Bed bugs are notoriously the hardest pests to get rid of…people spend thousands, and I’m talking multiple thousands of dollars to hire professionals to eradicate these little nuisances. But, if spending your retirement on de-lousing is not in the card for you, there are some DIY tricks you can try. With a little perseverance {okay, a lot}, you may be able to come out on top in the battle of the bug.
First off, you need to get inside the tiny mind of a bed bug. They are actually extremely savvy at avoiding eradication, because over the years, they’ve become quite hardy. Bed bugs feed on the blood of humans or animals. Gross. Usually, people’s first indication that they have bed bugs is that they have small bite marks {which typically occur during sleep, and often cannot be felt}. They typically hide in furniture, bedding, clothing, luggage, etc. Which, actually makes it pretty impressive that you don’t hear about infestations more often. You can pick them up from hotel rooms, airplane seats, etc. and then give them a free ride into your home. {Try not to lay awake and think about that.} They are extremely adept at finding places to hide by daylight. They will burrow into furniture, mattresses, headboards, etc. and lay in wait.
To rid yourself of these unwanted guests, you are going to have to go to take the fight to the brink of insanity. Bed bugs can live up to a month without feeding, they can survive freezing temperatures and temperatures up to 122 degrees. This is going to be fight to the death…yours or theirs.
If hiring an extermination specialist is not possible, here are the steps you need to take to rid yourself of bed bugs:
- Move. Kidding. Kind of.
- Start by locating the infestation. Most likely, the bedroom is the culprit–though they can quickly spread to living rooms. Try, if possible to shut this area off from the rest of the house.
- Double bag your bedding while in the room. Then, take it to the washing machine. Place the entire bag into the washing machine and remove the bags inside the drum. Immediately tie off the bags and throw them away. Wash your bedding in the hottest setting, and then dry on high for an hour {at least}.
- Get an encasement for the mattress. These are made special for bed bug infestations. It will prevent the bugs from biting you while you sleep and escaping the mattress. Eventually, they will die of starvation. Hope in your heart it is a painful death.
- You’ll also want to de-bug and de-egg your headboard. This can really only be done with insecticides. Make sure to follow the label on the insecticide to a tee, afterall, you will be sleeping here again…eventually.
- Any clutter or clothing that is around the bed will need to be bagged and deprived of oxygen for up to a month. This will mean living without it, but it’s a heck of a lot better than living with them.
- Hire an exterminator. If you find that the bed bugs have spread to other areas of the house before you are able to contain the situation, you are going to have to suck it up and let the kids know they won’t be going to college–you’ll have to hire a professional, and it’s not going to come cheap.
Any of you ever successfully rid yourself of bed bugs on your own? How did you do it?
~Mavis
mildred lane says
My son did all of the above w/ out success. Paid $700.00 plus for the professional to spray w/ no results.Then we read about over the counter alcohol in a spray bottle an it worked. It was a nightmare for the whole family.
Mavis Butterfield says
I’ve heard they can be a real booger to get rid…mind sharing what the spray called was in case any of the readers want to try it?
Andrea says
We brought them back home in our luggage from a location that I never would have suspected of having bed bugs. Luckily, we caught it quick….only good thing about being highly reactive to bug bites. Despite not really having an infestation, we still had to treat almost everything. We put all of our belongings that couldn’t be washed or heat treated (30 minutes on high in the dryer will kill them) into garbage bags and sealed them air tight….for two weeks! We had to vacuum the mattress and anything and everything we could vacuum. On the bright side, they typically only live where you sleep and they don’t like pets. I was worried about the pet situation, thinking that they would hitch a ride on the dogs would spread them all over the house, but bed bugs don’t like hair/fur. We paid around $500 to have an exterminator spray. It worked and we were bed bug free in just a few weeks, but it was complete chaos for those two weeks. What we do now….no luggage is allowed in the bedrooms. We dump the clothes and either put them directly in the wash or in the dryer the second we get home. Then we use alcohol in a spray bottle and mist the luggage and any other non-washable items.
Mavis Butterfield says
That is my biggest fear in all of my travels!
Cait says
I had them for 4 months in 2006. It was absolute hell on earth, the whole apartment building had them. (Several of my friends have had them too- NYC has been going through a moment with them the past few years.) Besides washing everything in hot water, and drying on high heat for the entire 4 month period, we bought a million vacuum cleaner bags, and vacuumed the entire apartment (mattress, bed frame, under the couch, outside of furniture, floors- you name it) every. single. day. without fail, and then immediately threw away the bag. Eggs/bugs can make it 3 months, so do not skimp or be lazy with treatment until you have no sign of them for that long. *shudder*
Aisha says
We had them got them from a used baby bassinet. We tried all the above with no success. We eventually just had to move because the apartment was no help. We were going to do a heart treatment of the whole apartment but it was going to be at least $1200.
Celeste says
Ours hitch-hiked their way into our bedroom via second hand books. They bit only me, so it took a whole to convince my husband we had a problem. We discovered they were inhabiting the pressboard platform of our bed and treated it with chemicals which my husband purchased. The mattress was tempurapedic and offered no interest or hiding places for the bugs. We also treated the whole bedroom with the chemicals, squirting it into window framing, outlet covers and behind moldings. We Washed everything and went a step further leaving most of our clothing and bedding in bags outdoors through a frigid winter. We treated the room and the bed. We slept in another room and I worried all night every night that they would follow us as I read they are attracted to your respiration- particularly your exhalation (carbon dioxide.)
