Like cockroaches, bed bugs have been around since prehistoric times.
Good night, sleep tight and don’t let the bedbugs bite. If they do, grab a shoe and beat them till they’re black and blue! When my sibs and I were kids, we’d repeat that little ditty to each other before climbing into bed at night. We thought it was funny then, but we’d never seen a bed bug.
Between the 1940s and the 1980s, the use of DDT, a powerfully toxic pesticide (now banned), was in common use in agriculture and in homes to kill cockroaches. It may be one reason that bed bugs were scarce in those years – in developed countries.
But like other pests, bed bugs seem to have become resistant to pesticides. Some blame modern international travel for the return of bedbugs and that’s especially true in the UAE where super bedbugs have appeared. They have certainly become a plague in homes, hotels, dorms, army barracks, and second-hand clothing and furniture shops.
Natural anti-bug remedies don’t hold out much hope. Bedbugs can live up to a year without a meal, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Given that they live comfortably in any kind of tiny crack in furniture and walls or even in electrical appliances, smearing your bed frame with lavender or neem oils won’t do a bit of good for the long run.
To make 100% sure that all bedbugs in a home are dead, strong measures are called for – professional workers employing currently useful pesticides (use is linked to Parkinson’s disease), vacuuming and steam, plus bug detection in places you hadn’t thought of.
Pesticides give you the creeps? Me too. Prevention is best. Become familiar with preventative measures outlined by the EPA. Heat treatment and diatomaceous earth might work if you have a lot of patience. Unfortunately, for a serious infestation, pesticides might be the only solution.
Partially effective non-pesticide solutions to bed bugs:
- Buy no second-hand clothing or furniture without inspecting every inch of it for bugs. Don’t even consider bringing an infested item home.
- At the first suspicion of contact with bedbugs, or an infested individual, wash and dry all clothing and removable furniture covers at the highest temperatures the fabrics can take. High temps kill the bugs, larvae and eggs.
- Encase mattresses, box springs and pillows in plastic. Make sure there isn’t even one tiny crack or slit through which a bug may escape.
- Tidy up clutter in the home. It gives bed bugs more places to hide.
- Vacuum floors, wall hangings, upholstery and rugs regularly. If bugs are found, seal the vacuum bag up and throw it out.
- Neem oil may repel bed bugs. But it won’t kill them. (The second down side of neem is its unpleasantly acrid odor of garlic gone wrong.)
- Bed bugs live in the nests of bats and birds. Clear away any such nests around your home, making sure no bugs have hopped out and infested you in the process.
- In hotel rooms, don’t put your luggage down on the bed or the floor. Place it on the luggage rack. On returning home, wash the clothes you traveled with immediately. Inspect your suitcase or backpack. Don’t put it on your bed.
The only good news about bed bugs is that, as of today’s knowledge, they don’t transmit diseases. Their bites cause bodily aggravation and embarrassment, but only in cases where skin becomes infected are antibiotics called for. Allergic reactions are rare.
More on pesticides:
Now very resistant strains of pests like bed bugs, human lice etc called supper bugs are arriving here in the Middle East by the way of suitcases and must be very careful, insect are very strong and tough creatures seems that we are loosing the war against them. I observed big hotels in Toronto closed because of bed bugs.
bed bugs crawl up inot beds when there is a living warm body in the bed and on a chair so if the diatomaterous earth is in little saucers made of tin foil at legs of the furnture as well as all the crevices evetually most of them will die off . dust your mattresses with this for a day then vacuum and then put on those speical covers The writer Miraim Kresh has given some more good ideas and having nothing in your house other than essential is a good start. VACUUM EVERY FEW DAYS AND PUT FRESH DIATMAWEOUS EARTH I N ALL THE CRACKS AND CRIVICES AND SHARE THIS WITH NEIGHBOURS AS YOUR PLACE IS NOT SAFE IF YOUR NEIGHBOURS ARE OVER RUN.GOOD LUCK [email protected]
Mark – I’m no expert on bed bug extermination, but can see the problem with using diatomaceous earth. It’s necessary for the bugs to have walked over it in order to die. Wherever it hasn’t been sprinkled that bugs live – and they can live inside the head of a common screw – they will continue to reproduce.
Frank the Bed Bug Chaser: this new technology sounds great. I’d be very interested to know more about it.
Its easy to get them to walk over DE. Just look at where they are and sprinkle it (lightly) there. Also another way is to line the wall and open a window/door to outside in one room to drive them away from the cold (if its winter there). They like very warm environments. Just using it along the wall kills them anyway. Using a steamer can blast them in hard to reach crannies – just make sure you dry that area well afterwards.
A reader Mark writes: “Bed Bugs can be killed safely and naturally using diatomaceous earth AKA diatomite or kieselgur.”
Frank the BedBug Chaser again and I saw this in Pest Management & Green Lodging. There is now an economical way for hotels, exterminators or anyone for that matter to use clean 100% Chemical Free & Green electric heat to get rid of bedbugs
http://www.mypmp.net/pest-mgmt-content/news/bedbug-chasers-announces-nationwide-rental-program-7894
or http://www.greenlodgingnews.com/bedbug-chasers-announces-nationwide-bed-bug-heater