Bed bugs are excellent at traveling in secret. You can pick up bed bugs anywhere, from hotels to bus stops to schools and dorm rooms. You can start an infestation if you accidentally carry one bug in your luggage. If you find yourself stuck with infested clothes, you do not need to throw out your clothes. Instead, you need to learn the perfect way to wash them.
The key to killing bed bugs is using hot water to wash them as they cannot survive in the heat. Also, do not skip the drying part. Dry your clothes in as much heat as they can take. If you are unable to deal with your pest situation, contact bed bug extermination today.
Tips for washing clothes that have been exposed to bedbugs
- Spray clothes with rubbing alcohol.
Before you try this step, make sure to check your clothing to see if they are colorfast. Colorfast clothes do not fade or lose their color in the water when you wash them. If the clothing label suggests washing clothes of similar colors together, it is not colorfast, and you should skip this step. Spray rubbing alcohol on your clothes when you see any bugs. While this won’t get rid of the infestation or the eggs, it will kill the live bugs.
- Separate dry clean only garments.
Some clothing items come with care labels that state that they should only be dry cleaned and not washed with water. If that is the case, then you should separate these items beforehand. You might not be able to wash them with water, but you can usually put them in the dryer at a high temperature to get rid of the bugs.
- Wash the clothes.
After sorting your clothes, you can finally start washing your bed bug-infested clothing. Wash your clothes like you do every day but do not forget to use hot water and regular detergent. Make sure to choose the correct cycle for the specific type of clothing. Set the temperature to the highest or as much as recommended on the label.
- Dry the clothes.
As with the wash, you will want to dry the clothes at the hottest temperature possible. Set the temperature to something your clothes can withstand for at least 30 minutes. Once your dryer reaches 120 degrees Fahrenheit, it should be able to kill the bed bugs and the eggs. However, you can skip the third step if you do not want to wash the clothes and kill the bugs only.
