Bed Bugs in Rutgers Student Housing: Why They Spread and How to Stop Them

Turnover is the whole problem

New Brunswick's rental market runs on Rutgers, and that means near-constant movement of students, furniture, mattresses, and luggage in and out of shared houses and apartments near College Ave, Easton Avenue, and the Cook and Douglass campuses. Bed bugs are hitchhikers, and every move is a chance for them to travel to a new unit.

Once inside a multi-unit building, they spread further on their own, slipping through wall voids and outlet gaps from one bedroom or apartment to the next.

How to spot them early

Check the mattress seams, the box-spring edges, and the headboard for tiny rust-colored blood spots, dark fecal specks, and shed skins. Bites in a line or cluster, often on arms and legs, are a common first clue, though not everyone reacts.

In a shared house, if one room has signs, treat it as a house-wide issue and check the others. Catching it while it is confined to one bed is far cheaper than after it spreads.

What actually clears them

Store sprays scatter bed bugs and miss the eggs. A local exterminator uses either a whole-room heat treatment, which kills bugs and eggs in a single day and suits furnished rentals, or a targeted program of steam and residuals over two or more visits to catch newly hatched nymphs.

See the full approach on the bed bug treatment page, or call us to talk through your unit.

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Have this problem in New Brunswick? Call us at (732) 479-9382 and get connected with a local exterminator.