What to do if your neighbors have bedbugs, can they move in with you, where to complain and how to protect yourself

How to protect your home

If your neighbors have bed bugs, the question arises about how to protect their apartment, because treating your own home is not enough. Bloodsuckers move from one room to another and soon the parasites will come again. To protect yourself when your neighbors have bedbugs, you can join forces; this is the best option for eliminating insects.

The more quickly the actions are carried out, the more likely it is to get rid of bloodsuckers quickly . Bedbugs multiply rapidly; delay will give a head start to infecting a large area.

Harassment is carried out with purchased funds or by calling in the appropriate services. For disinsection, drugs are purchased that kill parasites. Insecticides will solve the problem in a matter of days.

Repellents help in the fight against enemies, but their drawback is that the drugs are not able to destroy bedbugs; they are designed to repel insects and they may return after the product wears off.

It is advisable to take repellents for prevention after mass persecution with insecticides. Spicy herbs are ineffective. Their task is to repel bloodsuckers, but when the aroma weakens, the parasites return.

How to properly deal with bedbugs

There are plenty of ways to kill parasites. But they will only be effective if we poison the cockroaches together. This way the bedbugs will be destroyed and not just moved to another place. Of course, it is impossible to predict that all apartments in your building will be processed on the same day and hour. But the time interval when you poison insects should not exceed 5-7 days.

1. Household chemicals that contain insecticides. It doesn't matter if it's powder, concentrate, aerosol, chalk, trap or emulsion. If they are used according to the instructions, the bedbugs will be defeated. Before the treatment procedure, it is imperative to close all windows, wear gloves and unnecessary closed clothing. Use a respirator. After using the insecticide, try to leave the house for several hours. And don’t wash the floor for at least another day.
2. Folk remedies can also be used as help. Bloodsuckers do not like the strong smell of tansy or wormwood or the strong smell of turpentine. They also avoid vinegar, kerosene or mint with valerian. This is unlikely to be an effective way to kill bedbugs. We can only talk about preventive measures.
3. The most effective remedy is to turn to professionals. The pest control service will independently select the current agent and comprehensively destroy the bedbugs. They will be able to provide a guarantee on the quality of their work. Whether self-treating your apartment for bedbugs will be as effective is up to you to decide.

Effective insecticides

To eliminate infestations at home, powerful insecticides are used. These measures allow you to quickly eliminate parasites. But the question arises about protection from bedbugs if they have settled with neighbors, because then the disinfestation of one apartment does not guarantee a 100% result. It is best to come to an agreement with your neighbors and carry out the persecution at the same time.

The choice of insecticides is huge; you can purchase preparations in the form of a spray, aerosol, chalk, powder, emulsion, or in the form of a trap. Sprays and aerosols are popular. This is due to the way the chemical is supplied.

Thanks to the extensive spraying of microparticles under pressure, even the most difficult-to-reach substances are processed.

1. Drug Executioner. Kills adults and their eggs. The disinfectant does not require re-treatment; one episode of bullying is enough. To prepare the solution, the concentrate is diluted with water in accordance with the instructions. The resulting mixture is sprayed near sofas, mattresses, beds, around baseboards, and cracks in the floor. The executioner attracts pests with its smell, provoking them to come into contact with particles of the drug. Fenthion contained in the composition affects the nervous system of bloodsuckers and kills insects. Before using an insecticide, you must protect yourself by wearing a respirator, gloves, and safety glasses. During treatment and for several days after, there should be no residents of the house or pets in the room.
2. Cucaracha. The drug is recognized by pest control services. It is very toxic, so when processing the body must be wearing a respirator, goggles, gloves, and household members must leave the home for a while. Cucaracha is found in the form of an emulsion or powder. The liquid preparation is intended for preparing an aqueous solution, and the dry one is distributed throughout the apartment in its original form. When disinfesting carpets, the powder is left for several days, after which the pile is vacuumed. Wet cleaning of the apartment is done after 6-7 days.
3. Get suspension. The main substance is chlorpyrifos. Small granules fall on the body of the bug and poison not only the carrier, but also other parasites that happen to be near the victim. To obtain a solution, the suspension is diluted with water 1:14.
4. Battalion commander Pyrethroids in the drug cause paralysis and death in bloodsuckers. All possible locations of bedbugs are treated with an aerosol. The insecticide has low toxicity for humans. The disadvantage of this choice is the high cost of the product.
5. Fufanon. The emulsion contains malathion. The diluted preparation is sprayed on all bedbug habitats. The product is cheap and effective.

