Inspect for Bed Bugs After Travel or Buying Used Furniture

Thoroughly inspect luggage, clothing, and used furniture for live bugs, dark stains, blood spots, and sweet musty odors before bringing items inside your home.

1. Create Your Detection Station. Choose a hard-surface area like a garage, patio, or bathroom where you can easily spot bugs and clean afterward. Lay down a white sheet or towel to make dark bugs visible. Keep this area separate from bedrooms and upholstered furniture.
2. Hunt the Hidden Hitchhikers. Open suitcases completely and check all seams, pockets, and corners with a flashlight. Look for live bugs about the size of an apple seed, dark red or brown stains, small blood spots, or a sweet musty smell. Pay special attention to zippers and fabric folds where bugs hide during travel.
3. Scan Every Thread. Shake out all clothing items over the white sheet. Examine seams, cuffs, and collars closely. Look for tiny dark spots that could be bug excrement or small reddish stains from crushed bugs. Even clean-looking clothes can harbor bugs in hidden areas.
4. Scrutinize Every Seam. Inspect all crevices, joints, and upholstered areas of secondhand furniture. Check under cushions, along seams, in screw holes, and behind headboards. Use a credit card to scrape along cracks and joints to dislodge hiding bugs. Focus extra attention on beds, couches, and chairs where people sit or sleep.
5. Read the Evidence Trail. Search for rust-colored or dark spots on fabric, small blood stains, shed skins that look like empty bug shells, and tiny black dots of excrement. Fresh infestations may only show live bugs, while established ones leave multiple types of evidence. Trust your nose too - heavy infestations produce a distinctly sweet, musty odor.
6. Kill with Heat. Wash clothing in hot water above 120°F and dry on high heat for 40 minutes. For items that cannot be washed, place them in a dryer on high heat for 30 minutes, or seal in black plastic bags and leave in direct sunlight on a hot day for several hours. Heat kills all life stages of bed bugs.
7. Contain and Quarantine. If you find evidence of bed bugs, immediately seal contaminated items in plastic bags. Do not bring them into your home until properly treated. For used furniture, consider professional treatment or disposal if heavily infested. Monitor the inspection area for several days to catch any bugs that may emerge later.