Bed Bug Traps | BEDBUGS.NET | The best source for all …

By Admin, Posted June 26th 2012

For many years, the bed bug trap has proved elusive. Since bed bugs are so very tiny often measuring no more than one quarter of an inch in total length constructing a trap that could let them in but not let them out was quite a challenge. This left those with a bed bug infestation in somewhat of a bind. Using mattress covers and other physical means to encapsulate bed bugs with the objective of starving them to death was a slow process since the bugs can enter periods of dormancy that last for weeks or even months.

The problem with chemicals

The only truly viable methods to kill them were chemical, but many people prefer to avoid using harsh chemicals in the home, particularly in and around their beds since sleeping in the presence of such chemicals would mean prolonged exposure. Besides, new breeds of these insects are beginning to demonstrate increased levels of resistance to insecticides. This leads to what we might call the worst of both worlds: The chemicals you use to try to kill bed bugs may well not do them much harm but they just might make you sick.

A solution at last

The year 2012, however, brings great news to people living in cities New York comes to mind where bed bugs have become an increasing burden over the course of the last two decades. Scientists working at the School of Hygiene in London have done some interesting research on bed bugs and discovered that the bugs are actually attracted to the odor that emanates from their own fecal matter.

Before you scrunch up your nose, say a long Ewwww, and hit the back button on your browser, think about the situation from an evolutionary point of view. Natural selections favors those creatures that have some kind of advantage. Bed bugs that are able to find their way back to their nesting and hiding places have such an advantage over bugs that get lost and remain out during the day where they can be more easily spotted and squashed.

It stands to reason, therefore, that some bed bugs developed a habit of defecating liberally in their nesting places. This very scent then draws them back later on. In the meantime, they have crept out to feed on the blood of humans or pets in the vicinity typically, humans or pets who are asleep at night and less likely to slap or paw at them during this feeding process.

A crap trap

No less reputed a magazine than The Economist sort of like a British version of Time only much thicker and with harder words has reported on the research of these scientists, whose great accomplishment is not that they discovered bed bugs defecate in their hiding places, but whose breakthrough is a discovery of the precise chemical in their fecal matter that draws them back like a bee to honey.

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