Prevention of occurrence

When treating for bedbugs, do not forget what must be done to prevent infestation of the home.

The risk of parasite penetration cannot be completely eliminated, but if a number of rules are followed, the return of insects is minimized.

1. During the trip, the sleeping place is checked. Upon arrival, disassembled items are washed, suitcases and bags are left in the sun or frost.
2. Drops of essential oils are added to luggage with things. The bright aroma repels pests.
3. Prevention of parasites includes inspection and disinfestation of ventilation. Place a container with essential oil there or put a bunch of tansy or wormwood.
4. A bunch of herbs are kept under the bed to repel bloodsuckers.
5. To prevent pests from entering the apartment, place a saucer with essential oils on the owner’s things in the hallway.
6. When bedbugs crawl from neighbors, repairs need to be made, cracks and possible paths are sealed with sealant or mortar, which will not allow the bloodsuckers to overcome the barrier.

Prevention against bedbugs

If you decide to fight bedbugs yourself, it is recommended to give preference to combined methods of destruction. The maximum result will be achieved by the simultaneous use of mechanical methods, household and folk remedies, and chemicals.

After destroying all blood-sucking parasites in the house, it is necessary to pay attention to organizing a protective barrier. This is prevention against the reappearance of bedbugs, which includes:

• the use of repellents - aromatic essential oils, fresh and dried plants, herbal decoctions;
• installing a ventilation grille with small holes through which insects cannot pass.

When purchasing new or used furniture, check for bedbugs on the surface, folds and crevices.
Similar activities should be performed after a vacation or business trip. If you need help in exterminating blood-sucking parasites, contact the professional Dez Group service for help. Specialists will quickly treat the room with a certified chemical using the cold or hot fog method. For consultation and application, please contact the company manager by phone.

Can they come from neighbors?

When wondering whether bedbugs can move into an apartment from neighbors, it is worth considering that insects crawl on walls and ceilings and there is a possibility.

The ways for bloodsuckers to enter a home are:

• Introducing parasites by pets.
• Buying old things.
• Crawling through an open window in summer.
• Moving bedbugs in luggage while traveling.

Parasites may remain in the home from the previous owners. If the bloodsucker does not have food, it is capable of falling into suspended animation and can emerge from it years later, when a victim appears on its territory. Therefore, before blaming your neighbors, you need to make sure that the infection arose because of them.

Are the neighbors really to blame?

A situation where neighbors stubbornly do not want to admit that they have bedbugs is not the case when you need to insist on an inspection, as is customary, for example, when a neighbor above you is suspected of having a leak. As you know, bedbugs prefer to organize their colonies close to the sleeping area, and always in the most secluded corners of the bedroom. Therefore, insisting on entering such a personal space of strangers is, at a minimum, unethical, and somehow stupid.

Therefore, if the neighbors did not immediately confess, this cannot be evidence that the bedbugs came from them, but in any case, you will have to act on your own, trying to understand where the parasites could have come from. And in this case, it is best to act by elimination, because there are not so many reasons for the appearance of parasites.

So, bedbugs in 95% of cases came from neighbors if:

• In the last, at least four months, none of the residents of the apartment went on business trips, trips, visits, etc., where they stayed overnight.
• During this same time, none of the guests who came with their belongings spent the night on this bed.
• Also, during this time, no new or used furniture was purchased for the bedroom or adjacent rooms. The same applies to bed linen and any accessories related to the sleeping area.
• The possibility of introducing parasites into the fur of domestic animals is excluded. This sometimes happens if an animal visited an infested apartment and “caught” bedbug eggs on its fur.
• A persistent smell of chemicals appeared in the entrance, which indicates that one of the neighbors has already begun the war against parasites, which means there is every reason to believe that the bedbugs have begun migrating, saving their lives.

