Whether you travel once a year or are on the road every weekend, it’s a good idea to be ready for any bed bugs you might encounter on your travels. The fear of bed bugs seems to be everywhere nowadays, with news stories about bed bugs in homes, hotels, and even airplanes. That’s why you should have the best travel bed bug spray available so that you don’t end up bringing them home with you.
We know, we know. Traveling already takes a lot of planning and energy. But taking a bit of time to learn about how bed bugs travel can prevent weeks of headaches (and itching) should you take them home with you. Let’s take a look at steps you can take that go well beyond a bed bug travel spray.
Why The Bed Bug Resurgence?
Before we talk more about how bed bugs travel and what you can do about it, let’s talk about why there seem to be so many stories about them today. Is it just the 24-hour news cycle needing to fill airtime and using scare tactics to keep you up at night when you’re in a hotel? Surprisingly this isn’t the case this time!
Bed bugs were nearly eradicated from hotels and motels back in the early part of the 20th century. Exterminators would use any means necessary to kill bed bugs, and you know what that means: harsh pesticides. In the days of kids playing with globs of mercury while their schools were having asbestos installed, you can probably guess that those pesticides were much more toxic than anything we’d allow today. But as dangerous as those chemicals were, something good came of it...they were winning the bed bug war. They truly beat back bed bugs with chemical sprays, even if it wasn’t good for the health of anyone who stayed in the rooms.
For decades, stories of bed bugs were relatively rare. But since the mid-1990s there has been a big resurgence, and there are three primary reasons.
First of all, international travel has become so cheap that nearly anyone can afford it. This means that Americans are bringing them back from countries that never took the bed bugs down a notch. Second, the powerful chemicals that were used before have been banned — DDT comes to mind — because they’re dangerous to humans and the environment. Finally, bed bugs have built up an immunity to many of the chemicals used in modern pesticides, specifically deltamethrin; fewer than 12-percent of bed bugs are still susceptible to this common chemical.
What To Look For In Bed Bug Travel Spray
Now that bed bugs are back, it’s time to be aware of the best way to deal with bed bugs while you’re on the road. One of the most obvious is to find the best travel bed bug spray possible. That’s what we make here at bedbugstore.com, a bed bug spray that works to kill bed bugs on contact. But that’s not all you have to look for when investigating how to get rid of bed bugs while traveling.
Look For Something Non-Toxic
Of course, the most important thing you want to look for when it comes to travel-size bed bug spray is that it’s not going to be dangerous to you. You don’t want to sleep in a room that has that noxious chemical smell that most bed bug travel sprays have.
Bed Bug Patrol has created an all-natural bed bug spray that isn’t toxic to humans or animals. We searched the world for the right combination of oils and botanicals that will kill bed bugs but are perfectly safe for mammals. You can spray it as much as you want and not worry about the short- or long-term effects that could be suffered due to other bed bug killers.
Create An Invisible Barrier
One of the advantages of going with our bed bug travel spray is that it sticks around. Now that’s not something you want with most bugs sprays; you want the foul smell and dangerous chemical to go away as quickly as it can. But as we just mentioned, Bed Bug Patrol Travel Spray is non-toxic to humans and animals (but is very toxic to bed bugs!).
After you’ve done a visual inspection for bed bugs (more on that later), it’s still a good idea to give the mattress a spray even if you don’t find any signs of them. We suggest putting down a good spray all along the edge of the sheets in order to create an invisible barrier. Our Bed Bug Spray sticks around longer than most, ensuring that you’ll be killing any that try to move from the mattress to your skin during the night.
Don’t Damage The Sheets
If you ever have to get rid of bed bugs at home, you’ll do everything you can to eradicate them. If it means shortening the life of your sheets by washing and drying them on the hottest setting, or cutting out the bloody messes that the bed bugs have made, it’s worth it.
You don’t have that luxury when you’re at a hotel. But when you use Bed Bug Patrol Travel Spray, damaging the sheets with our spray isn’t something you have to worry about. Our spray doesn’t stain sheets, so you can spray it to your heart’s content. You won’t get in trouble with the management or get charged for stained sheets when you use our product!
