What do sofa bugs look like and how to deal with them?

Sofa bugs are common household pests that often live in warm and cozy upholstered furniture. They cause a lot of trouble to a person, therefore, having noticed these insects in your apartment or house, you must immediately get rid of them.

Bed bugs are tiny parasites that feed on human blood. Outwardly, they look like ordinary small bugs. To many, insects resemble cockroaches. At the same time, bugs have a wider body and smaller sizes. The body of the insect reaches 7-8 mm in length. It consists of a leathery base, legs and a small head. Hungry individuals are flat and transparent in color. The satiated ones increase in size and change their color to a rich dark brown. For this reason, adult bedbugs are difficult to spot on leather sofas.

These small insects have no wings. Bedbugs run pretty fast. Although their speed is less than that of cockroaches. Such insects settle in all free crevices and joints of the sofa. All they need is a warm place and a power source nearby. Having found suitable conditions, they begin to multiply very quickly. Their average life span is 14-19 months.

Noticing these insects at home, many people wonder where they come from. Sofa bugs can enter your home in a variety of ways.

• Together with furniture. As a rule, these insects live in old sofas. But sometimes new furniture can also be contaminated with them. This rarely happens. But in order to protect yourself, you still need to carefully inspect the furniture before buying it.
• From neighbors. In some cases, bedbugs enter the room from an adjacent apartment. This usually happens either after sanitizing, or if the bedbug population has increased so much that they need a new source of food.
• Together with people. Sometimes guests bring bedbugs. In addition, you can bring them with you from a trip or business trip. This happens if a person has stayed in a room with an unfavorable sanitary environment. In this case, the parasites get into a suitcase or bag and crawl out when they are unpacked.
• With pets. Pets can also carry bed bugs. Especially if they spend a lot of time outside.

Finding sofa bugs is not easy. The fact is that they do not show any activity during the day. But when the number of bedbugs increases, it becomes much easier to spot them. This can be done based on the following signs.

• Bites. Bed bugs are blood-sucking insects. They usually bite a person in a dream. The bite of this insect itself is painless. However, after a while, swelling and redness appear in its place. The bitten area also constantly itches. If there are a lot of bugs, they attack in groups. It is not difficult to notice their bites on your body, since they are located mainly in "paths". Insects usually prefer to bite the neck, back, abdomen and legs. These insects rarely touch the victim's face.
• Blood stains. You can see them on bed linen or pajamas. They appear if a person accidentally crushes bedbugs in a dream or an insect severely injures the skin.
• Allergy. If a person is sensitive to external stimuli, he may be allergic to bed bugs. Its main signs are extensive redness of the skin, swelling and blisters. Anaphylactic shock may well result from severe allergies.
• Traces of insect activity. Usually, the presence of bedbugs in the house can be determined by the presence of unusual husks in the room. This is how the shells look like, which the larvae of bedbugs shed during molting. Also, when cleaning, you can easily find insect excrement. These small balls, reminiscent of poppy seeds, are usually found next to the sofa. Eggs laid by insects can also be noticed. But this is much more difficult to do, since they are small, almost transparent and resemble ordinary sugar grains in their appearance.
• Bad smell. You can also detect bedbugs by smelling a slight unpleasant smell coming from the furniture. It resembles the aroma of rotten nuts or berries.

Having found signs of the presence of bedbugs in the room, you need to immediately start processing the room. The first step is to inspect the sofa. It should be pushed away from the wall and the linens removed from it. After that, you can start examining the back of the furniture, pillows and seams. Infected areas will need to be treated with chemicals or self-prepared solutions.

Now there are a lot of products on sale that can be easily purchased in a regular household chemicals store or easily ordered on the Internet, for example, in OZON. Among themselves, the drugs differ in the form of release, the principle of action, the presence of a residual effect and the smell. For the treatment of furniture, it is advisable to use proven preparations with a long residual effect.

• "HECTOR AGAINST KLOPOV". This product is specially designed to combat these particular insects. The composition of the product does not contain any dangerous pesticides, and the principle of its action is fundamentally different from all other products. The bottle contains about 100 g of ready-to-use powder, which must be scattered under the baseboards, in the display cases, to process the joints of furniture structures, as well as other places indicated in the instructions.

Based on the experience of people who coped with the problem with this tool, it should be noted that a positive effect is observed at least after a week. This is due to the fact that bedbugs must come into contact with the powder, and they feed, on average, once every 2 weeks. The rest of the time they can be in their nests.

