Are you familiar with the term “battle of attrition”? It is a warfare strategy that involves wearing down an enemy by depleting their resources or personnel. Well, we’re here to tell you that fighting bed bugs is not a battle of attrition. You can not win the battle by slowly killing off these bugs and or by choking off their food supply. Here's why:

 

 

DIY methods often fall short and leave families tormented by these blood-eating pests because they treat the symptoms, not the source. There are all kinds of DIY bed bug elimination techniques that you may be tempted to try, but bed bugs are wired to avoid the things that harm their populations. If ten bugs go out and only three return, they will take notice. In addition, spraying bed bugs or using some form of trap to kill them can actually worsen your problem by driving them deep into your walls.

 

Another way you may think to use DIY bed bug control is to starve them. You may try putting traps under the feet of your bed and sticky traps on your headboard as well as putting a cover on your mattress and box spring. While these methods will keep bed bugs from biting you while you sleep, they won't do anything about these pests biting you when you're not sleeping. Yup, that's a thing. Though these little biters prefer to feed at night when CO2 levels rise in a room, they are more than able to feed at any time during the day. Even if you could prevent the bed bugs from feeding both day and night, you are still unlikely to starve them. There are many projections as to how long a bed bug can live without food, but conservative estimates put it at over five months!

 

The solution for bed bugs isn't to kill them off a few at a time or to starve them to death. Like we mentioned before, it isn't a battle of attrition. Right now you're probably wondering, “What is the answer then?” Well, complete bed bug elimination requires an education in the habits and habitats of these pests paired with proper inspections, detailed planning, targeted treatments and, when necessary, the implementation of heat remediation.

 

If you live in Albany or the surrounding area, call in the bed bug specialists at Thomas Pest Services! Through a detailed and trusted process, we can help you determine the level of your infestation, isolate those bugs, and treat them with targeted methods or eliminate them throughout the entire structure! Get started by requesting a FREE estimate. Don't trust your family's health and happiness to DIY bed bug control! Stop them at the source!