Bed Bug Info | Home And Natural Remedies For Bed Bugs

Most natural remedies for bedbugs, tried to date, have unfortunately proved ineffective.

There are home remedies that can help to get rid of bedbugs but we strongly suggest you opt for professional bedbug elimination.

Traditional solutions include an old wives tale that advocated smearing your bed legs with Vaseline, or petroleum jelly, to prevent bedbugs from ascending.Turpentine combined with flowers, alcohol and henna was a popular insecticide in the 18th Century and it was thought to kill bedbug eggs. Here's a fascinating contemporary account from an 18th Century newspaper about a method of getting rid of bedbugs. The smoke from peat fires was the method of choice in the mid-19th Century.

Heres an innovative, if tedious, way of keeping bedbugs at bay.

Vacate your bedroom and keep it as cold as possible by leaving windows open and turning off the heating.

Wrap a red flannel around a pocket heating pad and place it on the floor in the center of the room. Sprinkle it with bean leaves or, if you cant get these, a crushed iron supplement tablet. Also place an Alka-Seltzer on a wet sponge, near to the flannel but keep them separate. Leave this overnight.

The carbon dioxide from the Alka-Seltzer pill and the warmth from the flannel will attract bedbugs and they will gather on the flannel. In the morning, kill the critters and dispose of them (and the flannel).

Heat kills bedbugs instantly but it really does need to be hot, preferably over 110F for a sustained period. A great way to eliminate bedbugs is to box up all affected bed linen and clothes and leave this in the trunk of your car, in the full heat of the sun, for a couple of days. Clearly, this works only in the summer months or if you live in hotter climes.

Turning up the heat on your washer-dryer and using the dryer to treat bedbug infested clothing and bedding is another good option for killing bedbugs.

For those people living in colder regions, or if you need to treat an entire room, including furniture, one option is to buy or borrow two to three standalone space heaters and place them in the infested room. Leave them on full blast for 24 hours to kill bedbugs in the vicinity. Seal the room as best you can to prevent the bedbugs from escaping through gaps and cracks.

The disadvantage with this method is that bedbugs often nest in gaps below wainscoting and even in wall cavities, so some may escape your home brew furnace. (Remember to remove any personal belongings which might melt!)

Diatomaceous earth is useful against bedbugs. It's a non-toxic substance made up of the shells from diatoms found in sedimentary deposits, laid down in water millions of years ago.

Diatomaceous earth works by abrading the hard, waxy carapace of the bedbug and wearing it away.

This spells doom for the bedbug as it will be unable to keep its body moisture and will therefore dehydrate and die.

The advantage of diatomaceous earth is that it is not toxic and is a natural remedy for bedbugs, so it's particularly useful if you do not wish to use insecticides in your home.

The disadvantage is that it can be messy and impractical for domestic use and that it usually takes several days for the bedbugs to die.

The way to apply diatomaceous earth against bedbugs is to sprinkle the powder lightly in the areas infested by bedbugs, around the cracks and crevices in which bedbugs nest, which are often areas such as where skirting boards meet floors, bedheads meet walls, and around the frame of the bed, too.

Warning: diatomaceous earth may be natural but that does not mean it is harmless. In some people it can cause breathing problems and anyone using diatomaceous earth should wear a mask. It should not be placed direct on mattresses and should not be used where children sleep.

Where to buy diatomaceous earth

Diatomaceous earth or Diatom Powder can be bought online or check garden centres and farm supply shops. Ash, lime and dolomite dust have also been used as insecticides for hundreds of years.

Sonic pest controllers, which plug in to your household AC power supply, have never been proved effective against any creepy crawlies, including spiders, cockroaches and termites, despite the manufacturers' claims.

Given this, it's unlikely that sonic pest controlles will prove effective against bed bugs, but the sonic units are relatively inexpensive and this may be worth a try as part of your bedbug blitz.

Other bedbug control methods here >.

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Bed Bug Info | Home And Natural Remedies For Bed Bugs