Getting rid of bed bugs in an apartment typically requires professional treatment, and in most cases your landlord is legally responsible for paying for it. A chemical treatment plan usually takes two to three visits over four to six weeks, while a professional heat treatment can eliminate an infestation in a single day. But the work you do before, during, and after treatment makes a significant difference in how quickly you’re bug-free. Here’s everything you need to know, from confirming you actually have bed bugs to preparing your unit and understanding your rights.
Confirm You Actually Have Bed Bugs
Before you call anyone, look for physical evidence. Adult bed bugs are reddish-brown, wingless, and about the size of an apple seed. An unfed adult looks like a flat disc; after feeding, it swells into a torpedo shape and turns bright red. Younger bed bugs (nymphs) are smaller and nearly translucent, appearing whitish-yellow until they feed, at which point they look like tiny red raspberry seeds. The youngest nymphs are hard to spot unless they’ve recently eaten or are actively moving.
Eggs are pearl-white, roughly the size of a pinhead, and develop visible eyespots after about five days. You’ll also find molted skins that look like empty, translucent shells in various sizes, one for each growth stage.
The most telling sign is fecal spots: clusters of small black dots, often in groups of ten or more, with a smooth texture because they’re made of digested blood. Check these locations carefully:
- Mattress and box spring: Along seams, in tufts, under tags, and where fabric is stapled to the wood frame
- Bed frame and headboard: Inside screw holes, along wood joints, and behind the headboard where it meets the wall
- Baseboards and walls: Along the tops of baseboards, at ceiling and wall junctions, behind pictures, behind loose wallpaper or chipped paint, and at electrical outlets
- Curtains and closets: In the pleated folds near the rod, inside curtain rods, along closet door frames, and beneath the bar that holds hangers
- Other spots: Under air conditioner bases, at the edge of carpeting, and inside baseboard heaters
Tell Your Landlord Immediately
Report the problem to your landlord or building management as soon as you suspect an infestation. In many states and cities, landlords are legally required to pay for bed bug extermination. New York City, for example, classifies bed bugs as a Class B hazardous violation, giving landlords 30 days to correct the problem. Tenants in NYC also have the right to receive a written disclosure of any bed bug infestations in the building within the past year.
Laws vary by state, but the general principle in most jurisdictions is that landlords must maintain habitable conditions, and a bed bug infestation violates that standard. Document everything: take photos of the bugs and evidence you find, and put your complaint in writing (email works) so you have a record. If your landlord ignores the issue, you can typically file a complaint with your city’s housing authority or health department.
Don’t Move Furniture Out of the Room
One of the most common mistakes is dragging infested items into other rooms or tossing them in the hallway. Moving furniture, bags, or clothing out of infested rooms spreads bed bugs to new areas of your apartment or building. Don’t discard mattresses or furniture until a pest control professional inspects them. In many cases, mattresses and furniture can be treated and don’t need to be replaced. If you do buy new furniture, wait until after the infestation is fully eliminated, or you’ll just be giving the surviving bugs a fresh place to hide.
How Professional Treatment Works
Your landlord should hire a licensed pest management professional. There are two main approaches.
Chemical Treatment
This is the most common method and involves applying insecticides to cracks, crevices, and surfaces where bed bugs hide. It requires two to three visits spread over four to six weeks because the chemicals don’t always kill eggs on the first pass. Follow-up visits target newly hatched nymphs before they can mature and reproduce. One important limitation: bed bugs have developed resistance to many common insecticides, particularly pyrethroids. Dust formulations tend to outperform liquid sprays, and desiccant dusts (which kill bugs by dehydrating them rather than through chemical toxicity) are considered superior to pyrethroid sprays because bugs can’t develop resistance to a physical mechanism the same way they resist chemicals.
Heat Treatment
A professional heat treatment raises your apartment’s temperature to 120 to 135°F using industrial heaters and strategically placed sensors. Once every sensor reads at least 115°F, the crew maintains that temperature for 60 minutes or more. This kills all life stages, including eggs, in a single visit. Bed bugs die within 20 minutes at 118°F, though eggs need a full 90 minutes at that temperature for complete mortality. Heat treatment is faster but typically more expensive than chemical treatment.
Preparing Your Apartment for Treatment
Your pest control company will give you specific instructions, but preparation generally follows the same steps. Start at least a day or two before the scheduled treatment.
Wash all clothes, bedding, and linens in the hottest water temperature the fabric allows. Then run everything through the dryer on high heat for at least 30 minutes. A loosely filled dryer on high kills all bed bug life stages, including eggs. After drying, seal items in plastic bags or tightly secured garbage bags so they stay protected. Dry-clean-only items go in sealed bags to the dry cleaner, and you should let the cleaner know the items may be infested.
Move all furniture at least two feet from the walls. Pull out every drawer from dressers, nightstands, and armoires, and empty the contents into sealed bags. Stand your mattress and box spring on their sides so the exterminator can access the undersides. Remove everything from headboards and wash or bag those items too.
A few more steps that are easy to overlook: remove electrical wall plates so the technician can treat wall openings, unplug computers and electronics in treated rooms, clean all hard floors, and remove any toys or items small children might put in their mouths. If you or anyone in your household has allergies, chemical sensitivities, or respiratory issues, let the pest control operator know before treatment begins. Small children, elderly residents, people with breathing problems, and pets should leave the apartment during treatment and stay away for at least four hours or until all products have dried.
What You Can Do Between Treatments
If your exterminator is using a chemical treatment plan with multiple visits, the weeks between appointments matter. Keep laundered items sealed in bags until the infestation is fully resolved. Vacuum thoroughly and frequently, focusing on mattress seams, baseboards, and carpet edges, and immediately empty the vacuum bag into a sealed plastic bag and dispose of it outside.
Encasements for your mattress and box spring are worth investing in. These zippered covers trap any remaining bugs inside and prevent new ones from colonizing the mattress. Leave them on for at least a year, since bed bugs can survive months without feeding.
If you want to apply a desiccant dust yourself as a supplement to professional treatment, silica gel-based products have shown the best results in research. In lab testing, silica gel dust achieved 100% mortality across multiple exposure methods, while diatomaceous earth and several chemical dusts topped out at 65% or less in brief-exposure tests. Apply dust lightly in cracks, crevices, and voids, not in thick piles. Keep it dry: moisture significantly reduces the effectiveness of desiccant dusts. One promising approach combines desiccant dust with small CO2 traps that mimic human breath and lure bugs into contact with the dust.
Preventing Reinfestation in an Apartment
Apartments are uniquely challenging because bed bugs travel between units through shared walls, electrical conduits, and plumbing chases. A responsible landlord should inspect all units directly above, below, and across from the infested apartment. If neighboring units aren’t checked and treated when necessary, bugs will simply migrate back.
After treatment is complete, keep your mattress and box spring encasements in place. Continue checking the seams, headboard, and baseboards every week or two for a few months. Interceptor traps placed under bed legs can catch bugs trying to climb up and give you early warning of any surviving population. Reduce clutter, especially near the bed, since every pile of clothing or stack of papers is another potential hiding spot that makes inspection and treatment harder.
If you live in a building where management is unresponsive, keep written records of every request and complaint. Many cities allow tenants to file complaints directly with the health department, and some allow you to hire an exterminator yourself and deduct the cost from rent, though this depends on your local laws. Knowing your rights as a tenant is just as important as knowing how to kill the bugs.