Question by Ethan B:
How do I get rid of bed bugs in my home without using pesticides?
I have small children, one that is handy capped and can not afford to move out my house for a few days if I call a pesticide company or if I choose to put out bombs in the bedrooms.
I am looking for something that really works, I don’t have to leave my home and is safe for the kids.
Any help would be appreciated. I have seen some companies on the internet advertise for non toxic safe solutions; but do these really work?
Best answer:
Answer by William B
don,t think those will work on bed bugs
you have to get rid of the mattress
What do you think? Answer below.
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{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
pillow case enclosures. mattress enclosures. a thourough cleaning and vacuuming. and no fancy wood frames(basic metal frames are o.ok.) no headboards. keep the bed away from walls. put the wheels in glass cups(the bugs cant crawl on glass) keep up the war for at least 3 years
In addition to the above, diatomaceous earth can be dusted around, that’s an all-purpose insect control not just for bed bugs. You could put some inside the mattress and pillow liners, too.
In the summertime, you can heat-sterilize things by placing them in their plastic liners (or black garbage bags) in the hot sun, or a hot moving van, say. Bedbugs are killed by heating to 120-125 degrees.
Bedbugs also live in couches, furniture, toy stuffed animals, etc.
Laundering kills all bedbugs, and so does a trip through the dryer for stuffed animals. Steam kills bedbugs. Whole-house heat-treating is also available.
It’s also possible that freeze-treating your house might work, but this is more experimental. That might involve draining your plumbing, and moving out for a week or so during freezing weather with the heat turned off. This might be about the right time of year for that. 🙂
Good luck, I hear that bedbugs are on the rise as a pest, I’m not sure why.
I don’t think that it’s possible. Call an exterminator and find out how long you would have to leave the house for. I believe that it is only for the greater part of a day.
You need to call an exterminator ASAP. They won’t bomb the house, and you won’t have to move out, but you may need to leave for an hour. It takes at least two treatments several weeks apart. If just one female survives, the problem will start all over. Likewise, if a single female hitches a ride to some other home, you’ll spread them.
Whatever the exterminator does will be safer for the kids than bugs drinking their blood while they sleep and leaving welts all over them.
Just put the matress out in the sun.. they’ll all crawl out and then you can kill them all with a peaticide or bug bomb…
I recommend bug bombs, you only have to leave the house for a few hours and then air it out for a few more. Since one of your children is handicapped, I would suggest staying at a relatives place for one night and thoroughly washing everything after the airing out period (I have asthma and when my parents would bug bomb their house when I was a child, if there were fumes left on my clothes, I would have a bad reaction. Not exactly handicapped I admit, but still a health concern.)
If you follow the directions on the bug bomb box, it is reasonably safe around children and pets as long as no one is in the house when the bombs are filling up the rooms. Bug bombing also works for spiders and ants if you live in an area that gets a lot of those.
— I am not an expert on the subject but one time while going to college my parents rented me a cheap run down room and guess what bed bugs. I was getting bit all over the place and thought it was acne or something then one night I woke up and caught and killed one and I had to go and learn about the things.
— bugs and pests like these are making a major comeback.
two reasons– large amounts of people in close proximity
and the bugs are becoming resistance to the pesticides ( really we don’t use ddt any more but even when we were some bugs could survive that and get resistant to that
—– this is interesting because it is a cross class thing and even upper class people can run into this
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these particular bugs are smart like preditory animals. — bugs like these will probably be around for thousands of years because they are in business to hunt things like us. bed bugs are neat in that if they have no food blood they can live for years on wall paper glue and other things.
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— these things are neat because they will hide YES HIDE by day and come out at night to attack. put down glue strips and become sensitive at night and when you feel one turn on light fast get him and kill him. also you prime attack phase should be by day. they will hide in a kinds of small crevices. spraying the room is stupid. get a tiny can of raid and spray any where like in between the base boards and other places like that. you are looking for little crevices as these are the places they prefer. in between spraying you can also consider painting or varnishing any thing in your house in an attempt at sealing them in for a while. — so you are right to go on the net to research this as it will be a learning experience and at least you have the internet and they don’t . well at least not yet. Good Luck Good Bye
You can move into a new house.