BED BUGS - Natural Remedies

BEDBUGS (cimex lectularius)

Are small blood-sucking insects that can live in cracks and crevices in and around the bed. Attracted by body heat and carbon dioxide, they crawl out at night to bite exposed skin and feed on human blood, just as mosquitoes do. Not everyone develops a skin reaction to bedbug bites, but some people will develop itchy red bumps one to nine days later, usually on the face, neck, hand or arm. These are often mistaken for mosquito bites, but while mosquito bites tend to be random in pattern, bedbug bites more often occur in straight lines.

The media has recently reported a huge increase in the number of bedbug infestations around the world, especially in developed countries and it is likely that tourists and an increasing resistance to insecticides are the main reasons for this. Bedbugs are not dangerous. They do not transmit any human diseases and most people do not develop any serious skin reaction. However, their presence can be upsetting and stressful.

Adult bedbugs look like lentils and are visible to the naked eye. They are oval-shaped, flat and reddish-brown and up to 5mm long.
Females lay 200-500 eggs over a two-month period. These white specks stick to surfaces and are very difficult to spot. They hatch to form tiny straw-coloured insects that take about six to eight weeks to grow into adults. Bedbugs are often more red in colour after feeding. As they grow, they shed their skin. This looks like mottled brown shells on the mattress. Bedbugs need to feed on blood to be able to mature, but they are very resilient. They are not attracted to dirt, so a bedbug infestation is not a sign of an unclean home.

Bedbugs are attracted by warmth, and they generally feed during the night, often just before dawn. They tend to feed every five to 10 days, though they can survive without feeding for several months. Adults can survive for up to a year without feeding. Bedbugs pierce the skin and inject saliva which contains anaesthetics and anticoagulants into the host which often make their bites painless initially. After feeding on the host's blood for several minutes, bedbugs will retreat to their hiding place. They will generally try to remain within close range of their warm-blooded host. Affected individuals may feel and see the consequences of the bedbug bite sometime afterward. Though bedbug transmission of human diseases is theoretically possible, it has not yet been definitively established.

Look for any unexplained skin rash or itchy bump (although not everyone develops this).
Look out for black spots on the mattress. This could be their dried faeces.
Look for mottled shells that bedbugs may have shed.
Check bed sheets for blood spots where you may have rolled over and squashed a bug after it had fed.
Inspect all the crevices and joints of the mattress and furniture using a torch and see if you can spot any bugs.

Because their bodies are flat, bedbugs can squeeze into the smallest crevice or crack, such as a mattress seam or the joints of a bed frame. This can make them very difficult to spot. They tend to prefer fabric or wood over plastic and metal, and often hide near to where you sleep, for example under the mattress or along the headboard. However, they are willing to travel several feet if necessary to reach you, so they can also be found away from the bed in other furniture, along the edges of carpets and even behind mirrors or inside smoke alarms. In fact, they can be found in almost any place in the bedroom where they will not be disturbed. Once introduced into your home, bedbugs can spread easily from room to room. They do not fly or jump, but can crawl quickly. They can soon spread within a building by getting through holes in walls or pipes, and can potentially invade blocks of flats, hotels or hospitals. The bugs can also be transported in luggage, clothing, furniture and bedding from one building to the next. This makes is easy for tourists and commuters to unknowingly spread bedbugs.

NATURAL TREATMENT FOR BED BUGS
To get rid of bed bugs naturally, you need to follow every one of these steps - precisely and properly.

1. Remove all bedding - sheets, pillow cases, blankets, duvets, bed liners and mattress covers. Wash everything in extremely hot water and dry in a dryer. Do NOT put back on the bed until the entire bedroom (or house, if they're everywhere) has been cleaned.

2. Any other fabric-type object in the bedroom, or other rooms in the house, should be cleaned with a vacuum cleaner using the hose, then put into plastic bags, sealed with tape and left for 3 days. This kills any remaining bed bugs. Items to do this to include soft toys, computer bags, pillows etc.

3. Inspect all your cupboards and drawers. If you find bed bugs or bed bug eggs in your cupboards and drawers, you will have to take out all your clothing and wash that in hot water too.

4. Now vacuum the whole room or house and use a vacuum hose in the nooks and crannies, paying particular attention to cracks and openings in the wall. Throw away contents of the vacuum bag in a sealed plastic bag as soon as you're finished.

5. If there are any cracks or openings in walls, particularly at light sockets, outlet areas etc. use decorators putty to completely close the holes. This will stop any more bed bugs getting into the room and remove hiding places.

6. Check the bed and mattress for bed bugs. More than likely you will find an infestation in the bed or in the box springs. It is incredibly difficult to get rid of bed bugs in a mattress. The only way to get rid of them is to buy a plastic mattress cover. Leave the zipped up cover on for a least a year. A year is how long the life cycle of bed bugs is, so you need to make sure nothing can get out of the mattress before the year is up.

7. Throw out the pillows in sealed plastic bags and buy new ones.

8. Now, clean the entire room or house with a natural cleaner. Make sure you clean every surface, behind every piece of furniture, inside every cupboard and drawer, along the baseboards, light fixtures, wall sockets - basically everything in the house.

9. Once everything is clean, you can safely put back all of your clothes and bedding etc.

10. Repeat everything on this cleaning list again in 10 days, again in another 10 days, and one more time in a third 10 days. Bed bugs are very difficult to eliminate, but if you make sure you keep cleaning (and follow all the steps), you should be able to get rid of them naturally within a 30 day period.

Posted in: Bed Bugs