Getting Bed Bugs Out Of Your Clothes

Bed bugs used to be a part of everyone's every day life before the Second World War - or should that be 'a part of everybody's nocturnal life'? For hundreds of years, people merely grinned and bore it. They had to because there were no effective ways of getting rid of them.

They lived in the folded clothes, the furniture, the bedding and the houses of the rich and poor alike and because houses were situated so near together, families were larger and people were in and out of each others houses, you could not eradicate a bed bug infestation for long.

Then came the devastation of European cities in the Second World War 1939-1945 and numerous inner cities were unsafe, so the councils decided to take the opportunity to level the inner city slums and start again. A comparable programme was started in America, but not because of the war.

The authorities pulled down hundreds of millions of houses and made billions of rats, mice, bed bugs, fleas and other nasties homeless. In fact, rat poison and a new wonder insecticide, DDT, were used extensively in the clean up. By the end of the Forties or during the Fifties, bed bugs were virtually wiped out in the Western World.

The Baby Boomer generation was the first one never to have been bothered by bed bugs. This delightful situation lasted until the mid-Nineties, when increased long haul travel and more immigration permitted bed bugs to hitch rides back to the West. These undesirable hitch hikers usually came back on garments that had been packed away in luggage.

And so this is where we are today, in a situation where the West's foremost inner cities have a bed bug problem of epidemic proportions. Bed bugs are being passed about from person to person on all forms of public transport but particularly buses, trains and taxis and anywhere where individuals gather together, but particularly hotels, theatres and waiting rooms.

So, here are a few tips on how to avoid infesting your home with bed bugs. If you lodge in hotels a few nights or one night at a time, merely unpack what you have to at any one time. In other words, live out of your suitcase and put worn clothing in zipped plastic bags.

If you are on a longer vacation, by all means, unpack everything, but keep your suitcase shut and have all your clothes boil washed, dry cleaned or tumble-dried on 'HOT' before you repack them to go home.

If this is impossible because of the type of fabric, inspect all the seams, hems, pockets, cuffs and collars and blow them with the hair-dryer on 'HOT'. The hair-dryer is not really as effective, but all stages of a bed bug's life cycle are killed by seven minutes exposure to temperatures above 45C or 115F.

If you cannot heat-treat your clothing before you leave the hotel, seal them up in plastic bags and treat them when you get home - preferably in a laundrette or dry cleaners.

What do you do with your overcoat, if you mingle with others each day on the bus or at work? This is a difficult one. Bed bugs are resilient to all types of insect killer, which is why we are experiencing this epidemic, so you will literally have to inspect your overcoat each time you come home or get one that you can put in the tumble-dryer each night.

One bed bug can lay 300 eggs and live for a year without feeding, so you cannot know that you have not got bed bugs, you can merely say that you have not seen any - yet.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on many subjects, but is at this time involved with How To Test For Bed Bugs. If you want to know more, visit our website now at Pest Management at Home.