Bedbugs hitchhike rides into your home

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) - As we told you earlier this week, the extermination company Terminix says Indianapolis is the 12th most bed-bug infested city in the nation.

If you have bedbugs don't hide it. Get help and get rid of them. Remember, having bed bugs is not a sign of poor sanitation. It's just a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Bedbug treatments are flying off the shelves at Fusek's True Value Hardware store in downtown Indianapolis.

Owner Steve Fusek says, "It probably started about a year and a half 2 years ago . . . it has increased ten fold I'd say."

Chemicals like you would buy at Fusek's will cost you less than 20 bucks a bottle. Having bedbugs doesn't mean you’re unclean it’s simply that bugs hitchhiked into your home.

Elia Levin owns Gold Seal Pest Control in Indianapolis, "It travels on virtually any personal item or piece of furniture that is moved from one location to another."

And once you've got them, hot air is among the best ways to get rid of them.

"As you can see at this moment it's coming out about 175-170 degrees,” says Levin who is inside a downtown Indianapolis store front he is working on.

Levin says his business is up 30 percent in the past couple of years. Using a therma pure heat process, heated air is circulated throughout a room or house killing bed bugs wherever they hide.

The bugs die at temperatures of 113 degrees or higher.

"They like an area that is semi dark and undisturbed. And once you get that airflow going they're coming out," says Levin.

It takes about 2 or 3 hours to get the job done. Prices start at about $800.

To avoid bringing the bugs home with you do this:

• Throw new clothing you buy into the dryer for 20 minutes when you get home.
• Wrap your mattress in a mattress cover.
• Hang your clothes on a hotel room shower rod, not in the closet.
• And store your suitcase in the bath tub.

Levin says, "the simple fact is a bed bug cannot climb a smooth surface." And if you suspect an infestation take action immediately. 40 bedbugs today will be 6,000 in six months.

Bed bug infestations are not tracked by the state department of health, so there's no way to know where the hot spots are in the city. But everything from apartment buildings, to hotel and motels and even retail stores are being affected.

--- Here's the tell tale signs that bed bugs are making themselves at home in your house.

• You wake up at night and find bugs on your pillow.
• You wake up in the morning and see small blood spots on your sheets.
• Or if you wakeup and find you have red bite marks that itch.

---- By the way, the most infected city is New York.