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How to Save Your Mattress After Bed Bugs?

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How to save your mattress after bed bugs? There are many ways to get rid of bed bugs on mattresses by using dry cleaning for pillows, bedsheets, and blankets. You can also vacuum the bed. And there are a lot more options to discuss, which will be covered in this article.

In this article, I will comprehensively discuss bed bug infestations, how to spot them, how to save your mattress after bed bugs have already infested it, and many other questions that arise when you notice the existence of these pests in your bed! Keep reading to understand the best way to protect your mattress against these pests!

Where do bed bugs typically hide in your house?

Bed bugs are known to hide in multiple places in your house. Given that they are flat in shape and extremely small in size, they can fit into any crack, crevice, or folded fabric quite comfortably.

Therefore, any cracks in the walls of your bedroom, in your cupboards, in your mattress (obviously), inside the space within your bed frame, and any other such locations in your house are all vulnerable to these pests.

How to save your mattress after bed bugs?

The fact is, as the population of bed bugs grows, they begin to infest the rest of the house rather than limiting themselves to the bedroom or your mattress alone.

Although, most bed bug infestations start out in your bedding and mattresses. Having said so, it does not necessarily imply you have to dispose of the mattress. However, you will have to take certain steps and measures to save it!

What are the signs of a bed bug infestation in your mattress?

Bed bug bite marks

It is fairly easy to understand if your mattress has a bed bug infestation. In fact, the signs are quite clear-cut for you to understand. Here are some of the most common signs to watch out for when trying to detect a bed bug infestation in your mattress:

  • Stains of blood on your bedsheets, pillow covers, and blankets.
  • Bed bug excreta will leave behind dark brown stains on the fabrics that you use in bed.
  • Bed bugs can also leave behind eggs, hatched eggshells, and the skin that they have shed on your bed.
  • Bed bugs typically cause small bite marks that appear in clusters on your skin.
  • Increased itchiness when you wake up in the morning due to bed bugs biting you at night.
  • Actually spotting a bed bug, dead or alive, on your mattress.
  • A foul musty smell that lingers around your bed and in your bedroom at all times.

If you happen to identify any of these typical signs of an infestation, you can be sure that you have bed bug pests lingering around your bed mattress. It is essential that you take the necessary action to save your mattress from these blood-sucking pests.

Do you need to throw away your bed mattress just because you have a bed bug infestation?

No, you do not need to throw away your bed mattress just because you have a bed bug infestation. The fact is that throwing away your bed mattress might not even do much to get rid of all the bed bugs in your bedroom. Instead, you’ll simply end up spending a lot of money on a new mattress.

As you keep reading, I will explain to you how to save your mattress after bed bugs have already infested it. This will help you preserve the health of your mattress while ensuring that you also get rid of any bed bugs that are lingering around it.

How to save your mattress after bed bugs have infested it?

Here are some actions that you can implement to properly save your mattress despite a bed bug infestation.

Have your bedsheets, pillow covers, and blankets dry cleaned.

One of the most commonly observed reasons for bed bugs on mattress is poor hygiene. When you don’t clean the fabrics that you use in bed, you leave dead skin cells in large numbers for these insects to feed on. Further, because you aren’t periodically changing these fabrics, bed bugs can settle into them.

Therefore, you must periodically give your bedsheets, pillow covers, blankets, and any other fabrics that you use in your bed for a thorough dry cleaning session. This will ensure that your fabrics stay clean while also washing away any bed bugs that are lingering on the fabrics themselves.

Bear in mind that you should only transport these fabrics in sealed garbage bags to prevent the bed bugs from finding their way onto other locations in your house.

Vacuum clean your mattress that is infested with bed bugs.

The direct advantage of running a powerful vacuum cleaner over your mattress is that you can suck out any bed bugs hiding in the mattress and in any cracks and crevices under or around the mattress.

Once you’ve thoroughly vacuumed the mattress using the hose-shaped fixture, make sure you seal the garbage bag and dispose of it safely.

Inspect and clean your entire bed frame for hiding bed bugs

Many beds nowadays are made of assembled parts. Therefore, you can take the bed frame apart piece by piece. The objective of doing so is to get into every nook and cranny of the bed frame and capture or kill any bed bug nesting sites in these generally unreachable spots.

You could use a magnifying glass along with a torch to inspect these areas and dispose of any bed bugs that are in hiding in your bed frame properly!

Spray mattress-safe insecticides to kill bed bugs

There are different types of insecticides to kill bed bugs. Some of them have the ability to kill these pests as soon as you spray them, some can kill them after a while, and some are designed to kill bed bugs right after they have hatched out of their eggs.

However, before you spray these insecticides onto your mattress, you must ensure that your bedroom is well-ventilated. Further, limiting the amount of insecticide you spray around the spot where you place your head is highly advisable since you don’t want the poison in these chemicals to have any harmful effect on you.

Once you have sprayed your entire bedroom and the mattress with an insecticidal spray, simply shut the door of the room and enter after about twenty minutes to ensure that you don’t inhale too much of the insecticide!

Subject your mattress to high-temperature steam

The steam that has a temperature of over 120 degrees Fahrenheit can kill bed bugs in your mattress very effectively. Therefore, if you have access to a steamer that can achieve such high temperatures, then subject every inch of your mattress to the steam.

That should work quite well in driving out the bed bugs and killing them without having to use too many chemicals!

Use a specialized bed bug cover made for mattresses.

If you are certain that the bed bugs are limited to your mattress and have not spread to the rest of your bedroom or house, you can even invest in a specialized mattress cover made to trap bed bugs within it and kill them.

You will have to keep your mattress within this sealed cover for more than a year for it to actually kill all the bed bugs inside and control the infestation.

How can you prevent bed bugs infestations in your mattress?

real bedbug and rice to compare size

Bed bugs are attracted to unhygienic conditions, and the best way to prevent them from ever infesting your mattress is to keep your mattress absolutely clean and hygienic.

To do that, you should regularly wash your bedsheets, pillow covers, and other fabrics on your bed. Further, thoroughly clean and vacuum your mattress on a periodic basis.

If you do buy a resold bed frame, make sure that you treat it for bed bugs before placing your mattress on it. This will ensure that any living bed bugs that are currently residing in the furniture will die before you begin to use it!

When should you throw your mattress away because of a bed bug infestation?

The only real reason for you to throw away your mattress because of a bed bug is if you are planning to buy a new one anyway. The fact is that saving your mattress after a bed bug infestation is much cheaper than investing in a new one.

Mattress beautiful and supported anatomy in the set up bedroom interior

Further, unless you can be absolutely certain that you only have bed bugs in your mattress and nowhere else in your room or house, throwing away the mattress will do little to exterminate the bed bug infestation in your house.

Conclusion

Now that you know how to save your mattress after bed bugs infest it, you can sleep peacefully knowing that even if you do wake up with the odd bed bug bite in the morning, you know how to tackle it in an inexpensive manner that does not involve having to throw your beloved mattress away!

About the author

A biotechnologist by profession and a passionate pest researcher. I have been one of those people who used to run away from cockroaches and rats due to their pesky features, but then we all get that turn in life when we have to face something.