7 Effective Home Remedies For Bed Bugs (GET RID OF THEM FAST!)

7 Effective Home Remedies For Bed Bugs (GET RID OF THEM FAST!)
Bed bugs are small - around 5mm in size - so they are visible to the human eye, but only just. They're oval-shaped, flat and rusty-brown in colour. Unlike other bugs, they cannot jump nor fly.
They crawl out of their dark crevices at night to feed on blood which results in those infamous bed bug bites. Although they won't spread any disease, they can be uncomfortable and some people will experience a reaction to bites.
Females can lay up to 250 eggs during their lifetime of about two to four months. Eggs are laid in cracks and crevices and are oval and white in colour.
What causes bed bugs?
Contrary to popular belief, bed bugs don't have anything to do with dirt - so an extra shower a day won't keep them at bay!
bed bugs feed on blood, anywhere with animals or humans is, technically, an ideal place for them to set up camp. Bed bugs move from place to place after feeding, and can hide in anything from bedsheets to your t-shirt,
Signs of bed bugs
Besides actually catching them crawling across your sheets, there are several other signs of bed bugs to look out for, including:
Bites on skin
Small, black spots on your bedsheets (bug faeces)
Bed bug shells (they shed their skin much like snakes)
A musty smell in your bedroom
Blood spots (could occur if you unintentionally squish a bug in your sleep)
Preparing for a bed bugs treatment
Remove clutter
Despite their name, bed bugs don't solely reside in your sheets - they could be hiding in cardboard boxes under the bed or on clothes in your laundry basket.
Before you try to treat bed bugs, you need to get rid of as much clutter as possible. Replace cardboard boxes for plastic boxes, put all your clothes in sealed bin liners and do the same with soft furnishings of any kind.
Deep clean items that could be infested
Everything that could have bed bugs must be cleaned thoroughly. This means heat treating clothing and sheets in a tumble dryer, or placing them in the freezer overnight before laundering as normal, both of which will kill bed bugs.
Any furniture in your bedroom should also be examined for evidence of bed bugs and cleaned as necessary. Curtains should be removed and cleaned professionally, and the whole room should be vacuumed thoroughly.
It's extremely important to keep all cleaned items in sealed plastic bags. The vacuum bag should also be removed after use, placed in a sealed plastic bag, and disposed of.
What's hiding under your sheets?
Bed bugs are so-called because they bite at night. Although they don't always live in the mattress, they often do. Moving your bed away from the wall, furniture and anything else will make infestation anywhere else less likely.
Vacuum the area
The last step before you start treatment is to completely vacuum on, in and around the affected area.
Vacuum your bed thoroughly, not only concentrating on the mattress but the headboard and slats too.
Once all that's done, you'll be ready to treat your bed bugs using these home remedies.
Home remedies for bed bugs
A professional, bed bug infestation treatment is the most reliable way of guaranteeing the full extermination of your bed bugs. If you'd prefer to try a DIY treatment before shedding out any cash, give the following home remedies a go.
1. Starve the bed bugs
If you don't mind taking the slow and steady route, starving your bed bugs is another option.
First and foremost, it's important to vacuum your bed thoroughly. Next, you'll need to get hold of some Ziploc bags for your mattress and leave them on for around a week - this will prevent any bugs from getting out and feeding, thus causing them to starve to death.
2. Diatomaceous Earth
Diatomaceous Earth is often considered the most effective of all the natural bed bug treatments, killing more than 90% of bed bugs.
It's also cheap and easy to use - its powdered form means it can be sprinkled into even the smallest of cracks and crevices. The downside? It takes up to 10 days to work.
To use, apply 100% Diatomaceous Earth onto the affected area and leave for a few days. You should slowly start to see dead bed bugs, which you can vacuum away. Repeat the process several times, until all bed bugs appear to have been eradicated.
3. Bicarbonate of soda
Here's another reason why it's always handy to have a pot of baking soda in the home - it can kill bed bugs.
Sprinkling bicarbonate of soda onto areas affected by bed bugs is thought to physically dehydrate their skin, whilst others suggest it's abrasive enough to cut them.
It's cheap, it works, so what's the downside? Treating bed bugs with baking soda is timely - you'll need to repeat the process of sprinkling and vacuuming regularly in order to banish them. This in turn, means you're going to

[GermanicHispanic]

I've never had bed bugs in my life before, wow cant believe I'm watching a video for remedies, crazy. I thought I use to hate cockroaches but my hate has been re directed to bed bugs. I want my bed back.

