How To Get Rid Of Bed Bugs

Containment and Prevention

Preventing the spread of bed bugs is vital once an infestation is found. Seal cracks and crevices around your home to remove hiding spots and limit their movement. Avoid bringing in second-hand furniture without careful inspection, as these can carry bed bugs. When travelling, especially in hotels, use protective mattress covers and keep luggage on a suitcase stand or in a closed car. Regularly wash bedding and clothes on a hot wash and dry on a high heat to kill bed bugs and eggs. Keeping your home clean and clutter-free makes it harder for bed bugs to hide and breed, supporting your bed bug control efforts.

Trapping Bed bugs

While trapping bed bugs can help monitor an infestation, it won’t get rid of bed bugs completely. However, it can slow their spread while you arrange for professional treatment.

One of the most effective methods is sealing your mattress and box spring in a plastic bag, which traps all the bugs inside, preventing them from escaping or feeding. Over time, this can help reduce their numbers, but it won’t eliminate them entirely. If you’re planning to buy a new mattress, you’ll need to ensure the infestation has been fully eradicated first to prevent re-infestation.

Placing sticky traps and bed bug interceptors under bed legs, furniture, and affected areas can capture bed bugs as they move. These traps help monitor infestation levels and confirm their presence, but they won’t eliminate bed bugs completely. A professional exterminator is necessary to fully remove them.

While these methods can help reduce an infestation, they will not completely eliminate bed bugs. For full eradication, professional bed bug treatment is required.

Cleaning Advice

At ThermoPest, we recommend washing all bedding, clothing, and curtains on a hot wash cycle (60°C or above) to kill bed bugs and their eggs. Follow this by tumble drying on a hot setting for at least 30 minutes to ensure full eradication.

Once cleaned, store items in sealed plastic bags to prevent re-infestation. Alternatively, lightly infested items can be placed in a sealed bag and frozen for at least 3 to 4 days, although this method is slower and less reliable than heat treatment.

Vacuum regularly, targeting mattresses, bed frames, carpets, and skirting boards, focusing especially on cracks and crevices where bed bugs tend to hide. Always dispose of vacuum contents immediately outside your home in a sealed bag to avoid spreading the infestation.

While bed bugs are not attracted to dirt or unclean environments, regular cleaning and inspection remain essential in managing an infestation — but it’s important to understand that cleaning alone will not eliminate bed bugs. These pests are incredibly resilient and can survive deep within furniture, wall joints, and even electrical sockets, far beyond the reach of household cleaning or DIY sprays.

Cleaning helps in other ways, however. It reduces clutter, removes visible bugs and eggs, and makes professional heat treatment far more effective by allowing our technicians to target every hidden area. Think of cleaning as a vital preparation step — not a solution in itself.

When to Discard Infested Items

In severe infestations, some items may be too heavily affected to salvage. Simply discarding them without precautions can make the situation worse by allowing bed bugs to spread to other areas or neighbouring properties.

However, at ThermoPest, our professional heat treatments are designed so that in most cases, you won’t need to throw anything away.

Our advanced heat systems penetrate deep into furniture, fabrics, and hard-to-reach spaces — safely killing bed bugs and their eggs in a single treatment. Only in rare, extreme cases — such as heavily infested mattresses or items with internal hollow spaces that can’t be safely heated — might disposal be necessary.

If that situation does arise, always seal the item in plastic before removal and clearly label it as “Infested – Do Not Reuse” to prevent further spread. But in most circumstances, our BPCA-trained ThermoPest technicians can save your furniture and belongings, restoring your home to a completely bed bug-free condition without unnecessary loss.

Even after removing infested items, bed bugs often remain hidden in other parts of your property, making professional pest control essential to completely eliminate all bed bugs and their eggs. ThermoPest’s BPCA-trained specialists employ advanced industrial heat systems that penetrate deeply into furniture, fabrics, and hard-to-reach areas, providing a thorough, chemical-free solution to bed bug infestations with guaranteed results.

For those experiencing bed bug bites, mild steroid cream or antihistamines can help relieve itching and painful swelling, particularly on white skin or black or brown skin where bites may appear as dark yellow or purple spots.

Taking these preparatory steps alongside professional bed bug treatment significantly increases the chances of fully removing bed bugs from your home or business.