Monthly Archives: November 2013

When I was battling my bed bug nightmare, I didnt have enough money to hire a bed bug exterminator, so I was forced to try out various home remedies. Unfortunately, most of the home remedies I tried killed almost no bed bugs whatsoever. Part of it was my fault, as I wasnt always as thorough as I could have been, but many of the products I bought or tried just didnt work. If youre going to do this yourself, please use my experiences and suggestions below to make sure that youre successful the first time. Heres a full list of home remedies and my experiences with them, but I strongly recommend a combination of dry steaming, mattress cover, and diatomaceous earth (numbers 3, 4, and 6):

As with my post on how to get rid of bed bugs, Ive listed my two favorite suggestions at the bottom of the page. If I were to ever get bed bugs again, those are the 2 options that I would use as soon as I found the first bed bug.

Vacuum Infested Areas. After I first figured out that bed bugs lived elsewhere than just in my bed, I started vacuuming the whole house ever day. I figured, since bed bugs live and lay their eggs in cracks, crevices, and carpet, one way of getting rid of the bugs and their eggs was to simply vacuum them up. Needless to say, although Im sure vacuuming every day helped, this was by no means sufficient to solve my problems.

The eggs are often difficult to dislodge, so as you vacuum, you should use a scraper to scrape all creases and crevices. However, dont use any brush attachments on your vacuum, since you dont want the eggs or bed bugs to cling onto the brush. When you have finished vacuuming, make sure to seal the contents of the vacuum in a plastic bag to throw away. Vacuuming regularly may help with a bed bugs problem, but it should be used only as a supplement to your other bed bug extermination methods.

Washing and Dry Cleaning. The first tip I was ever given was that clothes and bedding that I knew or believe may be infected should be washed in hot water and then placed the dryer to dry on the hottest setting. Washing your clothes and bedding at high heats will kill any bed bugs living there, and this is certainly a method you should use a few times per week. Bed bugs are generally killed at temperatures 120F or higher, which most dryers will reach on the hottest setting. Of course, you shouldnt put dry clean only clothes into the washer make sure that the dry-clean only clothes are dry and place them in the dryer on the moderate setting (which should be less than 160F). Sending your clothes and bedding to the dry cleaners is another option, as dry cleaning should kill bed bugs, but you place your dry cleaners at risk of bed bugs when they open your bag of bed bug infested items.

Dry Steamers. It took me many painful months of trying things before I finally understood that getting a good dry steamer is pretty much a necessity. A dry steamer produces relatively dry steam that reaches very high temperatures and therefore kills both live bed bugs and their eggs. Wet steamers can cause mold growth, so I highly advise that you go with a dry steamer. Dry Steamers are used by most of the best professional exterminators, and there is no other way to treat your bed, furniture, carpets, etc. This is our MOST RECOMMENDED HOME REMEDY. You can wash your bedding, clothes, and similar items, but you must find a way to kill the bugs and eggs living in your bed, carpet, and furniture.

A few words of warning though: First, dont use a dry steamer near electrical outlets as the heat can cause them to malfunction. Second, if you also have an exterminator coming in, please ask them before using a dry steamer, since it can disrupt some of their treatment methods. Third, the heat from the steamer can cause chemicals in paint or any residual pesticides or bleach in your home to become vaporized, so you should wear a respirator suitable for paint and pesticide vapors (we recommend the MSA 817663). Finally, please be very careful in general when using a steamer as they operate at extremely high temperatures that can burn you. With all of that in mind, which dry steamer actually works?

When purchasing any dry steamer, you must make sure the manufacturers label states that the tip of the steamer will reach temperatures above 200F. You can also buy an infra-red thermometer to check the temperature at the tip. In my experience, the Vapamore MR-100 is the dry steamer Ive found to be most effective and also the best deal (many Amazon users agree). You can buy it on Amazon.com by Clicking Here.

Mattress and Box Spring Encasements. I still use a bed bug mattress cover to this day. However, I consider this to be more of a preventative measure than one of eradication. That said, a bed bug mattress cover can help kill existing bed bugs inside your mattress, since the bed bugs cannot escape to feed as long as you keep the encasement zipped up. If youre using this as a treatment method, make sure you dont open the zipper for over a year if you are encasing a bed bug infested mattress or box spring. In terms of recommended products, I and many people I know have found the Allerzip Mattress Cover to be both durable and effective.

Rubbing Alcohol. If youre really strapped for cash (as I often am), then this is a treatment method that will cost you almost nothing. That said, its by no means the most effective strategy, and I would personally find a way to scrounge up some money for better solutions like a dry steamer and diatomaceous earth. (Im not judging your priorities I just hate bed bugs enough to know that Ill do whatever I possibly can to get rid of them as quickly as possible).

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Home Remedies for Bed Bugs

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Tyler Lacoma

Tyler Lacoma has worked as a writer and editor for several years after graduating from George Fox University with a degree in business management and writing/literature. He works on business and technology topics for clients such as Obsessable, EBSCO, Drop.io, The TAC Group, Anaxos, Dynamic Page Solutions and others, specializing in ecology, marketing and modern trends.

While natural remedies are not the most effective method for removing bed bug infestations, they can help with small problems and pave the way for wholesale pest control. For bed bugs closer to the surface, vacuuming or spraying them with rubbing alcohol will take care of them. Sheets and removable fabrics can be heated in the drier until the bugs die, while those in hot or very cold climates can leave mattresses outside for extended periods of time.

Vacuuming will not kill all bed bugs. There will usually be those that hide too deep within the fabric to be pulled out by the average vacuum cleaner and will remain to start the infestation again. However, careful and methodical vacuuming of infected fabrics and surrounding material can remove many of the bed bugs that plague the room, along with dead skin and other materials that bugs feed on. This will make it easier to remove the infestation with other methods.

Outdoor insecticides should not be used indoors. They can be harmful to inhale, and residue left on fabrics can be absorbed into the skin. Even sprays designed to kill insects indoors are harmful and should not be used to treat bed bug infestations. Instead, diatomaceous earth works as a people-friendly pesticide. A chalk-like material made from fossilized plankton, earth has qualities that make it dangerous to bugs without poisoning humans.

Bed bugs thrive in temperate conditions, so exposing them to prolonged heat or cold will kill most of them. Sheets and blankets can be heated for extended periods in the drier, but many bed bugs live in the mattress itself and cannot be killed so easily. If you live in a very cold or very hot climate, you can put the mattress outside for a long period of time, enough time kill many of the bugs. This is not always effective and requires that you leave the mattress outdoors for up to several weeks.

For killing bugs on contact, when they are seen, some people choose to spray rubbing alcohol on them, which is too potent a chemical for them to survive. This will kill the bugs you can see, but is not always effective at reaching the bugs that live at deeper levels. Some use other chemical agents, but none cannot penetrate deeply, so it should not be assumed that all bugs have been killed.

Generally, pest control companies will not advise home remedies against bed bugs because it is difficult to target all the bugs in a given space. While beds might be the center of an infection, bed bugs can live on in carpets, drapes,and upholstery to renew the attack. Calling in an exterminator for a full-house sweep can be expensive, but there will be a much higher guarantee of effectively removing the infestation. Home remedies used beforehand can heighten the effectiveness of pest control as well.

Bed bugs are small, blood-feeding insects that occur worldwide. Long associated with seedy, "fleabag" hotels, bed bugs are moving uptown: surprisingly high-end...

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