Bed Bug Control
Bed bug exterminators in San Jose and across the Bay Area
Bed bugs are treatable, and finding them says nothing about how clean your home is. Here is how we confirm what you have, what the treatment schedule actually looks like, and what we bring with us on the first visit.
The signs
How to tell it is bed bugs
Most people find the evidence before the bug. Bed bugs feed at night and hide the rest of the time in seams and joints within a few feet of the bed. Three things give them away.
Sign one
The bug itself
About the size of an apple seed: flat, oval, reddish brown, no wings. After feeding they swell and darken, closer to a coffee bean. Nymphs are smaller and paler, and the eggs run about a millimeter long.
The tell: Flat and oval from above. Round, hard shelled or winged means something else.
Sign two
Dark spotting
Digested blood dries into small dark dots along mattress seams, the box spring edge, or the wall behind the headboard. It is usually the first thing people notice, and it gets mistaken for mold or dirt.
The tell: The spots smear rust red when you wipe them with a damp cloth. Dirt does not.
Sign three
Shed skins and debris
Bed bugs molt five times on the way to adulthood, and every shed skin stays behind. Along a seam you find the empty husks mixed in with the spotting. A big population can also smell faintly sweet and musty.
The tell: Translucent empty shells the same shape as the bug, but hollow and slightly crumpled.
Fleas get mistaken for bed bugs constantly, and the difference changes the whole treatment. If you have pets, start with fleas or bed bugs, how to tell what is biting you.
The schedule
Why it takes more than one visit
Nobody wants to hear that a bed bug job takes more than one appointment. Here is the reason it does.
The first treatment kills the bed bugs it reaches. It does not kill the eggs. That one fact sets the schedule for everything that follows.
A female lays a few eggs a day, glued into cracks where nothing sprayed is going to reach them, and they hatch roughly a week to ten days later. So we come back while those new bugs are still too young to breed, then come back again, and we keep going until the monitors stay empty. Anyone promising to handle bed bugs in a single visit is describing a different job from the one in front of them.
What comes with the first visit
All of it is part of the service. You are not buying the covers separately.
- Mattress and box spring encasements, fitted on the day and left with you. Kept on for at least a year, they shut in anything already inside and take the two hardest hiding places off the board.
- Monitors, placed where activity is most likely, so the next visit is aimed instead of guessed at.
- Treatment through the whole unit. Baseboards, furniture, bed frame, headboard, and the outlet voids near the bed.
- Written service notes after every visit, including which treatment number it was and where activity turned up.
The service
What the visits look like
The whole program, start to finish, so none of it arrives as a surprise.
Visit one
Inspection, then the first treatment
We confirm what you have and find where it is living. Then we treat the mattress, the box spring inside and out, the frame and headboard, under the bed, the baseboards, and under and around the furniture, in every room of the unit rather than just the bedroom. Outlet and switch plates near the bed come off so the voids behind them get dusted. Encasements go on, monitors go down.
Visit two
About a week later
Your technician reads the monitors first, then repeats the treatment with whatever they caught in mind. Once the encasements are on, the mattresses underneath no longer need treating. This is the visit that needs real prep from you, and it is the one that does the most work.
Visit three
Two weeks after that
Same treatment again, aimed by the monitors again. By this point bites and sightings have usually dropped off sharply. If the monitors come back empty, we take them out and you are finished at three.
Visit four
The check, around week six
When a fourth visit is needed it starts as an inspection. We work back through the same areas looking for anything still active, and treat again wherever we find it.
Seeing a bug in the days after the first treatment is normal and does not mean it failed. The products keep working as bed bugs come out of their hiding places, and catching that movement is exactly what the monitors are for. Leave them where they are, even when there is something in them.
Expectations
Two things we will tell you straight
Both of these come up on nearly every bed bug job, and the honest answer is not the one people expect.
Do not move to another room
The instinct is to grab a pillow and take the couch. The prep sheet we hand you is blunt about what happens when a bed bug's environment changes: they scatter, or they wait it out. Moving yourself and your bedding to another room usually takes part of the problem along, and then there are two rooms to treat instead of one. Shifting furniture and clothes into an untreated room does the same thing. Ask your technician about sleeping arrangements, since the answer depends on the room and how far along the job is.
In an apartment, one unit is rarely the whole job
Bed bugs move through wall voids and along plumbing and electrical runs, so a confirmed case in one unit is a flag for the ones beside, above and below it. That means looping in your property manager, and we will say so even when it makes the conversation harder. Treating a single unit while they migrate next door is the most common reason one of these drags on for months.
Pricing
What changes the price
We do not publish a bed bug price, because the same treatment in two different homes is not the same job. These are the things that move it.
