No household pest is welcome, but there’s something particularly unnerving about the presence of small biting insects like bed bugs and fleas. Both of these small, brown, vampire-like insects are so small you often don’t know they’re there, and they are masters at hiding inside household goods. From mattresses to sofas and carpets, they’ll find a way to settle in and only come out to bite you or your pets.

If you’ve discovered bed bugs in your home, they’re likely in your carpet, too. Don’t panic – in this article, we’ll guide you through how to get rid of them for good.

Step 1: Kill the Pests

If you’ve yet to have pest control experts in your home to eradicate the bed bugs, don’t worry about vacuuming them up. While you may be able to suck some of them up out of the carpet with your vacuum cleaner, you won’t be able to get them all (and certainly not the eggs) and they’ll simply climb back out if they don’t make it to the bag or you don’t change the bag immediately.

Instead, your first step should be to get pest control experts to come and do a heat treatment on your home. Heat treatments raise the temperature in your home up to over 120F for several hours, ensuring all stages of their lifecycle are killed. Because heat doesn’t need to be “applied”, it will naturally reach all the tiny nooks and crannies in a home (including in your carpet and inside your sofa), ensuring all bugs are killed.

Heat treatments also don’t use any chemicals so you can inhabit your home as soon as it cools back to room temperature. To learn more about how heat treatments work, click here.

Step 2: Clean Up (including the carpet)

Now that all insects in your home are dead, it’s time to clean up the aftermath. This is just a case of making sure your home is clean. It’s best to wash all your linens (including cushion covers) and thoroughly vacuum your carpets and rugs.

Since the heat treatment will have killed everything, you don’t need to worry about throwing out the vacuum bag as quickly as possible before anything crawls out. If any of your family members have asthma or allergies, it’s best to throw out the bag as soon as you’re done, since the bed bug “dust” can exacerbate their symptoms.

While it’s not necessary, you may also want to rent a carpet cleaner or hire a carpet cleaning company to give your carpet a thorough wash, as this will get any remaining dead bugs out of the carpet.

We Eradicate Bed Bugs in Arizona

Whether you know you’ve got a bed bug infestation, suspect you have one, or aren’t sure if you’re dealing with fleas or bed bugs, we’ve got your back. We provide pest control services and heat treatments to businesses and residences throughout Arizona and can eradicate bed bugs and other pests from your home or business. To request your free inspection, click here.