Why DIY solutions probably won't kill your bedbugs

As we prepare to enter the Summer bedbug season, evolutionary biology Ph.D. and science writer Amy Maxmen offers several useful facts about everybody's favorite blood-drinking mattress dwellers. Her number one recommendation: If you have a bedbug problem, call a professional to deal with it. Bedbugs aren't something to try killing on your own.

During the last 50 years, bedbugs have largely become biologically resistant to the pesticides sold at your corner store, namely pyrethroids and pyrethrins. DDT falls into the pyrethroid group, shedding doubts on claims that lifting the EPA's ban on this dangerous chemical would curb the current bedbug resurgence. Spraying pyrethroids or pyrethrins directly on a resistant bedbug at close range may in fact kill the pest, but there's little chance of hitting each individual insect, as armies of the sesame-seed sized bugs hide in the teeniest crevices.

"Hair spray, Windex, spearmint or eucalyptus oil will kill bedbugs at a close range too," says Coby Schal, an urban entomologist at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. "But I'm not advocating those approaches because bedbugs can walk right over these sprays." Although the insect repellent DEET is not a pyrethroid or pyrethrin, Schal says it won't deter a starving bed bug from seeking out human blood. Instead, repellants and sprays encourage the bugs to explore unsprayed territory, like your living room or your neighbor's flat.

Pesticide resistance provides tremendous evidence for evolution by natural selection. A mutation in a gene encoding a protein in bedbugs' nerve cells allows the cells to resist the lethal damage inflicted by pyrethroid and pyrethrins. With each spray, bedbugs with the mutation out-live their non-resistant pals and survive to produce resistant offspring. Incidentally, cockroaches have mutations in this protein too. If it weren't for poisoned bait, we might have a hefty cockroach problem on our hands, says Schal. At the moment, he is studying what attracts bedbugs to human blood. If this compound can be identified and mimicked, bedbugs might be baited too.

Worse yet, misuse of these sprays may lead to digestive problems, skin irritation, and may worsen asthma and allergies (1). "People think if you can buy a pesticide at a supermarket it can't be dangerous, so they use them like mad when in fact almost none of these chemicals have been tested on humans," says Stephanie Chalupka, an environmental and occupational health expert in Massachusetts at Worcester State College and Harvard School of Public Health in Boston. "I think the public health community could do a better job of getting out information on what is useful and safe, and what may put kids at risk." Chalupka says she's particularly concerned for pregnant women and their developing babies. "All sorts of compounds can get to the developing fetus, which is at a very vulnerable state as its organs and systems are forming."

Image: Rally To Restore Sanity Bedbugs, a Creative Commons Attribution No-Derivative-Works (2.0)

• [BB]

  This subject freaks me the hell out.

• [nehoccramcire]

  I agree this is a pretty useless post, much as I ordinarily love M.K.-B.’s posts.

  I must say that we had bedbugs, and our landlord hired professionals to come and kill them using a pyrethroid, spraying every wooden surface anywhere near the bedroom of our apartment. We took a few days vacating the place, and now we don’t have bedbugs.

  I haven’t heard anyone else report success using alternative methods (except the diatomaceous earth users here, and I suspect that this treatment involves much longer time spent re-applying it? And unless expertly applied, has mixed results?)

  If you’ve being plagued nightly by bedbugs, and successfully rid yourself of them by using a DIY solution, then you should make your method clearly known, because most people I know are flailing around looking for DIY ways around the problem and aren’t hearing any reliable stories.

• [kevinv]

  “DDT falls into the pyrethroid group…”

  The author explains this in the comments on the original article. DDT isn’t a pyrethroid but works on the same molecular site as pyrethroids so pyrethroid resistance also makes them resistant to DDT.

• [Anonymous]

  I couldn’t disagree with this post more. Professionals failed to kill my bedbug problem, and I was able to kill them all with heat. Space heater + summer day=135 F in my bedroom for hours. Areas closer to the heater were even hotter, so I moved it around throughout the time it was on to blast each part of the room. I had read that the bedbugs have a very difficult time escaping heat, because they burrow further into where they are hiding instead of running towards the heat, so if you continue to blast the living area with 135+, they will eventually be killed by the temperature.

