If you're read the headlines recently, then you know: A growing number of colleges have bedbug problems. There are things families can do - including a proactive, dorm move-in day inspection and protection effort - but what happens when you get that anguished "Ahhh, bedbugs!" call from your kid?
The first thing he or she needs to do - as soon as he finishes shrieking down the phone lines to you - is go tell his RA.
The RA will notify the student housing office and they will send in a pest control team to assess the problem and start exterminating. The university housing office pays for the exterminator. (If your child is in an apartment, he should notify his landlord immediately. The landlord will hire a pest control service and pay for the extermination.) Your child probably will be moved into another dorm room while this goes on - and the process typically takes about a week. Depending on the scope of the problem, the exterminators may return a week or two later and give the room a second dose to kill any additional bugs that have hatched.
Be aware that there are a lot of bizarre websites out there on bedbug control that will only make your kid more hysterical. (My younger daughter ran across one that suggested that once a bedbug has a taste for a specific person, they'll follow them to the ends of the earth. Ahem. That's neither true nor helpful at 2 a.m. when you're already panic-stricken. By contrast, the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency bedbug website offers calm facts and helpful, albeit icky, photographs of what these parasites look like.)
Exterminators are the first step, but your child also needs to wash and dry all his bed linens, including duvets or blankets, pillows (or get new ones), and any clothing that may have been infested too. He needs to use extremely hot water - 120 degrees or more - and put the dryer on the hottest possible setting. Washing is not enough; the dryer's heat does the trick. Depending on the scope of the problem (a few bugs in a single dorm room vs. many in an apartment), the size of your kid's wardrobe and his or her hysteria level, your family may decide using a commercial laundromat or fluff-and-dry service is a better alternative than feeding quarters into the dorm laundry room machines.
If you opt to take everything to a commercial establishment, make sure everything is double-bagged in large plastic trash bags and securely sealed so you don't end up with bed bugs in the car, which will then require special treatment too. Warn the fluff-and-fold, dry cleaners and/or car detailers of what's headed their way. You may pay a premium, but even at normal rates, washing an entire wardrobe and all the linens is going to be expensive.
The whole thing is expensive, which is why you want to make sure it's dealt with promptly and thoroughly, and before your darling child brings his laundry - and possible bedbug stowaways - to your house. In fact, he should check all the seams of his suitcases for bedbug eggs before he goes anywhere.
Two last notes: Anything your child ends up throwing away, whether it's an infested mattress, pillow, suitcase or whatever, should be double bagged and clearly labeled as bed bug-infested, so anyone scavenging things for re-use leaves it alone. Which brings me to the second point: Many college kids and 20somethings outfit their first apartments with used furniture from relatives, Craigslist or a consignment store. Make sure he checks that for bedbugs too.
The first thing he or she needs to do - as soon as he finishes shrieking down the phone lines to you - is go tell his RA.
The RA will notify the student housing office and they will send in a pest control team to assess the problem and start exterminating. The university housing office pays for the exterminator. (If your child is in an apartment, he should notify his landlord immediately. The landlord will hire a pest control service and pay for the extermination.) Your child probably will be moved into another dorm room while this goes on - and the process typically takes about a week. Depending on the scope of the problem, the exterminators may return a week or two later and give the room a second dose to kill any additional bugs that have hatched.
Be aware that there are a lot of bizarre websites out there on bedbug control that will only make your kid more hysterical. (My younger daughter ran across one that suggested that once a bedbug has a taste for a specific person, they'll follow them to the ends of the earth. Ahem. That's neither true nor helpful at 2 a.m. when you're already panic-stricken. By contrast, the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency bedbug website offers calm facts and helpful, albeit icky, photographs of what these parasites look like.)
Exterminators are the first step, but your child also needs to wash and dry all his bed linens, including duvets or blankets, pillows (or get new ones), and any clothing that may have been infested too. He needs to use extremely hot water - 120 degrees or more - and put the dryer on the hottest possible setting. Washing is not enough; the dryer's heat does the trick. Depending on the scope of the problem (a few bugs in a single dorm room vs. many in an apartment), the size of your kid's wardrobe and his or her hysteria level, your family may decide using a commercial laundromat or fluff-and-dry service is a better alternative than feeding quarters into the dorm laundry room machines.
If you opt to take everything to a commercial establishment, make sure everything is double-bagged in large plastic trash bags and securely sealed so you don't end up with bed bugs in the car, which will then require special treatment too. Warn the fluff-and-fold, dry cleaners and/or car detailers of what's headed their way. You may pay a premium, but even at normal rates, washing an entire wardrobe and all the linens is going to be expensive.
The whole thing is expensive, which is why you want to make sure it's dealt with promptly and thoroughly, and before your darling child brings his laundry - and possible bedbug stowaways - to your house. In fact, he should check all the seams of his suitcases for bedbug eggs before he goes anywhere.
Two last notes: Anything your child ends up throwing away, whether it's an infested mattress, pillow, suitcase or whatever, should be double bagged and clearly labeled as bed bug-infested, so anyone scavenging things for re-use leaves it alone. Which brings me to the second point: Many college kids and 20somethings outfit their first apartments with used furniture from relatives, Craigslist or a consignment store. Make sure he checks that for bedbugs too.
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