parts of the room or on other pieces of furniture or other stuff, they can still bite you. They can crawl onto anything (such as a new bed) any time.

Each individual bed bug will bite about once a week. IF you reacted to bed bug bites before, then if you go a month without any, you probably are bed bug free.

(This is assuming you had one or maybe not bed bugs at all. If someone had actual treatment to eliminate a known case of bed bugs, I would wait longer; Entomologist Rick Cooper suggests 55 days which seems like a nice span of time — assuming one reacts to bites.)

Marie, please click here if you want to continue the discussion. You can post a message in our forums and will get many responses in addition to mine.

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Keep in mind that it can be very difficult to detect bed bugs, especially in the early stages of an infestation. A very experienced professional who knows what they are looking for may take 2 or 3 hours to meticulously search a home for bed bugs.

We cannot say if you have bed bugs or not. I recommend carefully encasing your new mattress in an encasement which is designed and tested to keep bed bugs out. Make sure you take care in putting it on, since they do rip (especially if they encounter sharp edges on a frame or box spring, which should be carefully taped where sharp bits are exposed).

If you encounter more bugs, try and trap them in a pill jar to have them identified. And please do not discard anything else — unless your problem is identified for certain. (Even then, you may not need to toss anything out).

Please come to the forums if you need support or feedback.

91% alcohol is only a contact killer — it kills bed bugs sprayed directly. If you do not even know if you have them, it is likely not doing anything to help. Even if you do have them, you’d have to spray them directly, and you would see them.

Although they may not have migrated from two buildings away, they are in your neighborhood, which means someone in your building might have them, someone might have brought them to school or your son might have been bitten at a friend’s home (IF his bites are from bed bugs).

It is hard to see bed bugs or find a sample. You could have your home inspected by a knowledgeable Pro with lots of bed bug experience. Keep in mind others in the family may not react to bites. Your son is not necessarily the only one being bitten.

If the bug sample you have might be a bed bug, you could send it away for identification or ask a local PCO to identify it. Keep in mind, finding other bugs does not mean you do not have bed bugs.

If you want more support or advice, please post in our forums: http://bedbugger.com/forum/

If you have additional questions, please come to our forums.