  It is risky to heat up your living areas, but if you are careful it is the best solution. The amount of prep work for killing with heat is very small compared to chemical solutions, and the effectiveness is unequaled. Heat is the only method that kills the bugs at ALL stages of their development, in one shot. Chemicals do not kill eggs, so even if you were lucky enough to get all the live bedbugs in one shot, their eggs would hatch and you would need another treatment in two or more weeks.

  Professional heat treatment is very expensive because of the equipment, risk and time involved. If you carefully do it yourself, it is much less expensive than other treatment options, even less than the cost of all the materials needed to prep for chemical treatment.

  Best of all, I have no fear of bedbugs, because I know how to kill them and already own the equipment to do so.

  I want to emphasize that there is a fire risk involved in heating up your space to such a high temperature. Do so at your own risk.

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    That’s the temperature in my condo if I just fail to turn on the A/C.

  • [Master Pokes]

    Heat, steam and diatomaceous earth DO appear to be the best solutions at this time (this according to my research having had them twice (successful heat treatment both times) and living in extreme paranoia since then. I have yet to hear of a chemical on the market that the bugs haven’t already developed a resistance or immunity to.

    But, even professionals screw up heat treatment sometimes:

    http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20110515/NEWS01/110515008/

• [Anonymous]

  I treated my apartment several years ago with diatomaceous earth, and the bedbugs never came back. It’s cheap, nontoxic and easy.

• [GlenBlank]

  DDT falls into the pyrethroid group…

  Boy, that would be a heckuva long fall. :-)

  Glad to see that Alvis and Recluse beat me to it.

  The inability to distinguish an organochlorine compound like DDT from chlorine-free pyrethroids – synthetic or otherwise – casts doubt on the rest of the article. They’re not chemically or structurally similar to any significant degree.

  If you do call an expert, try to find one with more expertise than this author.

• [Skywriter9]

  When my daughter moved to NYC last summer we found this little-known but highly effective product that goes on your mattress, under the sheets and mattress pad. (It’s NOT a containment bag, which are ineffective.) The product is made of a netting-like material infused with with permethrin and it lasts for two years. It killed the bedbugs she had in her sublet bed within a day, and she never had another problem. http://www.bedbugmiracle.com

• [Anonymous]

  DDT is not a pyrethroid OR pyrethrin. But yes a good professional is needed. Even good professionals are challenged by bed bugs. -retired professional

• [SinisterMatt]

  For those who are advocating diatomaceous earth, one thing I’ve seen about using that for combating bed bugs is to be sure to get the right kind. Apparently there are several different varieties, but you want the kind that farmers mix in with cattle feed. It works against bed bugs and it’s safe (safer ?) to use near people and pets.

• [Anonymous]

  This doesn’t cover a lot of DIY solutions. For instance, nobody has considered introducing predators into the ecosystem?

• [spriggan]

  A few years back we had bedbugs and because we had dogs and cats the exterminator we hire opted not to use pesticides and used a solution that is mostly alcohol which sucks the moisture right out of the bedbugs and leaves no residue when it evaporates. Said it was more surefire that most pesticide options and he rarely needs to make a return visit. He was right, we never needed to call him back for a revisit.

• [Anonymous]

  another way is Freeze whole rooms and spray, i saw on tv

• [Anonymous]

  In some cities, some professionals use a technology called ThermaPure Heat – they’ll come and heat your entire house, and everything in it, for something like 8 hours until the bugs are dead. The studs are monitored to ensure that the whole house is being heated evenly.

  The thing that freaks me out about bed bugs is that they don’t just stay on your bed or on soft furniture. They can get in every nook and cranny of your home. They can live for 1 year without eating, so its not like you can just walk away from your place for a few weeks until their dead. How can you be sure that a pesticide will get in all the right places? I think if I had bed bugs, I would get the heat treatment, though I hear it is quite expensive.

