Bed Bugs: Not Just in Beds

Schools and Daycares

Bed bugs in dorms, schools and daycares have many places to hide, so treatment needs to be thorough to prevent an infestation. Clients need to launder bedding and other fabrics to help remove bed bugs. Students and their families should be notified to avoid an infestation in their own homes.

Gyms

Commonly found in gym locker rooms and in shoe storage shelves or “cubbies,” bed bugs often find their way into these public places. When personal items are placed in these spaces, the pests will hop on for a ride back to the owner’s home. Treating these shared spaces with a residual product will help prevent these pests from returning.

Hospitals

The last thing a hospital patient wants to experience is a bed bug infestation. Beds are an obvious location to find bed bugs within a hospital, but waiting rooms, visitor chairs and nurse’s stations may also be homes to the pests, so consider when treating.

Rental Cars

Bed bugs hidden in or on purses, luggage or jackets can easily make their way into the crevices of rental cars while the driver heads to his or her destination, potentially transferring to the individual renting the car next. Treat trunks, seats and mats, along with seat belts and underneath seats.

Coat Check

Coat closets can become dens for bed bugs during a short time. If one jacket is infested, all jackets near it are at risk of bringing the pests home. Once the jackets have been removed from the coat check, any lingering pests will find their way to their next hiding spot, such as where carpets meet the wall or into any bags on the ground or seats.

Libraries

Bed bug populations can soar within libraries—living within the pages, binds and jackets of books and on furniture and carpets, waiting for a reader to sit and enjoy the book. Because of the high-traffic nature of libraries, bed bugs can enter the building on someone’s bag, book, coat and more, making prevention difficult.

When bed bugs are found within a library, quarantine the items immediately to thwart infestations. Put quarantined items into plastic bags or totes to stop the spread of an infestation. Use heat, where applicable, on items that chemicals would damage.

Courthouses

With people constantly coming and going, courthouses are a common place for bed bug infestations to take hold. Thoroughly inspect and treat waiting or common areas as well as courtroom benches and chairs for these pests.