Fumigating your car, moving truck or semi cab for bed bugs in Kansas City

As noted in the first post bed bugs are on the rise and will continue to terrorize our communities and infest our homes, businesses, and vehicles. It is important to be aware of these little vampires and be able to identify the signs of bed bugs.

Signs to look out for regarding bed bugs are as follows: if you are noticing bites when you wake up in the morning, it appears like a ball point pen was touched on the seams and corners of your mattress and box spring, and seeing cast skins or live bugs. Bed bugs go through a gradual metamorphose where they shed their skin like a snake as they grow. Adult bed bugs are reddish-brown, flat and oval roughly the size of an apple seed.

For years thermal remediation or heat was thought to be the best treatment option to rid your infested structure or vehicle of bed bugs. In the last few years, a number of companies across the United States have moved away from heat as the primary treatment method and started to perform fumigation treatments using Vikane gas.

With the rise of bed bugs in Kansas City, different environments are becoming infested, including cars, moving trucks and semi cabs. This blog post will discuss the importance of getting your truck fumigated and why it’s the best option to prevent these little guys from following you to your final destination.

Why fumigating is your best option to rid your car or truck of bed bugs

Vikane gas has been around and successfully taking care of pests for over 50 years. Fumigating is now the best and most effective treatment method to win your bed bug battle. There is a 100% guarantee that no bed bugs will survive no matter the level of infestation. No other treatment method besides fumigation can provide this kind of guaranteed success. Fumigating is the process of creating an air tight environment and replacing the oxygen with sulfuryl fluoride. Vikane is an orderless, colorless gas that leaves behind no residue or residual and penetrates through everything in your vehicle.

Unlike heat, fumigation leaves absolutely no chance of active bed bugs. With more companies trying to get into heating with a lack of any training or experience many people are losing faith in the effectiveness of heat. Before any company can fumigate they are required to have a fumigation license, which is a specialized license outside the regular pest control license.

When it comes to treating your car, moving truck or semi cab fumigation is truly the only treatment method that makes sense to go with. Everything gets treated without having to move anything or take anything out. You can pack your car or truck with as many items as you want without having to worry about if the treatment will fail or not. When you fumigate your car, moving truck and semi cab you prevent the spreading of bed bugs to your new home/ new apartment, friends/ families homes and workplace.

When we fumigate cars, moving trucks and semi cabs we tent the vehicle enclosing everything in gas, making sure that the entire vehicle inside and out is treated. With tenting there is zero chance of failure because there is nowhere for the bed bugs to go without being exposed to the Vikane gas.

Information about Vikane gas

Vikane is a product owned by Douglas Products. Click the above heading to learn more about Vikane and the process of fumigation.

5 steps to prevent the reintroduction of bed bugs to your Kansas City home

In recent years bed bugs have managed to hitchhike their way into a mass amount of cities around the globe. These little vampires will continue to infest homes and communities throughout the United States and it’s only a matter of time before you or someone you know has to deal with these pests. Kansas City, Missouri is ranked number 44 when it comes to most infested cities in the U.S. and will most likely stay in the top 50s list as the city continues to grow. These bugs can be controlled and eliminated from your home through various treatments but the hard part is keeping them out. This blog will talk about the proper steps that have been taken by our bed bug customers and have kept bed bugs from being reintroduced into the home.

Steps to avoid bed bugs in Kansas City

Step One: Make sure you don’t take bed bugs with you when you leave your home

This is the most important step to take to assure that after your bed bug treatment you don’t continue to deal with bed bugs. We ask our customers to wash and dry all clothes they plan to wear/ take with them on the day of treatment and put them into a contractor grade trash bag that is tied and taped shut. Clothes that are to be worn on treatment day should be in their own bag. Clothes that are worn on the day of treatment should be removed from the bag and put on touching no surrounding furniture or possible infested areas. Once the clothes are on we ask our customer to then walk straight out of their home with their contractor grade bag. We ask that minimal items be taken out of the home on treatment day, items we are okay with taking out are cards/cash and keys nothing else. This allows for the best possible treatment results and lessens the chances of reintroduction to the home.

Step Two: Getting your car treated

This step is important to consider because we spend a lot of time driving from place to place. Say you pick up bed bugs at your doctor’s office and get into your car and drive home; you now have a chance of the bed bug(s) moving into a safe crack or crevice in your car. We highly recommend that you get your car fumigated with Vikane gas the same day your home is treated to assure no bed bugs are being moved back and forth from the car to the home and the home to the car. This allows for the best possible treatment results and lessens the chances of reintroduction to the home.

Step Three: Post-treatment procedure

This step will make sure that you stop any further infestations at your door. This is a step followed by all of our bed bug technicians and has prevented their homes from potential infestation. Anytime you go somewhere where there’s a high risk of picking up bed bugs, such as your doctor’s office/hospital, local movie theater or daycare/elder care facility, we ask that you enter your home from your garage. Before entering the home remove clothing and place into a basket. Then take that basket and dump your clothes directly into the dryer and run on high heat for about 45 minutes. If you live in an apartment with no garage perform this step in your entry way making sure not to fling off any potential bed bugs that may be on you. It might sound extreme and ridiculous but this step is vital to protecting your home from further infestations.

Step Four: Routine inspections

Having a pest management professional routinely inspect your home for bed bugs is a great tool to use to catch any bed bugs that may slip through the cracks. We recommend that monthly or bi-monthly inspections be performed for at least the first year after a successful treatment to make sure reintroduction hasn’t occurred. After the first year, we recommend that quarterly or every six month inspections are performed. By having routine inspections performed you have a greater chance of catching any bed bugs sooner than later making it easier to eliminate.

Step Five: Awareness

After most people have experienced bed bugs they naturally become more aware of their surroundings and the signs for bed bugs. It is extremely important to be aware that bed bugs are real and that just because you’ve had them once doesn’t mean you won’t get them again. Being aware of the potential places that you could pick up bed bugs is important to remember and key to preventing a reintroduction to your home.

Other bed bug awareness tips in Kansas City

Things to also be aware of are used furniture and used clothes. This is a major way bed bugs are being spread from home to home. If you do get used furniture or used clothes make sure you treat them prior to entering your home, through fumigation or heat.

If these five steps are practiced and maintained the chance of reintroduction of bed bugs to your home is drastically lessened. Deviating from these steps even once could open up a chance of reintroduction. Don’t let this blog scare you from living your day to day life but allow it to help you keep your home and most importantly your family safe from these vampires.