[jennanidanu]

I used 91% isopropyl alcohol with tea tree and lavender essential oils and we found the infestation, which had not gotten very well established and sprayed them heavily with the mixture with is a large bottle of this alcohol in a 32 oz spray bottle with 40 drops of both oils, shake and then spray liberally this kills them on contact. Then I got a mattress encasement and entombed the bastards and continued to vacuum and spray this mix. So far so good! I have washed EVERYTHING.

[JJ_Justice]

they also don't die from being in the freezer overnight. Studies show it would take at least 4 days and constant 0 degrees or colder

[mytb]

90% Rubbing alcohol in a spray bottle and spray the heck out of EVERYTHING; furniture, carpet, curtains, etc. Open your windows when you do this and be careful not to have any open flames like candles or pilot lights nearby. The vapors alone can spark a fire. Also get some diatomaceous earth and a garden duster to spray inside crevices. I drilled holes in my walls and pumped the powder into them like crazy. Be sure to fill in the holes or cover with tape in case you have to re-apply powder. This was THEE most effective solution for me. All of that other (professional) stuff didn’t work and cost wayyyy too much money.

[gailchurch]

Those are all great ideas to get rid of bed bugs. I've experimented with a few so far and all were very effective. A big thumbs up to you all and a heartfelt THANK YOU.

[wordtruthworship]

I had bed bugs contained in plastic bags in clothes for 2 years, in an attic, uninsulated. They survived after 2 years of freezing cold and scorching heat! These bugs are almost invincible.

[lulupurp]

I have been using Alens cleaning vinegar and I add tea tree oil in the bottle as well it worked really well washed my floors in this solution too and I don't see any more bugs

[Bikemannc]

Also a hair dryer with 30 secs of use on cracks especially around the floors or actually anywhere will kill on contact (after 30 secs.). Then powder areas with Silica Gel powder then if you wanted you can seal with a clear caulk. You can even seal after silica powdering the light and outlet areas sealing again if wanted with clear caulk. Over time, or about a week the bugs will be dead, dryed up and gone. Silica Gel powder will also kill the larva and eggs as it absorbs the surrounded moisture of anything it comes into contact with.

[ezichimdivine]

☺️gladly, I’m burning my house today.

[lenasmith]

Can't say I enjoyed the video. I live in a 11 floor building. The people who have bed bugs act like they love them and the roaches. I don't hang out in there apts or let them in mine. They gave heat treatments. Your information was very informative. Thank You!!

[Keys]

Heat gun. Go around the house and heat up your baseboards, furniture (pay critical attention to the seams) and above all, be careful not to set anything on fire! It got rid of mine after a few run throughs. Also, 1Gal Ziplock bags can fit most clothing. They're WAY cheaper than the Vac bags at the store. Coming in packs of 40-80 as opposed to 2-12.

[virginia]

The problem I have is my roommate won't get out of bed at night. 4:00am or so is a prime time to spray & treat them. That's when they're out & most active. Daytime sprayings are less effective.

[derpyturtle]

We got them a few years ago... Ever since we let my uncle's girlfriend stay the night due to the light bill not being payed in their house. After that we have been dealing with them since we even moved and they came with us... I can't sleep without feeling something crawling on me. Genuinely I hate these bugs

[travelingpestpro]

Hi, thanks for making this video on bed bugs. I work in the pest control industry, I deal with bed bugs constantly. I also have a site with some articles on bed bugs.

Your video is great, but I'm going respectfully refute some of the things you mentioned, specifically the natural products.

