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Before we get into the actual kit, not one thing is more important or will replace inspection and prevention. Check your hotel room carefully, inspect the mattress by puling back the sheets and mattress protector and checking for reddish dark brown spots, dead bed bugs or live ones. Check the headboard and in back of the headboard if possible. Check behind any paintings on the wall of the bed as well as at the floor base boards at the head of the bed. Don’t put your luggage on the carpet or the bed. It’s best to leave your luggage in the shower stall or bathtub until you have inspected your room. Check the drawers before putting any costume in them. On short stays, merely leave your costume in your luggage which you may place in huge rubbish bags to prevent bed bugs from migrating into your costume or hitching a ride in your luggage, back to your home. Inspection Time: 15 minutes Now for the kit: 1) Double Sided Masking Tape or Painters Tape.( $10-$12 per 36 yd. roll ) This is a barrier method and holds no chemicals. Any bed bug crawling over the tape on the way to you will get stuck, like fly paper. Apply tape around the edge of the headboard to stop bed bugs crawling from behind the headboard onto the bed. Wrap the tape exclusively around the box spring or mattress. Try to utilize the tape as low as possible to prevent bed bugs from climbing up the blanket over-hanging the bed. Make sure to wrap above, not on, a dust ruffle or bed skirt and make sure the tape is in contact with the sheets, any void will grant bed bugs to enter.Wrap the bed legs if you don’t use the next item on the list. Be careful if you use a high tack tape on hard surfaces as this could stick to or harm the finish. Before you check out, just pull the tape off and throw it out. Application Time: 15 minutes 2) Bed Leg Cups: ( $19.00 set of 4 ) This is also a barrier method. These cups fit under the bed legs and prevent bed bugs from climbing up into the bed from the carpet. The cups are lined with talc making the surface too slippery for the bed bugs to climb. Set Up Time: 5 minutes 3) Zippered Travel Sheet / Sleep Sack: ( $49.00 – $99.00 for high quality ) Also a barrier method, a zippered travel sheet will stop bed bugs on the 3 sides that it is sealed. Make sure the travelsheet you choose is zippered and sealed all the way around. A travel sheet that closes with velcro, ties or buttons will do you no good. Any travel sheet you buy will have to be washable, but more importantly, dryable in high heat. Only high heat will sanitize your travel sheet by killing any bed bugs or bed bug eggs, preventing you from bringing them back to your home. A travelsheet has the added gain of protecting you from other travel bedding ills like dust mite allergens,scabies, harsh detergents and unclean sheets, blankets and pillows. If you are staying in multiple hotels, just throw the travel sheet into a dryer for an hour or have it laundered by the hotel. Travel sheets or sleep sacks may also be employed to protect versus bed bugs on airplane, train or bus seats Set up Time: 5 -7 minutes 4) Extra Large Garbage Bags: ( $15.00 per 60 x 33 gallon size ) As a safe barrier method, large, heavy responsibility rubbish bags are cheap, easy to pack and very effective. Garbage bags are bed bug proof, anything you put in a rubbish bag will be impervious to bed bugs supplying you seal them well and make sure there is no way the bed bugs may enter. Any costume may be put in littler kitchen-catcher type bags and then placed in the drawer. At all times, luggage will have to be held in a bag to prevent bed bugs from hiding in the a great deal of compartments, cracks and crevices that subsist in all luggage, hard or soft. If you travel with your own pillow or travel sheet, these may be kept in bags when not in use and rubbish bags are outstanding for dirty laundry or costume that return home with you. Laundry may go right from the rubbish bag into the wash or dryer without danger of infesting your home. Set Up Time: varies depending on how much stuff you have 5) Diatomaceous Earth: ( optional ) ( $15.00 per 10 lb. bag ) A non-toxic insecticide, DE is a fine talc-like powder made of the crushed exoskeletons of diatoms, tiny sea creatures. The microscopic corpuscles are sharp so when any hard shelled bug walks through DE, it clings to their exoskeletons and wears off the waxy protective layer, the bug will dehydrate and die. Some bed bugs populations have built up a tolerance to DE but on the whole DE is an effective safe deterrent. Make sure you use only feed grade DE, any other kind is not safe for you, kids or pets. Apply DE around the base boards of the room exceptionally near the bed and in the bed frame if possible. DE use is not for 1 or 2 night stays. it take time for it to work. If you are staying in one place for a week or two then it would be practical. Application Time: 10 minutes 6) Mattress and Pillow Encasements: ( optional ) $50.00 and up for queen size high quality ) You need to be finelooking committed to use these on a vacation. Again, for short stays they are costly and impractical but if you are staying for a week or two or more an encasement may be very effective. Encasements are barriers you place around the mattress, box spring or pillow preventing bed bugs that live in the mattress, box spring or pillow from getting out. Encasing the mattress and not the box spring is probably pointless. Encasements are pricey and most don’t wash very well or can not be dried on high heat. This option is effective for locatings where you to the full or entire extent suppose to have a bed bug infestation. Set Up Time: varies depending on size and type of encasement but may be difficult for one person. 7) Bed Bug Sprays: ( optional ) ( $10.00 per 32 oz spray bottle ) THERE ARE NO LONG LASTING, SAFE, BED BUG SPRAYS. If there were, we wouldn’t be have an infestation problem. Most sprays will kill on contact and might repel bed bugs for up to 30 minutes, but in a hotel, that just won’t cut it. Because they are not long lasting, you would have to utilize them over and over again to be effective. Don’t bother spending cash on any of these unless you are staying in a place where you totally suppose to have a bug problem and need something to kill bed bugs or other pests on contact. Non toxic sprays may be effective for killing bed bugs on airplane, train and bus seats. What you determine to include in your kit is dependent on the length of your hotel stay, your budget, and your dedication to preventing your blood from being sucked out of you. There’s no reason you can’t take pleasure in a safe and healthful vacation without being bitten, or worse, without infesting your home on your return. |
Excellent postal tape 