What's the best way to treat furniture for bed bugs without harming our birds?
Hot Shot makes a Bed Bug Detection and Treatment Kit that contains all the products you need to treat your bed and bedroom.
Remove the birds from the room before you do anything, unless you can take the furniture outside or put it on a balcony for treatment. Treat the bed frame and other furniture outdoors and let it sit for a day to kill all hidden bedbugs. Then either hose it off or wash it off with soapy water and let it dry thoroughly before putting it back if there's a risk your birds would chew on the furniture.
If you can't treat the furniture outdoors, put the birds in a different room as far from the bedroom as possible or let the birds stay at someone else's house during treatment.
Open all windows in the bedroom and close the door to keep the chemicals out of the rest of the house. Then use the chemical bedbug insecticide, and after treating the furniture wash it with soapy water.
is there any significant risk that your birds would chew on your furniture? If not, you don't need to wash off the insecticide.
After the furniture is treated with insecticide and washed off if necessary, would be a good time to use the clove oil/peppermint oil product on the furniture to repel any bed bugs from returning.
I hope you don't have carpeting or fabric upholstered furniture that needs treatment too. Keep in mind that bed bugs can live for months without a blood meal so if any are hiding in furniture or carpeting that's not treated they will re-infest your bed!
If you have hard surface floors, don't forget to treat the cracks where wall meets floor. Bed bugs hide in cracks.
ALWAYS read the instructions on any products that you use to kill bed bugs. They will tell you when the room will be safe for pets.
Good luck!
