If you suspect a bed bug infestation, you may be focused on your mattress, pillows, and the area around your bed. But bed bugs, like other pests, can spread quickly throughout your home. This might have you wondering: can bed bugs live in carpet?
And if so, what can you do?
Well, we have bad news and good news.
The bad news is, yes. Unfortunately, bed bugs can live in your carpet and area rugs. The soft fluffy surface gives them a cozy place to hide.
Although they may start out living in the carpet or rug in your sleeping area, if you have a large infestation, they can spread to other areas of your home, too.
But don’t despair. It is possible to get rid of bed bugs that may be living in your carpet.
Here’s everything you need to know.
How Do Bed Bugs Live In Carpet?
You might be wondering, how do bed bugs live in carpet?
Don’t they need sheets, pillowcases, and mattresses to hunker down in and hide? How can they survive so far away from their food source…namely you?
Although they prefer living in your bedding, they can survive on your carpet, too. There are plenty of great hiding spaces for them, like in the crevices next to your baseboards. If there are any small holes or cracks in your carpet or flooring, bed bugs can find a home in the sheltered space underneath your carpet.
However, they can’t burrow down as far into the carpet as they can on your bedding. This actually works in your favor; it’s easy to get rid of them when they’re living closer to the surface.
That’s the good news; now for the bad news.
If you find evidence of bedbugs living in carpet, it’s a sign that you’ve got an extremely serious infestation on your hands.
Typically, bed bugs will choose to live within 6-8 feet of the area where you sleep. If they have moved farther away than that, it simply means there are so many of them hiding in your home that they have run out of space.
You might think that bed bugs only infest homes that are dirty. But this is not true. Because they live on blood from humans, they will be attracted to any space in which humans live, especially where they sleep. They can come into your home on used clothing that you bring into the house, on luggage and handbags, and even on second-hand furniture that you carry into your home.
Because they generally feed at night, you might not even realize you have them at first. Initially, you will probably not even feel their bites. After a period of time, you will start to notice the telltale itchy welts on your skin. In fact, their bites can appear very similar to those caused by mosquitoes or even fleas.
Fortunately, bed bugs do not carry any diseases. Despite this, they are a nuisance, causing a lot of discomfort. After all, no one wants their body to be used as food during the night while they’re sleeping.
But don’t despair. You can get rid of bed bugs in your carpet once you find out that they are there.
Signs of Bed Bugs In Your Carpet
Bed bugs are so tiny, that you might not notice them. But if you’re unsure whether or not there is a bed bug infestation in your carpet, there are a few telltale signs to watch out for.
The most obvious sign is likely to be the bites they leave behind.
Are you waking up with bug bites that you didn’t have when you went to sleep? That’s a pretty sure sign of an infestation in your bed. After that, it’s just a matter of time before these tiny monsters move onto your bedroom carpet.
The bites look like clusters of small red welts.
If you or a family member wakes up with these small but unsightly welts, you should do a thorough inspection of the carpet around your bed.
While bed bugs themselves are tough to see, they do leave behind some telltale evidence of their presence. You may be able to find their tiny droppings. Also, bed bugs frequently shed their transparent exoskeleton by molting. So if you find a tiny clear bed-bug-shaped object, you’ll know it’s them. You also might find their eggs, which look like tiny milk-white pearls.
And of course, the most flagrant sign of all will be spotting the living bed bugs in action. This is challenging, but you’re most likely to find them around any small cracks or crevices, or on the edge of the carpet where it lies up against the wall. You can also sometimes find them by lifting up the corner of an area rug and looking underneath it. This type of area is often a favorite hiding place for these minuscule pests.
Why You Should Get Rid of Bed Bugs In Your Carpet
If an infestation has spread to your carpet, you’ll want to put an end to it as quickly as possible.
That’s because, once they have found your carpet, it can quickly become their travel area.
They will make their way across your carpet to infest other areas in your home.
By eliminating an infestation in your carpet, you can confine the insects to your bedroom, making it easier to rid them from your home entirely.
How To Get Rid of Bed Bugs In Your Carpet
There are several methods to get rid of bed bugs in your carpet. Before starting any method, you’ll want to get rid of bed bugs in your bed or on your other furniture or clothing. It will be much easier to treat an infestation that’s spread to your carpet if you get rid of it in other areas first.
Once that’s accomplished, you can move on to your carpet armed with a vacuum cleaner and some diatomaceous earth.
Make sure that you use a vacuum with a bag. This will ensure that you can seal the nasty critters up afterward so they can’t find their way to other areas of your home.