And of course, irrefutable evidence of the neighbors’ guilt is the path of insects descending along the wall. This phenomenon is often observed in the case of mass migrations of parasites. Among other things, they leave behind traces of their movements - round points of excrement that resemble cockroach spots, chitin scales, eggs. These objects are especially clearly visible on any horizontal protrusions located under the vertical paths of the parasites.

How to understand that they came from a neighboring apartment

If there is a problem with bloodsuckers, the owners are interested in how to find out if their neighbors have bedbugs. If there is a trusting attitude, the neighbors themselves will answer.

Otherwise, recent events are reviewed, new purchases, recent travels, and housing transactions are remembered.

If you are interested in how to determine that bedbugs are crawling from your neighbors, take into account the presence of pets or recent trips to the hospital . If all the reasons do not apply, then the bedbugs most likely came from neighbors. It is important to consider the number of bloodsuckers. If neighbors poison bedbugs, then the insects will quickly spread throughout the apartments and their number will be significant.

How bedbugs are transmitted by people themselves

In other cases, people themselves bring bedbugs into their homes on their clothes, bags and other things. In this way, infection occurs no less often than when insects move from neighbors.

Bed bugs are not stationary parasites, that is, like mosquitoes, they do not live on human bodies. They bite a person, suck blood and run away to their hiding places. Thus, one person cannot become infected with bedbugs from another person. However, these parasites are often carried on clothing.

Most often, such an infestation occurs when a person goes on vacation or a business trip and spends the night in a hotel where bedbugs live. At night they can bite him and then return to their hiding places. In this case, one or two bedbugs may become entangled in clothing and remain in it. In the morning, getting out of bed, a person can take off these things, put them in a suitcase and go home. As a result, insects will also make the journey. If all items are not washed at high temperatures immediately, the parasites will get out of them and crawl somewhere under the baseboards. Also, during a trip, they can get out of things and get into the cracks in the bag, and then at home they can get out of them and run away. As a result, after a few days, the parasites will smell the carbon dioxide exhaled by people and climb into their bed to bite.

A person will be lucky if he brings home one male or nymph in this way, which will die in a couple of weeks, before any of the residents have time to get scared. However, if a fertilized female or several bugs get into the house, then soon there will be a lot of them in the apartment.

Likewise, a bug can come to your home directly on your outerwear or shoes. You can bring him in even by visiting an infected premises.

It is almost impossible to get bedbugs on your body. Having bitten, they tend to immediately run away, especially if the person starts to move. This is how they end up in the folds of clothes, bags and suitcases.

This is probably the most common way of infecting an apartment or house with parasites, when they are carried by people and do not escape from neighbors. People often travel to different places, so insects are much more likely to get into a new room on their things than, for example, on furniture or household appliances, which are transported or bought used less often.

Because of this, it is dangerous to visit houses where bedbugs live, and it is even more undesirable to spend the night in such places. The scary thing is not that you will be bitten at night, but that some parasites will definitely get into your things and then get into your home, thereby complicating your life at least for the next few months.

In addition, bedbugs are carried with old furniture, refrigerators, computers and other equipment. Very often, it is in such objects that parasites make their nests. There can be countless of them in one sofa or bed. Having brought it into your home, you can then spend a very long time persecuting these parasites.

Our subscribers often complain that they got bedbugs after purchasing old furniture. Some people, having learned that it is infected, rush to throw it away as soon as possible, but this does not solve the problem. Insects quickly spread throughout the room, penetrating under baseboards, into the cracks between wallpaper and other secluded places. As a result, in order to remove them, people have to disinfest the entire apartment.