How many rooms are involved
Treatment covers the whole unit, so a one bedroom apartment and a four bedroom house are different amounts of work. If activity has already spread past the bedroom, the scope grows with it.
How long it has been going on
An introduction caught in its first few weeks is a smaller job than one that has had months to work its way into furniture, closets and adjoining rooms.
How much is in the way
Every upholstered chair, every bed frame and every packed closet is another place to treat and another place to inspect. Clearing what you reasonably can before we arrive does shorten the visit.
House or a unit in a building
A single family home is self contained. In an apartment or a condo the neighboring units usually need inspecting too, and that gets coordinated with the property manager.
We will get you a quote that matches your property and your situation. Book an inspection, or call (650) 910-1561.
Questions
Bed bug questions, answered
The ones that come up most on bed bug calls around the Bay Area, from what to throw out to how long the whole thing takes.
How do I know if I actually have bed bugs?
Most people find the evidence before they find a bug. Look for dark spotting along mattress seams and the edge of the box spring, small translucent shed skins in the same places, and rust colored smears on the sheets. Bites often show up in a line or a loose cluster on skin that was uncovered while you slept, though plenty of people never react to them at all. Adults are about the size of an apple seed, flat, oval and reddish brown. There is more detail in our guides to bed bug droppings and shed bed bug shells.
Where did they come from? Does it mean my house is dirty?
No. Bed bugs are hitchhikers. They ride in on luggage, bags, secondhand furniture and visitors, and travel is the most common starting point we see. A spotless home and a cluttered one are equally easy for them to live in, because what they are looking for is a sleeping person, not crumbs.
Are bed bug bites dangerous?
Bed bugs are not known to pass diseases to people. The bites itch, and some people develop welts after repeated exposure, while others show nothing at all. Scratching can lead to a skin infection, so that part is worth keeping an eye on. For most households the heavier cost is lost sleep and stress, which is a real thing and nothing to feel silly about.
How do I prepare for the first visit?
Lightly. Strip the beds and seal the sheets, pillows and mattress covers in bags, and bag anything personal you would rather your technician did not handle. That is all we ask before the first treatment. The heavier prep comes before the second visit, once we know where the activity is: wash and dry everything washable on high heat, bag it, clear out from under the bed, and vacuum the floors and baseboards. Plan to be out of the home for about four hours after the first treatment.
How long does the whole thing take?
Most jobs run four visits across about six weeks. The first treatment, a second about a week later, a third two weeks after that, and a check at week six. The schedule exists because eggs survive treatment and hatch later, so the follow ups are there to catch the new bugs before they can breed. If the monitors come back empty after the third visit, we pull them and stop there. Some pests take a series of visits to fully control, and results depend on the treatment plus your prep, so the washing and bagging genuinely matters.
Will I have to throw out my mattress and furniture?
Usually not. The mattress and box spring get zippered encasements at the first visit, which we bring, fit and leave with you. Anything already inside is shut in, and the two hardest places to treat come off the board. Keep them on for at least a year. Furniture is treated rather than discarded in most cases. Heavily infested cardboard and badly soiled fabric are the usual exceptions.
Does rubbing alcohol kill bed bugs?
It kills the ones it directly soaks, and that is about where it ends. It does not reach eggs, it does nothing to the bugs tucked inside a frame joint or a wall void, and it evaporates within minutes and leaves nothing behind. It is also flammable, and spraying it around a bedroom in any quantity is a real fire risk. So it is not a treatment, and we would rather you did not try it. We went through this in more depth in does alcohol kill bed bugs.
Can bed bugs spread to my neighbors?
In a building, assume they will try. Bed bugs travel through wall voids and along plumbing and electrical runs, so the units beside, above and below a confirmed case should be checked. If you rent, tell your property manager as soon as you suspect it. Treating one unit while the bugs move next door is the most common reason a building problem stretches out for months.
Do you do heat treatment?
Not in house. Banner's own bed bug service is the multi visit program described above, which is what the large majority of homes need. Heat work is handled through a specialty partner, and the pricing and scheduling for it go through our office rather than a technician on site. If an inspection turns up a situation that calls for it, we will tell you and set it up. If you are curious about the underlying science, we wrote about what temperature kills bed bugs.
Is the work guaranteed?
For single family homes on a home protection plan, yes. That is where the bed bug guarantee applies, and it does not extend to apartments or to one off treatments. We would rather say so now than have you find out later. Your technician will go through exactly what applies to your situation before anything starts.
Get started
Think you might have bed bugs?
Tell us what you are seeing and where. We will confirm what it is, walk you through the schedule, and give you a written estimate. Free inspection, no pressure.
Or skip the form and just give us a call at (650) 910-1561