Bed Bug Prevention After College

Bed Bug Prevention — Minneapolis, MN — Paffy's Pest Control

Did your young adult child recently return from a year away at college or move home after graduation? Before they bring their dorm room or off-campus furniture into your house or unpack bags, boxes, and bins filled with clothes, take a look at what you need to know about bed bugs, pest prevention, and pest control options.

Can Your Adult Child Bring Bed Bugs Into Your Home?

While adult children can bring home bed bugs between semesters, this doesn't mean every teen or early 20-something who comes home from college will bring home bed bugs from their dorm or apartment with them. Your child can only transport bed bugs if their college dorm or apartment has an existing infestation.

According to the National Pest Management Association's (NPMA) Bugs Without Borders Survey, 45 percent of pest management professionals have found bed bugs in college dorm rooms. This number jumps to 89 percent for apartments and 91 percent for single-family homes.

These statistics can help you to understand the potential risks of infestation in your child's dorm or off-campus apartment or home. If bed bugs are in your child's college room, some of the invaders may not stay put when your young adult leaves.

The bugs may hide in baseboards, in floorboard panels, behind electrical outlets, under wallpaper, or in other similar spaces. After the bugs move into your child's room, it's likely they'll find warm, snug places to hide. These include your child's mattress, box spring, bed frame, dresser, desk drawers, clothes, bedding, or even decorative items.

These common problematic pests hitchhike into homes. This means they may crawl into your child's belongings or furniture and catch a ride to your house — even if the bugs have to travel across the state or from coast to coast.

How Can You Reduce the Risks of Bed Bugs?

Bed bug prevention starts at the source. Before your child moves their bed frame, mattress, clothing, or any other item out of their dorm or apartment, ask them to inspect their belongings for the bugs. If your child doesn't know what to look for or this is their first experience with pests, you may need to help them understand the signs of an infestation.

Bed bugs look like small-sized apple seeds. According to the NPMA's PestWorld website, the adults are 1/4-inch long and mahogany or red-brown in color.

Signs of an infestation that your child should look for include reddish-brown spots on couches or other fabric-covered furniture or on their mattress and box spring, molted bed bug skins, empty whitish eggshells, or the bugs themselves. Your college student child may also have small, itchy bites on their body.

If possible, your college student shouldn't bring infested items home as-is. Explain proper washing techniques and other mitigation strategies. They should wash clothing, bedding, towels, and anything else in hot soapy water and place everything in the dryer. A cold or warm water wash won't destroy the bugs.

Your young adult child may also need to contact a pest control professional for an extermination service — especially if they live in their own off-campus apartment or house. Not only may you need to help your child to identify and get rid of the bed bugs, but you may also need to assist them in an exterminator search.

Even though your child may not see noticeable signs of bed bugs in their dorm or apartment, you should still inspect their belongings when they come home. It's possible that your child may have missed the signs or forgot to look for them.

Ask your child to leave clothing and other smaller-sized items in the garage, basement, or area outside of the home. Inspect all non-washable items before bringing them into your home. Place items you can't wash immediately in sealed plastic bags. Do not bring these bags into your child's room or other similar interior spaces.

What Should You Do With Bed-Bug-Infested Furniture?

Unlike clothing and bedding, you can't put your child's bed frame, mattress, box spring, or dresser into the washer and dryer. You may need to throw away severely infested furniture. Disassemble these items or label them to stop other people from taking the infested items from your curbside trash.

While it may seem easier to throw away bed-bug-infested furniture, it's not always the cost-effective answer. If your child brought these items into your home, it's possible the bed bugs have already migrated to other areas. Instead of performing a do-it-yourself extermination, call a pest control professional. The contractor can inspect your child's belongings and recommend an extermination strategy.

Will Your Home Need Additional Pest Control Services?

It's possible you will need to schedule additional pest control services. A repeat inspection can reveal hidden bugs and make sure your home stays pest-free.

Do you need pest control services? Contact Paffy's Pest Control for more information.