Prevention
To prevent bringing home bed bugs, travelers are advised to take precautions after visiting an infested site: generally, these include checking shoes on leaving the site, changing clothes outside the house before entering, and putting the used clothes in a clothes dryer outside the house. When visiting a new lodging, it is advised to check the bed before taking suitcases into the sleeping area, and putting the suitcase on a raised stand to make bedbugs less likely to crawl in. An extreme measure would be putting the suitcase in the tub. Clothes should be hung up or left in the suitcase, and never left on the floor. Additional preventative measures include sealing cracks and crevices (which are often the sites of bed bug harborages), inspecting furniture, and for exposed travelers to decontaminate clothes and luggage upon returning home. The founder of a company dedicated to bedbug extermination said that 5% of hotel rooms he books into were infested. He advised people never to sit down on public transport; check office chairs, plane seats, and hotel mattresses; and monitor and vacuum home beds once a month. Close all wall openings or gaps; bed bugs tend to hide in dark places and cracked walls are a perfect spot for them to infest. Management
Treatment of bed bug bites requires keeping the person from being repeatedly bitten, and possible symptomatic use of antihistamines and corticosteroids (either topically or systemically).
Resistance to pesticides has increased significantly over time, and there are concerns about harm to health from their use.Once established, bed bugs are extremely difficult to get rid of. Bed bugs are particularly difficult to eradicate in apartment complexes as harbors can exist in other areas of the building when single units are treated.Mechanical approaches, such as vacuuming up the insects and heat-treating or wrapping mattresses, are effective. An hour at a temperature of 45 °C (113 °F) or over, or two hours at less than −17 °C (1 °F) kills them. This may include a domestic clothes drier for fabric or a commercial steamer. Bed bugs and their eggs will die on contact when exposed to surface temperatures above 180 °F (82 °C) and a steamer can reach well above 230 °F (110 °C). A study found 100% mortality rates for bed bugs exposed to temperatures greater than 50 °C (122 °F) for more than 2 minutes. The study recommended maintaining temperatures of above 48 °C (118 °F) for more than 20 min to effectively kill all life stages of bed bugs, and because in practice treatment times of 6 to 8 hours are used to account for cracks and indoor clutter. This method is expensive and has caused fires. Starving bedbugs is not effective, as they can survive without eating for 100 to 300 days, depending on temperature.It was stated in 2012 that no truly effective insecticides were available. Insecticides that have historically been found effective include pyrethroids, dichlorvos, and malathion.