When people’s homes are infested with bed bugs, the relief that comes with the pest control professionals finishing their eradication and telling them that the hellish infestation is finally over can make even the surliest person smile and feel like the luckiest son of a gun in the world. But, how can you be certain the infestation is truly gone, never to darken your doorway again, that every last bed bug and bed bug egg has been destroyed? If you can find no more evidence of their presence, do you assume all is clear until it proves otherwise? That is a much more complicated and difficult question to answer than you might think.

The ability to completely eliminate bed bugs from someone’s home depends largely on the level of infestation and the building or site being treated. Thankfully, one of the few kinds of sites that have a fairly good chance of being completely eliminated of bed bugs are single-family homes. In an isolated building that has the same people residing in it at all times, rather than an apartment complex that has to deal with new tenants coming in regularly and living in spaces that allow bed bugs to easily move from one apartment to another, the ability to detect and eliminate all the bed bugs and their eggs infesting it is significantly easier. There is still no way to be completely certain a pest control treatment was 100 percent effective at removing a home’s bed bugs, with structural fumigation perhaps being the only exception. Even if all of the live bed bugs were eliminated, there may still be eggs hidden away in the tiniest of cracks that will hatch and your bed bug problems could resume in just a few weeks. The best way we have at this point to conclude that a bed bug infestation is gone and over is to see if you don’t come across any visible evidence of live bed bugs over a certain period of time using the proper detection methods. Having pest control professionals come back for service visits and check for bed bugs during the weeks following their elimination of the pests is the best way to ensure your home is bed bug-free.

Have you ever had a bed bug infestation that returned after getting it treated, and had to deal with getting rid of them yet again? What is the longest running bed bug infestation that you know of, and did it happen to you or a friend or family member?