Madison Bed Bug Pest Control
Bed Bug Removal in Madison, WI
Valiant Pest Control will make you a winner in the war on bugs!
Valiant is a team of Bed Bug Specialists servicing Madison and Eastern Wisconsin. We offer a wide variety of treatments to put together a treatment plan for your specific needs.
The Thermal Remediation Treatment is non-toxic and reaches bed bugs in hard-to-reach places.
Chemical Treatments are effective but may take longer than heat treatments to end all bed bug activity.
Valiant Bed Bug Protection Plans utilize a biological treatment. This takes a natural approach, it can take longer to end all bed bug activity than heat, and it can be used to prevent bed bug introductions.
The choice of method depends on factors such as the infestation’s severity, property type, and personal preferences.
You can read below to learn more about bed bugs or click on the links below to learn about our treatment options. Property managers can refer to this link.
Bed Bug Ecology (Cimex Lectularius):
The EPA considers bed bugs to be a public health pest. Although bed bugs are not known to transmit disease, they cause itchy bites and are generally irritating to their hosts.1
Bed bugs are wingless, small reddish insects that are the size shape and color of an appleseed. Nymphs are about the size of a small letter on a penny.2
The Virginia Tech Entomolgy Dept goes states bed bugs feed off of human and animal blood, normally feeding is between Midnight and 5 AM every 3-7 days. A bed bug may attempt to feed several times before finding a suitable location that provides enough blood flow. The feeding process generally takes 5-10 minutes. After the bed bug is done feeding it returns to its hiding place where it and other bed bugs cluster.
After the feeding cycle is complete bed bugs especially the males begin to mate. The process is traumatic to the female in some cases mating may cause her to leave the cluster.
On average a female will produce 1-7 eggs per day. 5-20 eggs can be produced for every blood meal and a female may produce about 113 eggs in a lifetime.
Eggs can be produced individually or in clusters. A wandering female may drop an egg anywhere in a room. At room temperature above 70 degrees 90% of the eggs will hatch in 9 days and in optimal conditions eggs will successfully hatch 97% of the time. Due to the large amount of eggs produced bed bug populations can double every few weeks or on average 16 days.
Depending on the conditions, it can take 5-8 days or so for a nymph to grow to the next stage. It can take a bed bug approximately 37 days to go from an egg, through all 5 nymphal instar stages before it is a reproductive adult.
How to Find Bed Bugs
Small infestations can be hard to find. It makes sense that 1 bed bug will not leave a lot of evidence right away. However a smaller infestation is considerably easier to treat than a large infestation. Therefore, early detection is desirable.
Some insects like carpet beetles or flour beetles can be mistakenly identified as bed bugs. It is a good idea to capture the insects that are found and preserve them in a pill jar, envelope or plastic bag for identification purposes. The treatments for these bugs are different than bed bug treatments and less expensive as well.
Bites are not a good indication that bed bugs are present. Some other bugs like chiggers or mosquitoes might leave the same kind of bite marks. While hives and some rashes like eczema or a fungal infection might look like bed bug bites. At the same time not everyone reacts to bed bug bites at all.
The most common bed bug hiding place is the bed. To find bed bugs check:
- The mattress and box spring piping
- The box spring skirts and the folds in the fabric under the box springs
- The cracks and crevices of the headboard and bed frames
For larger infestations bed bugs can be found in:
- Furniture seams
- Baseboards
- Wall ceiling junctions
- Random spots in homes or apartments.4
How to Protect Your Home
Bed bugs generally get around by hitchhiking on:
- Clothes
- Used furniture
- Luggage
- Bedding
- Boxes
They can spread throughout a home by hitchhiking on clothing, taking a bed bug from bed to couch or vise versa. When traveling you can check:
- The furniture
- Mattress and box spring seams
- The luggage rack in hotels
Valiant Pest Control does not recommend bringing used furniture into your home. If you do check it before bringing it into your home, check the:
- Couch and chair seams
- Mattress piping and fabric folds on box springs
- The seams of bed frames
- Cracks and crevices on headboards and bed frames
You can reduce the amount of hiding places a bed bug has by reducing clutter. (Valiant recommends reducing clutter within 8-10 ft of the bed. Take particular care to not store items under beds or on the floor within 8-10 ft of the bed or not at all if possible. You can reduce clutter at the office. Keep jackets hung where no other jackets come into contact with yours.)
Vacuum frequently. (Valiant Pest Control recommends laundering the dirty laundry, including bedding as well as vacuuming weekly. Bed bugs feed every 3-7 days and lay eggs in between. A weekly vacuuming can interrupt their life cycle and keep the bed bug populations in check before a treatment can be scheduled.)
Plastic bags should be used for laundry. The bags should be tied tightly so nothing can escape. New bags should be used for the return trip, the laundry should be put in the bag directly from the dryer and folded at home. The dryer should be on high heat for at least 20 minutes to kill any stage of bed bug.
