Inspect your mattress for bed bugs
Sometimes, realizing that your mattress is infested with bed bugs come quite a bit late — that is, when you’ve already been bitten by it. And then the problems become much worse. That’s why it’s good to detect bed bug infestation earlier. But how do you know?
Bed bugs, in its early developing stages hide under the folds of your mattresses. Inspecting your mattress closely is the only way of detecting it. These bed bugs are very tiny critters, and as much as it may look ridiculous, having a magnifying glass will be of help to you. You may even find eggs and eggshells on the sides of your mattress.
Immediately call an exterminator when you find traces of bed bugs. Delaying it might not be a good idea because bed bugs later move to the crevices and woodwork of your bed and live in the darker spots. They can even move towards windows and wallpapers. And by then, you would really have a big problem.
Photo via MSN Image Search
Tags: bed_bug, bed_bugs, detecting-bed-bugs, mattress, MATTRESS Safety, MATTRESS Tips, mattress-inspection, mattress-with-bed-bugs, mattresses, tiny_critters
Loading ...
March 27th, 2008 at 8:31 am
It’s very intelligent of you to recognize the healthful benefit of sleeping on hygienic mattresses.
Here are your options.
The very best you could do, or anybody else for that matter, is to hire a professional mattress cleaner that uses the “dry method cleaning process.” Unfortunately, there are very few persons in the U.S. that provide this service. Following immediately below are the steps a professional mattress cleaner would perform. BUT, because there are so few mattress cleaners in the U.S., read further down to discover what you can do to clean your own mattress. It won’t be as good as a professional, but will still be a huge improvement over not doing anything at all.
A professional mattress cleaning technician using the “dry method cleaning process” (never wet a mattress) will first use a HEPA-rated vacuum cleaner (not just one equipped with HEPA filters) and powerful suction to remove the “contaminants” within a mattress. Knowledgeable technicians know to use an attachment with a beater brush, power nozzle or turbo nozzle, as these attachments cause vibrations..
Secondly, knowledgeable technicians’ will bathe the mattress surfaces with a separate, portable UVC light wand that has ultraviolet germicidal irradiation (UVGI) capabilities. They will apply the UVC light in a grid-like manner and bathe an area approximately 18″ x 18″ for a full 20 second duration, and so on. This will alter the DNA in all micro-organisms and cause the death of 99.9% of the microbials.
Thirdly, a knowledgeable technician will apply a very light mist of all natural, non-toxic, odorless enzyme cleaner to the mattress surface and pillows. The enzymes will continue to do the work started by the mattress cleaning technician and thwart future growth of dust mite colonies, mold, mildew, spores, fungi, bacteria and viruses, until the next service date. The cost of servicing a 3 or 4 bedroom home will run around $120-$150 and take 1-1/2 to 2 hours. Depending on the needs of the home occupants, a follow-up service should be scheduled every 6 months, 4 months for a home with an allergy sufferer, 3 months for a home with an asthmatic. Consider the number of indoor pets also.
BUT because there are so few professionals…use the next best option.
On a day forecasted to be bright and sunny with no rain in the forecast, take your mattress (and the the others) outside early in the morning and beat the crap out them. Prop them up so that they catch the morning sun and then re-position them so they catch the afternoon sun on the reverse side. Make sure the automatic sprinkler system doesn’t start up. Once you have beaten the crap out of them and have used the sun’s natural cleansing abilities (UVA and UVB light waves) tote the mattresses back indoors. It would be a good idea to inspect the top edge of the mattress just in case a cat has napped on it. Also, you should do this at a time of the year when pollen is not so heavy. Your local weathercast usually provides this info daily. Next, apply a very light misting of all natural, non-toxic, odorless enzyme cleaner on the surfaces of the mattresses. The enzyme mist should be dry to the touch within 5 minutes or else you have misted too heavily. Mist the pillows too. Each time you launder the mattress pad, apply the enzyme mist (very lightly) to the mattress and pillows before replacing the mattress pad and pillow cases. The enzymes will “munch on” and slow down the growth of dust mite colonies, mold, mildew, fungi, spores, pollen, bacteria and viruses, until the next time you beat the crap out of your mattresses.
Some people may suggest you vacuum the mattress in position (in the bedroom) but unless you have the right vacuum and most likely you don’t, I would not…unless you vacuum the mattress outdoors. Most vacuums, even the top ranked HEPA vacuums per the Consumer Report’s magazine, still spew millions of dust particles into your indoor environment. These particles stay airborne for 2 hours circulating throughout the entire home, before settling on top of everything…including dust mite-proof mattress pads and pillows.
For generations upon generations (ask any octogenarian) people would routinely tote their mattresses outdoors at least every spring, and sometimes again in the fall, to literally beat the crap out them with a big stick, broom, 2 x 4, baseball bat, 9-iron, tennis racket, or whatever else they could find.
The purpose of doing so was to remove the dust within the mattress. What was not known then is known today. The “dust” was mostly shed human skin and the allergenic waste products of dust mites which love to eat shed human skin cells, along with mold, mildew, spores, fungi, pollen, pet dander, bacteria and viruses.
If the mattress has any foreign stains on it, then check out the mattress stain removal link at the bottom of this reply. BTW, enzymes will, overtime, also eat away any organic stains, on or in, the mattress(es).
An average queen-sized mattress is host to around 2 million dust mites. A dust mite poops 20 to 30 fecal pellets, 15 microns in size, per day (actually night, as they are nocturnal). So that equates to 40-60 million FRESH fecal pellets in your mattress each morning you awake. Dust mites live for 100 days…so one average-sized colony leaves 40 to 60 TRILLION fecal pellets in your mattress over their lifetime and of course as they die off…many more replace the dead ones.
The digestive system of a dust mite produces a protein called guanine. The guanine breaks down hard to digest foods which also allow dust mites to practice “corphagia” meaning they can survive by eating their own feces just in case you decide to put a mite-proof mattress cover on your mattress.
The fecal pellets dry up and become powdery thus reducing the 15 micron size to an even much smaller size (