Bed bugs are known to inflict itchy, painful bites as they feed on your blood. While bed bug infestations are uncommon in schools, they can hitchhike from an infested home to schools on students' possessions such as clothes and school bags. Infestations often occur in schools, particularly in places where students sit or sleep. The most common bed bug is the Cimex Lectularius, which can live on furniture, bedding, boxes, clothing and baggage. These bugs can live more than five days without feeding, making them resilient and difficult to eliminate. So, how do you deal with bed bug infestations in schools? This post offers a few tips to guide you.

Educate Everyone

Your first step into eradicating bed bugs in school is learning more about them and educating your school. Alert your staff and other relevant parties immediately after receiving the first report. A single bug is not an infestation, but knowing what to do helps everyone prepare and monitor to keep the bugs from increasing in number. Tell your students about bed bugs, their appearance, and where they hide. Let students know that bed bugs can attack anyone, and schools should send no student home due to bed bug infestation. This helps keep everyone alert and on the lookout for bed bugs in their classrooms and offices.

Have an Action Plan

If there is an infestation, it's crucial to develop an effective action plan. Your plan should involve informing parents, putting policies in place that can help eliminate bed bugs and working with an exterminator. If you find bed bugs in a particular student, develop a method to handle the issue discreetly and encourage parents to participate in the eradication. One of the best ways is to minimize the items each student brings into the school. You can have parents seal their children's backpacks with plastic bags to suffocate bed bugs and ban stuffed animals from entering the school.

Inspect and Monitor

Discreetly inspect and monitor bed bugs on the affected students' lockers and desks. Avoid having students remove clothes, shoes, and boots in the classroom. Place monitoring traps that use lures in places where the bugs used to hide to determine whether they're still present. Remove the monitors if there are no bed bugs after four weeks. You can also invest in a well-trained bed bug detection dog and handler team to help locate and manage bed bugs in buildings, especially in severe infestations. Trained dogs can smell bed bugs at all life stages, making it easy to uncover their breeding places.

Work Closely With Pest Management Professionals

You don't want to introduce harmful pesticides in a school as it can affect learners. However, you can work with a licensed pest management professional with a proper pesticide applicator and eco-friendly products to eliminate bed bugs while keeping your classrooms and other areas safe for students.

Need Pest Control Services in Shreveport, LA?

For over 30 years, Redd Pest Control of Shreveport has been the go-to pest control company for schools, homes and businesses struggling with unwanted infestation. We use specialized products and application methods to keep your space safe and pest-free. Contact us today!