Before vacuuming, spread diatomaceous earth over the carpet. It is one of the most effective bed bug carpet powders. For best results, leave it on your carpet for two or three days before moving to the next step.
Once you’ve done that, go ahead and vacuum the carpet. You may need to go over it several times.
Then spread the carpet with diatomaceous earth again, and go through the whole process again.
Do this at least three times. In fact, you may need to do it once a week over a period of about a month.
This method is effective because diatomaceous earth will penetrate the exoskeleton of the bed bugs so that they eventually die. While the death is a fairly slow one, all that remains for you to do afterward is simply vacuum them up to remove the tiny bug corpses, as well as any that might somehow have survived.
When finished, remove and dispose of the vacuum cleaner bag outdoors, preferably away from your home.
Just to make sure that you’ve gotten everything, it’s a good idea to shampoo or steam clean the carpet afterward.
You’ll need to repeat the process because, although the diatomaceous earth is effective in killing live bed bugs, it won’t destroy their eggs. So you will have to continue the cleaning process as any eggs left behind will hatch and leave you right back to where you started.
Another potential problem with this process is that diatomaceous earth can cause damage to expensive rugs or carpets, especially those that are made of silk or wool.
If you want a quicker method, simply giving the entire carpet a good steam clean is an excellent way to eliminate bed bugs. That’s because these tiny insects cannot survive when exposed to the high temperature of the steam.
If you’re using a steam cleaner to get rid of bed bugs, it’s important to be thorough. Go slowly and cover every square inch of your carpet. Give special attention to the edges of your carpet, since this is a spot that bed bugs love to hide.
To make absolutely certain that the steam treatment is successful, it’s a good idea to flip the carpet over to clean both sides. Alternatively, try the Lysol bed bug treatment.
Steam cleaning is a great option because you can use it even on very expensive carpets without causing damage.
Bed Bugs Vs. Carpet Beetles
Bed bugs are not the only kind of insect that can infest your carpet. Many other kinds of insects do, too. One of the most common of these is the carpet beetle.
Obviously, neither type of insect is desirable in your carpeting, but these cause damage in different ways. Bed bugs will bite people, causing discomfort and annoyance, but they will not actually damage your carpet. A carpet beetle, on the other hand, will chew the carpet and damage it by leaving holes. Carpet beetles can also trigger allergic reactions that resemble a bite in certain people.
While a bed bug migrates to the carpet from your bedroom furniture, a carpet beetle comes in from the outdoors in order to find a soft place to lay and hatch its eggs. They can enter by flying through tiny cracks in your doors or windows. Bed bugs, on the other hand, are known, as hitchhikers. They cannot fly, but they will enter by riding on the clothing or belongings of anyone entering your home.
Bed bugs feed off a human blood supply to stay alive. Carpet beetles live by chewing on any fibrous materials they find in your homes, such as clothing, dead insects, upholstery, and (obviously) rugs and carpeting. There are many different types of carpet beetle including black carpet beetle, furniture carpet beetle, and varied carpet beetle.
So how can you tell the difference between a bed bug and a carpet beetle?
Well, although both are tiny and difficult to see, you can tell the difference by looking at them.
You will first notice not the carpet beetles themselves, but their larvae.
These resemble a tiny brown worms, without legs, and with brown or black bristly hair all over their body.
You will see them much more easily than a bed bug because they’re bigger.
In contrast, a bed bug (if you do see it), is a flat, six-legged insect whose body is shaped like an oval. Unlike the shapeless brown furry carpet beetle larvae, a bed bug will have a clearly defined head and abdomen.
Bed bug larvae are almost impossible to see. However, they look like long worms rather than the brown fuzzy caterpillar-like appearance of carpet beetle larvae.
If you do find carpet beetles, steam cleaning is the best method to get rid of them.
No matter which type of insect is infesting your carpet, you will want to be diligent in getting rid of them as quickly as possible.
Fortunately, it is possible to eliminate them using the steps we’ve described here. And if all else fails, a professional exterminator can be called in to take care of the problem.
The Takeaway
While bed bugs would prefer to live in your bedding, if the infestation is large enough, they will run out of space and begin living in your carpet. If you find evidence of bed bugs in your carpet, you can get rid of them with repeated treatments of diatomaceous earth and vacuum cleaning. A faster way to rid your carpet of bed bugs is through steam cleaning. If you suspect bed bugs, look carefully for eggs or for the remains of their exoskeleton, which they shed frequently.
It’s easy to confuse bed bugs in the carpet with carpet beetles, but they are different. Fortunately, a good steam clean can get rid of any of these pests.
No one wants to find bed bugs anywhere in their home. But with some care and diligence, you won’t have to tolerate their presence for long.