Make Sure the Size Conforms
A travel bed bug spray is only good if it gets where you’re going! At three ounces, our Bed Bug Killing Travel Spray can go with you on your carry-on so that it doesn’t get confiscated at TSA checkpoints.
Other Ways To Avoid Bed Bugs When Traveling
If you see bed bugs in your hotel room, it’s best to just request another room or leave the hotel altogether. But even if you don’t see bed bugs, it doesn’t mean they’re not there. That’s why it’s a good idea to engage in other bed bug travel protection. Let’s take a look.
Do An Examination
The first thing you should do when you get to a hotel room is to examine it, even before you bring your luggage in. (If you can’t leave it in the car, simply set it upright in the tub until you’ve done your inspection.) While this might seem like a lot of work, spending five minutes investigating now could have you weeks or months of frustration if you end up taking them home.
You should start with the bed, of course. At home, one of the telltale signs of bed bugs is the brownish-red stains they leave on the sheets. This is their excrement. But the sheets that were on a hotel bed are not the same ones that were on it last night, (you hope) so that’s not going to work. You should inspect the mattress itself for these telltale signs of bed bugs.
While you’re checking the mattress, lift up any seams. Bed bugs like to hide, so if you’re going to find them then the seams of a mattress are the most obvious location. You should look for adults, of course, which are about the size, shade, and even color of an apple seed. You can also look for discarded skins because bed bugs go through five nymph stages before they are sexually mature. Sometimes nymphs are easy to see, other times difficult if they haven’t fed recently and are whitish-clear against a white mattress. Finally, there are the eggs, no bigger than a pinhead and incredibly hard to see. Here’s help with how to identify bed bugs and their bites.
It’s not always easy to see bed bugs and their offspring. This task can be made much easier with a bed bug detection light. Our UV Bed Bug Light operates at a frequency that makes all stages of bed bugs fluoresce, allowing you to find signs of them in record time.
Watch Your Clothes
Luckily, bed bugs aren’t very good at grabbing onto clothing when you’re wearing it. Bed bugs tend to be pretty easy to shake off, but that doesn’t mean that your clothes are invulnerable when they’re sitting in the hotel room.
When you’re in a hotel, we must suggest that you don’t lay your clothes down vertically. The most common way that clothing can become infested is by putting clothing in dresser drawers. Instead of using dresser drawers, hang up your bulkier or dressier clothing in the closet. (Other clothing can be kept in your luggage; see below).
The trick is to know how bed bugs move, what they’re capable of, and what they’re not. They can’t crawl up most slick surfaces very well, so the closet is a great option. But if you leave your clothing on the bed or in a dresser, it’s possible for them to crawl inside and then be transported back home in your luggage.
Your Luggage Is Vulnerable
Bed bugs love modern mattresses because there are so many places to hide. There are seams, pillowtop creases, and grommets in which they can relax for the day before coming out at night to suck blood. But there’s one place in the room that has even more nooks and crannies: your luggage.
Sure, all those compartments make traveling easier and better organized, but they also provide a haven for bed bugs. That’s where luggage wraps come in. Much like mattress encasements, luggage wraps prevent bed bugs from getting into your luggage in the first place. If they can’t hide out in your luggage, they’re more likely to head under the trim or hide in a dresser. That means you never take them home in the first place.
Let’s Keep You Safe!
Because most bed bug infestations begin with a stay in a hotel, we hope you’ll take the situation seriously and invest in the best bed bug eradication and prevention techniques possible. Doing so during a stay at a hotel could save you from even having to deal with them once you’re back home.
If you’re looking for the best bed bug solution possible, you don’t have to take our word for it. Click here for bed bug travel spray reviews, then be sure to grab the best insecticide for bed bugs on the market.
Let us at Bed Bug Store assist you. All our products come with a 90-day 100% satisfaction guarantee. We have been relieving customers of their bed bugs for over 15 years. Our products are also 100% all-natural, chemical and pesticide-free. The smell you notice when using our solution, is the fresh scent of peppermint.
Our sprays are made with 100% effective natural ingredients and essentials oils, making Bed Bug Patrol a great alternative to harsh pesticides and insecticides which bed bugs are becoming increasingly resistant to.
Enjoy the safety of knowing your bed bug battle will soon be won by the all-natural power of Bed Bug Patrol.
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