• "Medilis". This spray kills bedbugs as quickly as possible without leaving any stains or an unpleasant odor afterwards. It is used to treat the places where bedbugs accumulate and move. It is necessary to spray with this product not only the sofa itself, but also cracks in the walls or along the baseboards. You should also use the spray on carpets. But the bedding should not be sprayed with them. This tool works very quickly. Within 30 minutes after its application, insects die.
• "Tsifox". This inexpensive remedy is excellent in the fight against bedbugs and lice. This product is consumed very economically, so it is profitable to use it. The advantage of the substance is that it acts almost immediately after application. Within 5-7 minutes after treatment, the bugs die.
• "Bioprotector". The drug does not have an unpleasant odor and does not harm either people or pets. Therefore, it is often used to treat rooms in which bedbugs are bred.
• "Combat". The spray is easy to use and helps to quickly get rid of couch parasites. The disadvantage of the product is its high price and pungent smell.But if you need to process a small area in a short time, this tool is perfect.
• "Fufanon". This insect control agent is safe for humans and has a long-lasting residual effect. That is, it allows not only to kill insects, but also to protect the premises from their new attack for at least six months. The insecticide is also good in that its small particles are able to get even into hard-to-reach places and completely destroy insect nests.
• Raptor. This spray removes bedbugs quickly and cost-effectively. The product has a strong odor, therefore, after processing the room, you should always open the windows. But airing doesn't take long. In order for the unpleasant smell to disappear, half an hour is enough. Besides bedbugs, the spray also kills cockroaches, ants and fleas. But it should be borne in mind that this tool will not help to cope with a large colony. Therefore, it should only be used to drive out a small number of bedbugs.
• Karbofos. The drug helps to paralyze adults and kill bed bug eggs. The effect of its use lasts for several months. It is sold either in cans, in the form of an emulsion, or in sachets in the form of a powder. Both options are great for dealing with bedbugs. But when choosing this product, it is worth remembering that it is absolutely not suitable for allergy sufferers.

If there are a lot of insects, then they will have to be poisoned for several days in a row, processing all their habitats.

It is also worth remembering that bedbugs, like cockroaches, can adapt to various chemicals. Therefore, if the selected product does not help to cope with parasites, you need to replace it with another one. Perhaps it will be more effective.

You can also get rid of sofa bugs using folk methods.

• Vinegar. It is one of the safest foods to use in bed bug control. It scares off bedbugs with its pungent smell. In addition, if acetic acid gets on the insect's body, it burns, which leads to its death. After treatment with vinegar, insects do not appear on the former territory for a long time.
• Kerosene. Well helps in the fight against insects and a solution based on turpentine and kerosene. It is prepared with hot water. All these components are mixed with each other and applied to the surface of the furniture. The downside of this product is its strong unpleasant odor. In addition, the solution leaves marks on the surface of the sofa. It is no longer possible to restore the appearance of furniture after processing with such a tool.
• Hydrogen peroxide. For surface treatment, you can also use a solution prepared on the basis of hydrogen, alcohol and salt. Use it to treat crevices and seams on the sofa. It works quite efficiently.
• Sagebrush. This is one of the safest ways to treat bedbug infested surfaces. A decoction is brewed from fresh herbs, which is later used to spray the sofa. Additionally, after processing the furniture, fresh wormwood leaves can also be spread on its surface. In addition to wormwood, herbs such as tansy or mint are also used. They also have a rich aroma and actively repel bedbugs.

You can get rid of insects in other ways. For example, a conventional vacuum cleaner can be used for this purpose. They collect both live bugs and their eggs. The advantage of this method is that, together with insects, it is possible to destroy the garbage under and next to the sofa. The disadvantage of this method is that in this way it is impossible to get rid of the entire colony at once. Therefore, other insects will have to be dealt with by other methods. You can also use a hot air gun or a steam generator to combat bedbugs. Steam or hot air should be used to treat the folds and seams in which the bugs are hiding. Heat treatment allows you to destroy both bedbugs and their egg clutches.

If possible, the sofa upholstery should be removed and washed at high temperature. Insects die in hot water. In addition, they are afraid of the cold. Therefore, the upholstery or the sofa itself can be taken out in the cold in winter. This is the easiest way to get rid of bed bugs at home. In the event that you cannot cope with insects on your own, it is worth ordering pest control at a special service. Professionals will definitely be able to remove these sofa parasites in a short time.

It is necessary to handle the sofa in which bedbugs are bred carefully. First of all, you need to take care of protection. A respirator or thick gauze bandage, rubber gloves, and special glasses should be used. In this case, both the eyes and the respiratory tract will be protected. The sofa must be handled very carefully. Since bedbugs are very small, even small areas should not be overlooked. Particular attention should be paid to places where insect nests have been found. To prevent bedbugs from moving to neighbors or to another room, it is recommended to process not only the sofa itself, but also doorways, as well as ventilation grilles.

To keep insects out of your home completely, it's also worth collecting and washing all textiles, including bedding, curtains, and tablecloths. Items that cannot be washed can be treated with a bug spray or taken out in the cold. Remove all textiles very carefully, because insect eggs may be on its surface. After processing things and objects, it is recommended to open all windows in the apartment and leave it for several hours. During this time, the room will be well ventilated. Upon returning home, you will need to wash all the dishes and wipe the accessible surfaces. You can use a regular soda solution for this purpose. For greater effect, it is worth refusing to wash floors and baseboards for 2-3 days. The sofa is also not recommended to be touched for the next few days.

In order to prevent the appearance of a new colony of bedbugs in your home, it is worth taking some precautions.

• After any travel, things must be carefully inspected. If necessary, it is best to take them to dry cleaning immediately. You can also use an electric dryer to handle things that may be infested with bedbugs. It is capable of destroying both insect eggs and adults.
• In order for insects not to settle in cracks, they must be eliminated during the first repair.
• The house needs to be damp cleaned regularly. The room should not contain any unnecessary garbage and debris from things that are not used in everyday life.