Buying Used Furniture? Avoid Bringing Bed Bugs Into Your Home

A lot of homeowners know that when they stay at a hotel, they assume the risk that bed bugs can get into clothes and luggage. However, a hotel stay isn't the only way you could accidentally bring bed bugs into your home; if you purchase used furniture, this is another route bed bugs could get into your house.

If you are in the market to buy some used furniture, here are some tips to keep in mind so that you bring pest-free furniture into your home.

Figure Out Which Pieces You Want to Buy

Although you may want to buy used box-springs or mattresses, these items are hotspots for bed bugs, so you should save for brand-new items and buy used furniture for other areas of the house.

Bed bugs love upholstered furnishings since they can burrow into the fabric and hide in pleats and seams. If you are open to many furniture styles, try looking at composite, vinyl, or hardwood pieces instead. These furnishings have few crevices and are easy to clean, so if there are bed bugs, you can easily remove them.

If you have your heart set on some furniture with textiles, then you'll need to do your due diligence when inspecting it.

Ask Where the Used Furniture Has Been Stored

Asking the seller where the furniture has been stored may seem unnecessary, but it is important. Some sellers will keep their furniture in storage units, which can be prone to bed bug infestations since these places aren't always sealed or airtight.

Also, since a lot of customers cycle through different storage units, bed bugs can easily spread from one area to another — similar to hotel rooms. Plus, a lot of people store mattresses and upholstered items in these units, which again, are ideal living conditions for bed bugs.

Keep in mind that the average adult bed bug can survive more than a year without feeding, so just because a seller has left some used furniture in a storage unit for a long time doesn't mean that the bed bugs will have died off.

In short, you may want to avoid buying furniture that's been left in storage units or garages. Try purchasing used furniture that is kept inside or furniture that comes directly from the seller's home.

Learn the Signs of Bed Bug Infestations

If you are adamant about getting an upholstered piece or buying an item that's been left at a storage unit, ask the seller if you can inspect the furniture for pests yourself.

Bedbugs are very small, oval, brown insects. Because they are so small and hide in cracks, you may not actually spot one. Nevertheless, you can look for other signs, such as:

• Bed bug excrement, which looks like dark red or brown stains on fabric
• Egg shells, which are whitish in color
• A musty odor from bed bugs’ scent glands
• Shed skin from immature bedbugs, who shed their skin five times before they reach adulthood

Not only do you need to be aware of signs, but you need to bring the right gear for your inspection.

Bring Gear to Inspect the Furniture Yourself

You can see shed skin and eggshells with the naked eye, but they are very small, so a magnifying glass can be helpful. Some other items you may want to bring include:

• Latex gloves. You can run hands over the fabric without having to touch potential excrement
• A flashlight. Like a magnifying glass, this can help you better spot any potential problems.
• A white sheet. Set the furniture on top of this sheet so you can spot any bed bugs that fall off onto the white background.
• An old credit card. You can run your hands over the furniture to look for bugs, but since bed bugs have very flat bodies, they can fit in tiny spaces the width of a credit card. If you run an old credit card through pleats and crevices, it can dislodge any hiding bugs.

If you do happen to spot bed bugs, you can avoid the purchase and continue your hunt for other used furniture.

Clean What You Can and Hire a Pest Control Service to Treat the Rest

If you are unsure whether a piece of furniture has bed bugs or you want to buy a great piece with signs of pests, then you'll need to do your best to clean the furniture.

Leave the used furniture in a garage or covered area outside your home until you can remove all traces of the bed bugs.

If the furniture has cushion covers that can be removed, remove them and place them in sealed plastic bags. This action helps to create a vacuum and kill bugs since they will die without oxygen.

You can steam clean and vacuum the upholstered furniture to remove stains, shed skin, and egg shells. But keep in mind that steam cleaning will not kill bed bugs; it will only remove their byproducts.

Lastly, contact us at Paffy's Pest Control for more help. We can spray your furniture with products that will kill the bed bugs. We can also do a follow-up treatment to make sure that all of these pests are removed so you can enjoy your "new" used furniture.