Are These Bed Bugs In My Elizabeth City Home?

Well, before you head off to the local hardware store to purchase a cart full of insecticides, you might want to know what you're up against.

Bed Bug Basics

Bed bugs only come out at night, so they are rather difficult to locate. The first signs of bed bugs would be bites on your skin, sometimes mistaken for mosquito or flea bites. Human and animal blood is their food source. They will hang out in the seams of the mattress or crevices of other fabric furniture. These descriptors may help.

• About the size of an apple seed (5-7 mm or 3/16 - 1/4 inch long)
• If NOT fed recently, they are long and brown, with a flat, oval-shaped body
• If fed recently they are balloon-like, reddish-brown, and more elongated.
• The bugs in North Carolina normally have a mottled appearance on their backs. Brown with black modeling
• Smelly, with a “musty-sweetish” odor produced through glands on the lower side of the body
• Young bed bugs (also called nymphs), in general, are smaller, translucent, or whitish-yellow. If not recently fed, they can be nearly invisible to the naked eye because of coloring and size.
• Bed bug eggs, in general, are tiny, the size of a pinhead, pearl-white, and marked by an eyespot if more than five days old.

There are DIY remedies available and when faced with an infestation many home and business owners choose this route attempting to cut costs. Saving money isn’t the only reason people choose DIY methods. Often people are embarrassed that bed bugs have infested their homes or business. The last thing a business needs is bad press or gossip about their situation, so opting for a discrete method is preferable.

DIY Bed Bug Solutions For Elizabeth City

Today it is so easy to search out DIY solutions to any problem. We are quick to Google or watch a YouTube video, thinking that the answer is just a click away. Here is a shortlist of products available for the do-it-yourselfer:

• Mattress pad - Claims to make hiding places disappear
• Sprays - Claims it kills on contact
• Aerosol - Claims it kills on contact
• Traps - Interceptors stop the bugs before they get to the bed

These methods rarely, if ever work as advertised. The only causality is your checkbook. The average person makes repeated trips to the store in an attempt to eradicate these pests quietly, however, they won’t go without a fight. In most cases, you will see a temporary decline in inactivity, but they shall return. The trick is to eliminate the bed bugs completely. And not just from the bed, but also wherever else in the house they hitchhiked to.

Albemarle's Bed Bug Control Program

At Albemarle Termite & Pest Control, we understand North Carolina's bed bug problem. We are a family-owned business with three generations working together in our communities to help put an end to bed bug infestations in Elizabeth City. 

After our initial first inspection, we will determine which program you will need, based on the severity of the infestation. We have three, six, or nine-week programs designed to combat any infestation. Our follow-up service and quarterly bed bug service plan will prevent this from ever happening again. This is the most cost-effective option, especially when you consider what you could be paying for endless trips to the store buying over-the-counter pesticides that never work. Not only is this expensive, but very frustrating.

Contact Us Today

We understand that not only is this an aggravation but that it also can be embarrassing. We want to assure you that we will handle your situation professionally with discretion. Call us today for a free initial home pest control inspection.