Bed bugs are small wingless creepy creatures that feed on the blood of animals and humans. They come out at night to bite you when you get to sleep and leave behind red, itchy bumps. They cannot fly but can move quickly over the floors, walls, and ceiling. These creatures are mostly found in short-term accommodation hotels etc. They spread through the infested bedding and furniture and crawl to your luggage. Once they come into your home they can spread easily from one room to another. There are not any quick way to get from their infection. You can use these remedies to get rid of bed bugs.
Home Remedies to Get Rid of Bed Bugs:
1.) Inspecting to Treat Bed Bug Infestation
Identifying these annoying creatures is very important to their extermination. When you are inspecting for bed bugs check live or also dead bugs, small spots of reddish black fecal material, tiny cream colored eggs, rusty stains caused by the bug.
Here are the most common places where you will see the signs of infestation
- Between cushions
- In your mattresses (the piping, seams, and tags)
- The junction where the wall and ceiling meet
- Behind headboards, in the folds of curtains
- Cushion seams
- Along carpet edges
- Under loose wallpaper
- Other dark cracks and crevices
- In electrical receptacles, cracks in wood molding
- They most commonly found where you sleep because you are the only food source of them and they tend to prefer to live in fabric or wood over plastic and metal.
- Then vacuum and disinfect any infested area. seal up all the cracks and crevices around base baseboard and molding that the beg bugs can use to hide.
2.) Diatomaceous Earth to Get Rid of Bed Bugs
This is one of the effective and proven remedies to get rid of bed bugs. Diatomaceous earth is a non-toxic chalky substance that help to kill these small creepy creature. This powder has derived from fossilized remains of hard-shelled algae called diatoms. These particles are harmless to human but cut through the waxy shells of bed bugs, and cause them to dehydrate and eventually they die. It also acts as a mechanical barrier as the bed bugs avoid crawling through it.
- Spread this chalky substance around your house including the area where carpet meets the wall, where the wall meets the floor, behind the light switch face plates, behind a picture frame, on baseboards and into the cracks and crevices. Make sure to use a food grade diatomaceous earth. If you are using a lot of diatomaceous earth the light dusting will appear.
- Try to wear a dust mask to avoid getting any fine particles in your lungs. Diatomaceous earth will continue to work as long as it stays dry, even for months.
3.) Baking Soda for Treatment of Bed Bugs
Baking soda is considered as one of the best home remedies to get rid of bed bugs. It helps to absorb the moisture from the body of bed bugs due to drying it properties. It has antimicrobial properties which kill bed bugs including their eggs. You have to make sure to vacuum the soda after few of applying this remedy.
- Mix some baking soda in the enough amount of water. Dip a paint brush into the baking soda solution and use it to spread it over the cracks and crevices and any other possible location where they can hide.
- Or you can sprinkle this liberally over you mattress furniture and other areas where possible.
- Leave this powder for a few days. now you need to brush it down with a stiff brush and vacuum the area completely. Use this remedy again to get rid of bed bugs completely.
4.) Reducing Clutter to Stop Bed Bug Infestation
Clutters are the best area for the bed bugs to hide in. When you are trying to eliminate bed bugs, reducing clutter in your house would be critical. But it will help to make inspection and treatment easier, it is one of the best remedies to get rid of bed bugs. But keep in mind that doesn’t spread the bugs to the other areas by moving clutter to the other rooms.
If you are trying to remove clutter the best place to start to remove excess clutter is to get rid of all the magazines and items like clothing that you don’t wear. Throw away ll the infested items which you don’t use. Replace the infested matter if it has holes or tear. Those things which are heavily infested, bag them before discarding.
5.) Vacuuming to Get Rid of Bed Bugs
Vacuuming your house is one of the most crucial remedies to get rid of bed bugs. Vaccum, suck up all the bugs as well as their eggs. When you will vacuum clean all your house, so keep in mind to empty the vacuum bag as soon as possible and trash them in a sealed bag.
- Vacuuming the carpeting floor and your entire house particularly the area that is infested. Vacuum your entire mattress, box spring, bed frame and joints because fabric and wood frames are the habitats of the bed bugs, so you have to make sure to vacuum these items.
- Don’t forget to vacuum even the ends of your curtains. Make sure to cover all your crevices and cracks before vacuuming so they can’t hide on that places. Try to vacuum your house at least once a week.
6.) Laundering to Stop Bed Bugs Infestation
Washing infested clothes and bedding in a hot water and drying them in a hot cycle is very simple but effective remedies to get rid of bed bugs. Beg buds can only sustain on the temperature of 50 degree Celsius. On the hot water or temperature is more than 50 degree Celsius so they cannot survive on that temperature. This treatment will kill all the bugs including their eggs.
- Wash all your clothes, bed sheets and all the thing which you can wash on your hot water. Try to keep them at least for 30 minutes. To eliminate the chance of survival and for more assurance wash the entire load again.
- Then place it in the clothes dryer and run it on high heat for at least 20 minutes. For the items which cannot be dry cleaned, use a hot dryer for at least 30 minutes.
7.) Remove Bed Bugs with Tea Tree Oil
Tea tree oil is very one of the effective remedies to get rid of bed bugs in the house. It is very toxic if consume, this oil has antibacterial, antifungal, properties. It has been found that it can effectively kill the lice and other parasites including bed bugs. Tea tree oil has solvent properties which soak into an exoskeleton upon the contact and suffocate them. for this reason, it is effectively used to kill bed bugs.
- First, you need to clean the house thoroughly top to bottom.
- Then vacuum and wash all the carpets.
- Mix 18 drops of tea tree oil and 18 oz of water and pour them into the water bottle.
- Take all the beds apart and spray the solution on all them.
- Then spray entire house, the carpet, furniture, and beds.
8.) Steam to Stop Bed Bugs
Steaming is very effective remedies to get rid of the bed bugs including their eggs. Steam cleaners emit steam at a minimum temperature at 100 degrees celsius and bed bugs generally die at 50 degrees Celsius.
- Steaming can also clean the infested mattress that cannot be washed.
- So you can go for a low vapor steamer or dry steam. You should not use steam treatment more often o can be used for a sustained period.
9.) Silica Gel for the Treatment of Bed Bugs
Take some crystal silica gel and find them. Apply it all over in your bedroom. Put some crystal silica gel on your mattress around the bed and along the wall. The crystal silica will be stuck to the bed bugs and it cannot be shaken off, this silica gel will dehydrate them and they will die. It is one of the best home remedies to get rid of bed bugs. But Be careful when you apply this, make sure not to inhale it.
- If you have a cat in your house so change the cat litter every 5 days and put crystal silica gel in it so the hatched cat will dehydrate too.
- Repeat for 5 weeks.
10.) Freezing to Stop Bed Bugs
Putting small items on the freezers will help you to get rid of bed bugs. A direct 1-hour exposure to a temperature of 16 degrees celsius has been found to be effective to kill the bed bugs including their eggs. Feezing is one of the best remedies to get rid of bed bugs. You can keep your small household items in your kitchen freezer for at least 1 hour to get to kill bed bugs. It was found that bed bugs can survive at the temperature above 12 degrees celsius even after 1-week continued exposure. So don’t higher the temperature it would not be as effective.
