Ensuring Your Travel Items Are Bedbug-Free

It’s a common knowledge that some bedbug infestation problems start when you bring these blood-sucking pests home from a vacation. Because of their ability to hide in the darkest and least noticeable areas of our luggage, bedbugs can get into the cleanest, most organized homes if we are not careful enough.

Although bedbugs have a proven track-record of traveling with humans, here are some tips to guarantee that you will not take them home from your travels. This is very important for those who just love traveling or those who travel for business purposes.


Identify Them
It’s not very difficult to identify bedbugs because although they are very tiny, they leave some obvious signs of existence. But you cannot see them without searching thoroughly for them.  

First off, check the mattresses, furniture, and cabinets for possible signs of their presence. You might see their blood on the edges of the cushions or the corners of the cabinet. Before packing, inspect your clothes and other items meticulously. It might be time-consuming but it sure is easier than addressing a bigger bedbug problem when your house gets infested.

Proactively Segregate Suspected Items
If you suspect that some of your clothes or items are infested, put them in a plastic bag to avoid further infestation of your other non-affected items. Do this proactively by making sure that every single item is properly packed. This is a preparation for the next step.

Wash Them Before Leaving
Once sure that all the infected items are segregated, go to the nearest reliable laundry shop and get all the washable items cleaned thoroughly. Be honest with the staff at the laundromat and tell them that your clothes are probably infested, so they can act accordingly. 

You can also opt to wash the clothes on your own so you’ll be more certain that they will be cleaned meticulously by none other than yourself. As for the non-washable items, just keep them segregated, then put them down on the floor for an hour to allow the bedbugs to crawl away. Just make sure that the floor is not carpeted so they won’t have a place to hide. You can also steam clean these non-washable items.

Heat Them Up
A temperature of up to 45 degrees Celsius can kill bedbugs instantly. After washing the items, expose them in the sun for two hours or more. This will dry up the bedbugs to death. Aside from exposing them from the sun, you can also perform heat treatments on them. This last step will ensure that your luggage will be bedbug-free.

These simple steps may take some time to complete, but they will guarantee that you won’t bring any bedbug home. But if you are on a business trip and you simply cannot spare even a day to do all these tasks, you can always hire competent bedbug removal pros from Jersey City Exterminators to help you.