Bed Bug Service
Bed bugs are small, flat, reddish-brown insects that hide in mattress seams and bed frames and feed on people at night. In Kansas City they show up year-round, usually carried home from travel, apartments or secondhand furniture, and the first step is an inspection to confirm it is bed bugs and find where they are hiding.
Bed bugs can happen anywhere. They feed only on blood, so a spotless home is just as easy for them as a cluttered one. They travel on luggage, backpacks, furniture and clothing, and they move between units in apartment buildings.
Clutter doesn't attract them, but it does give them more places to hide and makes them harder to find. The key is identifying activity early and treating the right areas.
Adults are about the size of an apple seed — roughly a quarter inch — flat and brown when they haven't fed, rounder and redder after a meal. Young bed bugs (nymphs) start out nearly clear and pass through five stages, and each stage needs a blood meal to move to the next. Eggs are about a millimeter long, pearly white, and glued into cracks and seams.
At normal indoor temperatures eggs hatch in about a week to ten days, and a bed bug can go from egg to adult in roughly five to six weeks. Adults can live for months between meals. They feed mostly at night and stay close to where people sleep or sit for long periods — usually within a few feet of the bed or couch.
Because heated homes stay warm all winter, bed bugs aren't really seasonal here. Summer travel and late-summer moves bring more of them home, but they can turn up any month of the year.
Look for small black or rust-colored spots on mattress seams, piping, the box spring and the headboard — these are droppings, and they smear like ink if you wipe them with a damp cloth. Also look for pale shed skins, tiny white eggs, live bugs, and small rusty blood spots on sheets.
Check the mattress seams and tag, the corners and underside of the box spring, the joints of the bed frame, the back of the headboard, the nightstand, and the seams of any couch or recliner where someone sleeps. A flashlight and an old credit card to slide along seams help.
Bites alone don't confirm bed bugs. Some people don't react at all, and bed bug bites look a lot like other insect bites. Carpet beetle larvae, fleas and other small insects get mistaken for bed bugs often, so if you find a bug, save it in a sealed bag or text us a clear photo.
Bed bugs hide in mattress seams, bed frames, furniture, cracks, baseboards, and nearby resting areas.
All Star Pest Solutions provides practical inspection and treatment guidance so you know what is happening and what to do next.
Keep sleeping in your own bed. Moving to the couch or another bedroom usually just spreads them, because they follow people.
Strip the bedding and wash it, along with clothing that's been on the floor or near the bed, then dry it on high heat for at least 30 minutes — the dryer's heat is what kills them. Items that can't be washed can often go in the dryer on high by themselves. Bag anything leaving the room in sealed plastic bags.
Vacuum mattress seams, the bed frame and the carpet edge along the baseboards, then empty the vacuum or seal the bag and take it outside right away. Pull the bed a few inches from the wall and keep sheets and blankets off the floor. Hold off on throwing out furniture until we've looked; if something does have to go, wrap it in plastic and mark it so nobody picks it up off the curb.
Bug bombs and foggers don't reach the cracks and seams where bed bugs hide, they can push bugs into walls and neighboring units, and they are a fire risk if used near a pilot light or appliance. Spraying rubbing alcohol is a fire hazard and only kills a bug it hits directly.
Leaving the house empty for a few weeks won't starve them out — adults can go months without a meal. Store-bought sprays mostly kill what you can see, and eggs keep hatching. Throwing out the mattress alone usually leaves bugs behind in the frame, furniture and baseboards.
In a hotel, keep your suitcase on the luggage rack or in the bathroom, not on the bed or floor, and check the mattress seams and behind the headboard with a flashlight before you settle in.
When you get home, unpack straight into the washer, dry clothes on high heat, and vacuum the suitcase. Look over secondhand furniture carefully before it comes inside, and skip curbside mattresses and couches entirely. In shared laundry rooms, carry clothes in a sealed plastic bag.
We understand this is stressful. We handle bed bug concerns professionally and directly.
Call when you've found a bug, droppings or eggs, when you're waking up with bites you can't explain, or when a neighbor in your building has bed bugs. Call or text and we will get to you as fast as we can.
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How to tell if it is really bed bugs, the six places they hide, what not to do before we arrive, and the inspect-prep-treat-follow-up plan that finishes the job.
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Small reddish-brown bugs about the size of an apple seed, tiny black or rust-colored spots on sheets and mattress seams (droppings), and small itchy bites in a line or cluster are the usual signs. Several other things get mistaken for bed bugs, though, which is exactly why a real inspection matters before you spend money on treatment.
Usually not by itself. Bed bugs hide in bed frames, baseboards, outlets, furniture seams, and nearby rooms — not just the mattress — so replacing it alone often leaves the infestation intact and you've spent money for nothing.
More than one visit. After the initial treatment we come back for a follow-up visit two to three weeks later, to catch anything that hatched from eggs after the first round. We walk you through exactly what to expect once we've seen the inspection results.
No need to gut the room. We give you clear, specific prep instructions in writing before we come out — what to wash, what to bag, what to leave alone — so you're not guessing or over-doing it.
We handle bed bug calls discreetly. Call or text and we'll talk through how you want to handle it.
It depends on how many rooms are affected and how established the infestation is, so bed bug pricing is a custom quote after inspection rather than a flat rate. You'll get clear pricing before any work starts.
Adults can survive for months without a blood meal, longer in cooler rooms. That's why leaving a house or apartment empty for a few weeks doesn't get rid of them.
They are not known to spread disease to people. The real problems are itchy bites, skin infections from scratching, lost sleep and the stress of living with them.
The dryer does the work. Dry clothes and bedding on high heat for at least 30 minutes. Washing alone, especially in cool water, doesn't reliably kill them or their eggs.
No. Bed bugs follow people, so moving to the couch or a different bedroom usually spreads them to a new spot. Stay put and keep the bed pulled away from the wall with bedding off the floor.
No. Foggers don't reach the seams and cracks where bed bugs hide, they can drive them into walls and neighboring units, and they can be a fire hazard.
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