The day finally came! Your family has waited patiently, yet excitedly for eighteen years. It is the day you move your precious child into their dorm. It was so exciting to decorate the dorm, meet the suite mates, get class schedules, go through Rush…only to have the thrill overshadowed by the fear of those pesky bed bugs! Can you avoid them? How do you avoid them? What do you do if you get them? No, you don’t drop out of school or set the dorm on fire. There are preventative measures you can take to keep them from sucking the fun out of your college experience!
We now know that bedbugs do not discriminate among race, gender, or socio-economic levels. The only requirement is a host. College dorms have become a great place for bedbugs to live and spread quickly. Students in dorms live in close proximity to each other, provide a lot of clutter, and have a transient population giving bedbugs the perfect breeding grounds! Recently universities have had some of the highest percentages of bedbug reports in the nation.
So, what do you do?
- Assess your environment– Look for bedbugs or signs of bedbugs on the mattress
- Keep it clean– Bedbugs love a cluttered, warm environment. This will allow them to remain incognito and continue to reproduce for weeks before you notice them
- Hot water laundry– Bedbugs cannot survive heat. Wash and dry your laundry in hot temperatures
- If it’s free, let it be! – While you may be the poor, starving college kid, Refrain from picking up used furniture off of the street, be wary of second hand stores, and yard sales too. They are a great place to pick up the unwanted creatures!
- Come bearing gifts– Encase your mattress in a bedbug mattress encasement. Bring your suitemates one as well. You may be glad did!