In multi-family units door sweeps can be installed to discourage movement under the door gap. Gaps around baseboards, light fixtures and receptacles can be sealed to prevent bed bugs from entering through those gaps.
Valiant Pest Control Bed Bug Services
Valiant uses state of the art equipment, modern innovative materials as well as conventional materials that are known to work even with bed bugs that have developed a resistance to some of the traditional chemicals. We take an Integrated Pest Management approach including performing some minor exclusion work.
Heat Treatments
Come With A 45 Day Warranty!
We use a generator to power up to 6 heaters which can heat up to 3000 sq ft. The heaters can heat homes or apartments up to 122 degrees before bed bugs know what’s happening. Getting to temperature quickly keeps bed bugs from spreading or running from the heat. Bed bugs start dying at 113 degrees and die within minutes at 122 degrees.6
The heat treatment is always the best treatment. In the heat treatment area all exposed surfaces are treated surfaces. So even if bed bugs are outside if their normal hiding places the heat treatment is the most effective.
Valiant also uses the Monnit system. It is a series of thermometers that use cellular transmitters to relay temperatures to our displays. When all the monitors in the heated areas reach 122 degrees we call temperature and heat for another 4 hours. This gives the heat time to penetrate harder to heat areas. We finish the heat treatment with a chemical treatment. Our expertise, equipment and procedures make the heat treatment a best-in-class treatment.
Chemical Treatments
Include a 30 Day Warranty
Budgets matter and in light infestations a chemical treatment has a good chance of success making it a reasonable choice. Chemical treatments offer an initial knockdown treatment. We utilize a bed bug vacuum with a hepa filter to contain any nymphs which may be vacuumed. We treat and inspect all areas bed bugs are known to hide with steam and conventional chemicals.
A secondary treatment and inspection is included in the price and will be scheduled about two weeks from the initial treatment.
Valiant Bed Bug Protection Plan
Includes 3 month warranty!
Valiant Bed Bug Protection Plan is for homes and multi family buildings. We utilize innovative materials which offers residual protection in areas bed bugs normally hide. The residual material lasts up to 3 months. Valiant will apply the material coupled with a visual inspection and if bed bugs are observed between treatments Valiant Pest Control will come back and perform a treatment in the affected area for free.
Property Managers
For Wisconsin buildings with its first bed bug infestation. It is common for an apartment to have a few bed bugs, have a treatment performed and the infestation is over. I hope this is you. However, an apartment up the hallway may have a large enough infestation to spread to other units. The apartments with large infestations are from tenants who do not report to you that they have bed bugs. This is the biggest threat to your property regarding bed bugs.
If you have a situation where tenants aren’t telling you they have bed bugs, inspections become the solution to preventing the large bed bug infestation.
There are visual and K9 inspections. The visual inspection can be a full thorough inspection of the entire unit. It can also be a Quick Look at the most common hiding places and traps. A one time inspection of your premises will give you a “snapshot” of your buildings bed bug situation. It will reveal whether you have a unit with a large bed bug population.
According to Virginia Tech Dept of Entomology bed bug populations will double every 16 days in decent conditions. A quarterly inspection can reveal bed bug infestations before they get very large. This is the importance and value of inspections. The smaller the infestation the easier it is to treat. The inspections are the key to getting your building to bed bug free and keeping your building safer from large infestations.
Traditional Full Building Treatment Plans
K9 Inspections and Treatments
Once you have determined bed bugs are spreading in your building the treating of single units is important but may not stop the spreading throughout your building. At this point full building inspections coupled with treatments performed as soon as possible. This will end the bed bug activity in the treated areas. The only activity remaining will be bed bugs that are on people when they leave, are in transit or are being re-introduced from an outside source.
For example:
- Hospitals
- Wheel chairs and walkers. Tenants may leave with bed bugs returning with them to start it all over
- Restaurants
- Movie theaters
- Buses
- Common Areas
- Bars
- And any place people go and sit
The resolution for re-introduced bed bugs is to repeat the process in a every other month or quarterly basis. This will catch and treat re-introduced bed bugs as well as the bed bugs in transit.
Valiant Bed Bug Protection Plan
There are materials on the market that offer residual protection against bed bugs. These can be used quarterly in conjunction with visual inspections to keep populations down and prevent bed bug introductions into your building altogether. If while under warranty from the protection program and bed bugs are observed by a technician in a unit under the protection plan then treatments will be free of charge. This treatment will be effective against bed bugs that are in transit or being re-introduced from outside sources.
Valiant Pest Control Bed Bug Services
Valiant Pest Control is dedicated to find the best treatment plan for your building. We use state of the art equipment, traditional and modern chemical treatments to customize the perfect treatment plan for your buildings. We share the common goal or practice ending bed bug activity in your building!
Let Valiant Pest Control make you a winner in the war on bugs!
Sincerely,
Valiant Pest Control