We unpacked everything and moved back into the original bedroom the following spring and within days, I was being bitten again – they were in all the tunnels of the pressboard so I had a handy man come and cart the platform bed out and burned it! No more bugs!
Nicole says
Mavis, This article is making me itch!
VABaby says
We had our step-son bring them home after his mom moved into a new townhouse. He was covered in bites and when asked what happened he said he slept with a dog that had fleas. After a few more repeat visits with mommy and months later, I woke to feeling something crawling on my hand. (The dirty clothes hamper is at the end of our bed). So long story short I found we had them the same day I lost my brother in a motorcycle accident. I thought I was going to lose my mind!
Anyhow, my hubby bought a pesticide from Lowes specifically for them we washed, vacuumed and lived out of trash bags for a few months. We used DE and put it all around the walls, under the beds and mattresses for probably a good 6 months. Besides the one instance of having one crawl on my hand we had not issues after that.
Diatomaceous Earth (often referred to as “DE”) is an off white talc-like powder that is the fossilized remains of marine phytoplankton. When sprinkled on a bug that has an exoskeleton (such as bed bugs, ants or fleas) it compromises their waxy coating so that their innards turn into teeny tiny bug jerky. But it doesn’t hurt mammals. We can eat it. We do eat it! It’s in lots of grain based foods because lots of grains are stored with diatomaceous earth to keep the bugs from eating the grain! Anyhow, I still have nightmares about it and whenever we go to a hotel we check the beds carefully.
Leslie says
Might be worth noting that there are food-grade and non-food-grade varieties, and that you don’t want to inhale it (or use it so that your pets are going to sniff up much).
Delores Lyon says
Thank you for sharing these tips! Last night we discovered bed bugs in our bed, and we need to get rid of them ASAP! I will be sure to get all the necessary materials to try and get rid of them right now. However, as soon as I notice bed bugs anywhere else in the home, I’ll be sure to call an exterminator. At that point, it will be way too hard to contain.
Carla says
We purchased a used love seat and didn’t realize it was infested. By the time we put it out by the road, each bedroom had issues. We saw someone out by the road looking at the love seat, and we promptly alerted them that it had bed bugs and they don’t want it!
It took us 3 years to get rid of them! It was agonizing and I was to embarrassed to tell ANYONE that we had “BED BUGS”…
We finally discovered what someone else mentioned above. DE (Diatomaceous Earth). I ordered a 50 lb bag from about $60. I should have done that so much sooner…
Here is what someone needs to do…
1. Bag everything like you said, In trash bags, and I mean EVERYTHING! Dolls, curtains, anything that needs washed. This is also a time when you decide what needs to go to the trash.
2. Wash and dry everything on high heat for an hour.
3. get rid of any wood furniture that might be a place for the bugs to lay their eggs. The knots in the wood was where we found a lot of little teeny tiny white things. those were eggs.
4. Strip the entire room, but be very careful not to move the problem. If you can throw the trash bag out the window, instead of walking through the house, that is better.
5. Use metal bed frames. The bugs can not crawl up the legs of the bed. DON T LET SHEETS TOUCH THE FLOOR. Move your bed at least 6 in away from the walls.
6. Clean the entire emptied room. Once you vacuum, then you can start sprinkling the Diatomaceous Earth all over the floor. In corners etc. The powder cakes on the bugs legs and all over their body. It is too abrasive for them, and it scratches THEM to DEATH! In about a week, you will start seeing little white dead bugs. because they are sucked dry from the powder.
7. MOST IMPORTANT!!!! BUY THE MATTRESS COVERS!!! We tried to avoid this cost.. but we should have done it our first attempt to eradicate ourselves of this parasite!
We have lots of kids and pets, so we didn’t use the chemicals. But found the D.E. and mattress covers to be the MOST EFFECTIVE results yet!
We did have an exterminator to come out and he would charge $1600 for a 1600 sq foot home.
There are also some essential oils that offer relief, like cedar, but we never found any result with it.
LaShandra says
Your post was helpful. How long did u leave the DE on your carpet?
Carla says
We did it every 4 weeks. Powder the carpet, around the bed legs, etc… Then on the 4th week, vacuum it up and then powder again. The powder alone wont kill them all. But it was a HUGE improvement. Our first treatment was a purge of everything in the room. we found bugs behind picture frames, in book bindings but mostly in the knots of the wood frame bunk beds.
Bugs can hide for a year, and the last time I saw one was April 1, 2014. I wrote it down on the calendar!
My heart goes out to anyone dealing with this most obnoxious demon, but the pain it costs a family is so hard to live with until you are in the clear. Good luck! Let me know if there is anything else I can answer for ya!
Lily de Grey says
Thanks for sharing this article with us, Mavis! I recently discovered that I had a bed bug infestation, and I’m trying to stay on top of them by cleaning the everything in the house, but it hasn’t been working very well for me. I like how you suggested that we “need to get inside the tiny mind of a bed bug.” I think that’s a good game-winning method. If I’m not able to rid them from my home by following your suggestions, I’m going to hire a pest control company. Thanks for sharing this with us!