Bed bug prep · Tucson, AZ
Preparing Your Tucson Home for Bed Bug Treatment, Room by Room
Bag the washables, clear the floors, pull the furniture off the walls and leave the mattress where it is. Here is how to prepare the whole house, one room at a time.
Treatment booked? Call and we will go over the prep with you.
- Free, no-obligation estimates
- A written prep list for every customer
- We show up when we say we will
Start in the bedroom
Bed bug treatment prep, room by room
Before the treatment, you should bag and wash everything washable, clear the clutter off the floors and pull the furniture away from the walls.
That opens up the seams, edges and corners where bed bugs hide, the spots the trade calls "harborage", so the treatment reaches every one of them.
Work through the house in this order:
Bedrooms
Strip each bed down to the bare mattress and bag the sheets, blankets and pillows right there in the room.
Closets and dressers
Bag clothes straight off the hangers and out of the drawers, then empty the closet floor.
Living areas
Pick everything up off the floor and pull the couch, chairs and dressers a little way off the walls.
The laundry
Wash and dry each bag on high heat, then keep the clean loads sealed in new bags.
Into the wash
Bag, wash and dry on high heat
You should seal bedding, clothing, curtains and other washables in bags, then run them through the washer and a hot dryer cycle.
Bag things in the room they came from and carry the bags straight to the laundry, so nothing gets shaken loose on the way. Once a load comes out of the dryer, it goes into a fresh bag and stays sealed until the treatment is done.
These go into the bags first:
- Bedding
- Clothing
- Curtains
- Stuffed toys
- Pillows
Leave it on the frame
Mattresses and encasements
The mattress stays in the room and is treated where it is, and an "encasement" zipped on afterwards lets you keep sleeping on it.
Strip it to the bare mattress and leave it on the bed frame. Carrying it out through the house can drop bugs in a hallway or the next bedroom, and the treatment reaches it right where it sits.
- Encasement
- A sealed cover that zips all the way around the mattress once it has been treated. Most people call it a "mattress cover" or a bed bug cover.
Hold off on these
What not to do before bed bug treatment
You should not move things out of the infested room or reach for a store-bought spray, because both push bed bugs into the rest of the house.
Skip these three until we have treated:
-
Carrying things to another room
A bag of clothes or a nightstand moved to the spare room takes its bugs along, and then that room needs treating too.
-
Sleeping somewhere else in the house
Bed bugs follow the people they feed on, so a move to the couch can start a second problem in the living room.
-
Treating it yourself first
Retail bed bug sprays scatter the bugs into walls and outlets, and a one-room job can turn into a multi-room job.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency lays out the safety problems with do-it-yourself bed bug treatment, and it is worth reading before anyone sprays.
Your half of the job
Why preparation decides the result
Poor preparation is the second most common reason a bed bug treatment fails, right after skipping the second visit.
That is why every customer of ours gets a written prep list before the treatment date. The follow-up visit is timed to catch the "nymphs", the baby bed bugs that hatch after the first treatment, so hold that date as firmly as the first one.
We answer the phone or call back the same working day.
A room that is ready looks like this:
- Washables bagged, washed and dried hot
- Floors clear, furniture off the walls
- Mattress stripped and left on its frame
- Nothing moved out to other rooms
Do you leave the house during treatment?
You may need to be out of the house for a heat treatment, and for the hours a chemical treatment takes to dry.
We tell you how long to plan for when we set the date, because a "heat treatment" and a chemical one keep you out for different lengths of time.
What neighbors say
What Tucson customers say about us
Great customer service. Arrived on time, answered questions I had.
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RKC Pest Management LLC is excellent. Have had them for many years and no pests. Sean is very thorough and conscientious. Would definitely recommend this company without hesitation.
Treatment on the calendar?
Call us before you start bagging
Tell us which rooms have bed bugs. We will go over the prep with you, set the treatment date and quote the whole job before we start.
- Free, no-obligation estimates
- No surprise charges after the quote
- We clean up when the work is done