One day we were approached by a master restorer who specializes in restoring antique furniture. Once, an old sofa was brought to his workshop, which is located in a private house next to the living quarters. A few weeks after this, residents began complaining of bedbug bites. They tried to get rid of the parasites for a year. Difficulties arose due to the fact that insects crawled throughout the house, climbed into other furniture and under the boards in the floor. They were destroyed only after several professional treatments and the use of expensive means.

In general, if you see a good sofa left by someone else on the street, do not rush to take it home. There is a high probability that they got rid of it precisely because of bedbugs. For example, in America, when contaminated furniture is thrown away, a special mark is made on it. In our country, of course, no one does this, so parasites taken out of the house along with the furniture quite often find new owners and cozy housing.

There are many similar stories. For example, a computer repairman brought home someone else's laptop. A few days later he took it apart and found a nest of bedbugs inside. He shook them into the toilet and flushed them. The laptop was then quickly assembled and returned to the owner. A week later, he had to remember this incident, when, after sleep, marks from bedbug bites began to appear on his body.

In exactly the same way, bedbugs get into the house along with mattresses, carpets, baby strollers, toys, indoor plants and other things purchased on the secondary market.

Nowadays, people can travel thousands of kilometers in a day. Bedbugs can also mix with them. You can bring them on clothes to your home from an apartment on the street next door or, for example, bring them to Moscow from a hotel in Bali.

Bedbug nest on the inside of the sofa

In addition, you can pick up bedbugs on public transport. Drivers of regular buses and trucks often contact us. Parasites infest interiors and create their nests in or near the seats. At night, they emerge from their hiding places and bite passengers traveling long distances. Some suck blood and successfully return to their shelter, and some crawl into the pockets, bags and suitcases of travelers. Thus, they end up at someone's home and quickly begin to explore new territories.

We are also often contacted by hotel and hostel owners. They complain that they have already carried out pest control many times, but over time, bedbugs appear again. No matter how sad it may be, in such establishments it is almost impossible to get rid of parasites forever. The fact is that a variety of people constantly come to hotels and periodically someone brings bedbugs there with their belongings. Because of this, even the most thorough treatment gives only temporary results. As a result of its implementation, the insects die, and after some time they appear because they were brought in again by someone, and not because the disinfestation was ineffective.

Through what places in the apartment can they penetrate?

When you know that your neighbors have bedbugs, it’s worth knowing how the bloodsuckers get into your home. Typically, parasites crawl through cracks, openings, ventilation, and doors. Due to their overall dimensions, bloodsuckers crawl into small crevices.

If you are wondering what to do if your neighbors are poisoning bedbugs, you should first exclude the possibility of insects moving into the apartment. To do this, it is imperative to seal the cracks with sealant or polyurethane foam, and install a mesh with small cells in the ventilation ducts.

There they leave a trap for the bug that has overcome the barrier. You need to draw a line on the doors, walls and ceiling with the preparation in the form of a chalk, especially if the windows and balcony are open in the summer.

Where to complain

If you are wondering what to do if your neighbors have bedbugs and they do not take measures to eliminate them, it is worth noting that it is easier to talk to people and settle everything peacefully.

When words do not yield significant results and the question of where to complain when neighbors have bedbugs remains open, you need to write a statement to the appropriate authorities. If this is not done, then the risk of the problem reoccurring after treating only your apartment is high.

First, you need to call the local police officer; if an explanatory conversation does not yield results, he will tell you where to go if your neighbors have bedbugs. The next step is the sanitary and epidemiological station. If, after all, it is not possible to come to an agreement with the neighbors, then they contact the prosecutor’s office with a recorded violation and a collective complaint.

Unfortunately, there is no article in the code that allows us to fully regulate this issue. Perhaps conversations will be held with neighbors or they will simply feel ashamed and decide to come to a compromise.

An application to Rospotrebnadzor can help bring neighbors to administrative responsibility or pay a minor fine for violating sanitary standards. But if the tenants are the rightful owners of the apartment, then nothing else can be done against them.