100% agree with all the preparations before treating, you mention using some natural products to use that frankly can make bed bugs worse for people. My main gripe is with rubbing alcohol and essential oils. Rubbing alcohol will kill bed bugs, however it will repel them further into the cracks and crevices as will essential oils (which doesn't kill them).

Over time you may not see them, but that's only because they are hiding and multiplying in those cracks and voids. Hence, making it worse because now they are harder to treat (even for a professional) . This makes it difficult to get products to the areas bed bugs are hiding.

Boron is really only effective with self grooming pests like cockroaches, crickets, ants etc.

Baking soda does nothing, and bed bugs can live a lot longer in a sealed bag.

I would be happy to provide you with some proper info for a future video. Again please have a look at my site (on my YT profile) and read through carefully, as some of what you mentioned in your video can cause some real harm to your viewers.

With all my respect.
Best regards

[donnabrown]

Yes had researched most of what you said, glad for more information thanks so very much for sharing this with me on bed bugs & how to get rid of them. I have a hand held steamer, borax, neem, the rest . God bless you all ❤️🇨🇱

[ruthashe]

A lot of what you said is right. But you are dead wrong on how long it takes to starve a bed beg. It takes 12-14 months to starve them.

[thepunishment]

Speaking with experience here, I helped a friend of mine with his problem because the landlord would only provide our countrys version of "Diatomaceous Earth" and to be honest its just silica, tiny crystals that cut the wax outside of the bug and killing it by drying it out, which can take quite a while, and depending on the severity of the infestation it could take months.

A much more effective way to get rid of bedbugs unfortunately cost a bit more too, but it is heat treating them, our weapon of choice was a steam machine, and with all the fittings that came with the machine we were able to get inside crevices and other tight spaces and get to the bedbugs, we did this for a few days to be sure we got every single one of them.

What we weren't able to steam (like electronics) we instead packed in tougher big plastic bags and loaded into a drying cabinet, we set the temp at 60c/140F and left everything in there for about 2 hours and spread out so that the heat was able to reach everything, he didn't have anything sensitive like paintings or pictures so your mileage may vary, but electronics held up fine, some plastic that was very close to the heating fan was somewhat warped but the rest was fine so in retrospect we would have left a more open space up top.

Some of the preparations that we did were that we brought new clothes every time we steamed his apartment and changed clothes in the drying room, just to be sure we didn't carry any bugs on our clothes, its rare that they stick to the hair but to be sure we ran a dryer through our hair as well, don't worry about heat, the bugs die long before you get hurt from heat.

After doing all that he waited for two weeks before doing any additional steaming to make sure we got all the eggs and there weren't any tough survivors, but we were clear!

Now, going with a professional is always the best option if you have the funds, but there are things you can do to help, steaming around any furniture that isn't sensitive to some humidity is a great way to kill them fast, steam normally evaporates very quickly so the furniture would have to be antique to be sensitive but do it at your own risk, cleaning clutter is a great way to find out where the bugs are hiding, they will normally stay within close proximity to their feeding ground, if there are more than one tenant in the building they can of course travel from room to room but rarely do so unless there is a lack of food but it is a good idea to check the area around the bed for identification of bed bugs.

He was clear of bed bugs within 3 days and didn't get a bite after that, now this worked for us, but the scale of the infestation will determine how much of this you have to do, don't stress, just follow the steps above or if you have the money, call a professional that can leave a guarantee bug free home after extermination.

Hope this helps anyone struggling with these pests.

[hazlbri]

After suffering bedbugs for months, I finally found salvation through lightly dusting all their hiding places with diatomaceous earth (non-edible version). It's truly the most effective solution, and cheap too.

[jennanidanu]

Hi again, I promised I would up date you all about my bed bugs, I have not seen a one in weeks! I am still getting set up for the exterminator to come in as I have a lot of shit and no help getting it in and out of the house. I put down the diatomaceous earth where I have seen them and now I have not seen a live one in weeks, so this has worked well. Keep up the good fight, Jen out!

[douglaschristine]

I used a hand held Shark steamer for everything but I had to do it over and over again and vacuum. Good video, thanks.