Did you or someone you know get what look like bed bug bites while they were in the living room or study? Bed bugs do not only exist in mattresses, but sometimes carpets and other plush items as well. If you have the feeling that there may be bed bugs lurking in your carpets, it’s best to check and clean them out before you get bitten twice. Aside from engaging a professional carpet cleaning service, you can also try it on your own. Here are our top tips for removing bed bugs from carpets.

Ensure Other Household Items Are Not Infested

Carpets are not the first thing we think of cleaning when we think of removing bed bugs – for good reason. Usually, carpets are the last thing you would look at, because they are not a bed bug’s first choice. Bed bugs typically prefer mattresses or furniture with many cracks or corners. The best thing you can start with doing is to check your other furniture in the room – sofas, armchairs, or any other cushions, bedding, clothing, and plush items – and make sure the bed bugs are not hiding in there. Do also check the corners of walls for cracks where bed bugs may be hiding. Usually this is a straightforward matter of spraying them with bed bug spray or tea tree oil and leaving until the bed bugs are dead, or putting the items such as bedding and clothing in the laundry. You also need to remove all these other items from your room before you clean your carpet.

Clean Them Out Fast

Do not take your time by attempting to clean different areas of your room bit by bit. Bed bugs breed quickly – female bed bugs lay between 5 and 8 eggs a week, and 50 eggs in their lifetime. The life cycle of a bed bug is usually between 40 and 70 days, so you can imagine that if you take a few weeks to clean your room there may just be some new bed bugs waiting for you.

Use Double Sided Tape

It may seem like a common item, but double sided tape is like an easy trap for bed bugs – they crawl onto it and get stuck to it. Bed bugs can’t fly, only crawl, so if you put double sided tape in places where they cannot avoid it, such as cracks or corners in the wall, you are likely to catch a number of bed bugs that way. You should also use double sided tape to seal your room before cleaning your carpets.

Dehydrate Them

Silica gel is a great way to kill bed bugs, because it scratches at the protective surface on the bug’s shell which helps them to retain moisture, hence causing them to dehydrate. Another, natural substitute is diatomaceous earth. If you pour a thick layer of this all over your room and carpet, and leave it for 24 hours or as long as you feel comfortable, this would likely kill the bed bugs.

Steam Them

Bed bugs are highly susceptible to heat damage, so steam cleaning is a great option if you prefer to get rid of them thoroughly using high heat. To get this done professionally with powerful steam machines, contact Reilly’s Oriental Rug Cleaning.

Vacuuming Them Does Not Mean Killing Them

Did you vacuum your bed bugs up? Great job! Now, you may want to think about what to do next to dispose of them. Do note that bed bugs can live up to a year in the vacuum bag before dying of starvation – so if you open that bag anytime soon after removing them, you may be in for a surprise. Keep them in the bag so they can’t escape, and outdoors so they don’t come back in.