  • [spriggan]

    The worst part is trying to sleep the night(s) before the exterminators come knowing you will be feasted upon (and for months afterwards). Worst nights of my life. Ended up getting a hotel room for a night of the day they sprayed. Left all the windows in the apt open to let the cold get at ‘em. It was a New England winter in mid January. They done got frozded.

• [shutz]

  I’ve read in multiple places that, towards the end of DDT usage (before it was banned) bed bugs had already evolved a resistance to it. I don’t know about other, similar compounds, though.

  I got rid of my bed bug problem on my own, last summer, using diatomaceous earth, and a mattress cover. I haven’t seen a bed bug (or a bed bug bite on my body) since last September.

  At some point in the spring of 2012, I’ll remove the cover on my mattress, and vacuum all the diatomaceous earth I sprayed on it, and I’ll keep the mattress cover, in case the bugs return.

  Diatomaceous earth is great against ants, too, if you have that kind of problem, and it’s non-toxic.

• [vexorg]

  Instead of calling someone else or using chemicals, consider trying diatomaceous earth. All natural, cheap and it works. The only downside to it is that it’s a bit messy because you have to put the powder on the floor or wherever you think the bedbugs will cross. It’s also pet-safe, a friend of mine tried it out and her cats ignored it.

• [RD8]

  I think what she was trying to convey about DDT and pyrethroids, is that pyrethroids, pyrethrins, DDT, and Methoxychlor all have the same Mode of Action–they are sodium channel modulators (Group 3A and 3B). Because the chemicals work at the same site in the insect nervous system to kill bed bugs, the fact that bed bugs were showing resistance to DDT led to cross-resistance to Pyrethroid insecticides in many modern bed bug populations. The Insect Resistance Action Committee has many documents on insecticide Mode of Action if you care for additional reading on the subject: http://www.irac-online.org

  http://www.irac-online.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/MoA-classification_v7.0.4-5Oct10.pdf

  Diatomaceous earth does work well, especially when used in conjunction with climb-up interceptors and mattress and box spring encasements.

• [Alvis]

  By what stretch of the imagination is DDT chemically related to pyrethrin?

  • [Recluse]

    You beat me to it!!! Shoddy reporting at it’s best. I blame rampant chemophobia for the failure of the public and the media for failure to even try to understand anything where chemistry is involved.

  • [Recluse]

    Shoddy grammar at its best (on my part). Sorry for the apostrophe in my last reply….

• [Anonymous]

  Simple solution: Make human blood less attractive to the little blighters.

• [Nerkles]

  Has anyone tried baiting them with actual human blood? Sure it’s icky, but why spend a zillion dollars trying to figure out how to mimic it when you could just prick your finger?

• [DevConcepts]

  Easy solution, water bed.
  Unless they mutate or start using scuba gear!

  Mods & Admin’s, can we get a spam tagger?

• [draizinbrew]

  Has anyone used carbon dioxide to freeze and suffocate them? Maybe spray liquid CO2 on the carpet, and put all the linens and clothes in bags and fill them with CO2? If it works there could be a business model there.

  • [Jorpho]

    There is no such thing as liquid CO2 at atmospheric pressure. That is why we have “dry ice”, sir.

    But indeed, dry ice is the first thing that came to mind when I read “DIY solutions”. Not that I’ve had the need to try it myself.

• [Anonymous]

  Best advice I’ve heard is that the first thing you do when returning from any overnight trip is to put everything, including soft luggage into the dryer. That should kill any hitchhiking bed-bugs that you’ve brought home.

• [froghog1971]

  This article bothers me. It really just says, “Call a professional,” without giving any reasons for it. It tells you why most things lay people would try might fail. But, it doesn’t give any info on what a pro might do differently.

  • [tamgoddess]

    Froghog, because “Only an expert can deal with the problem.” -Laurie Anderson

    It was a frustrating and condescending read, I agree.

• [Anonymous]

  Just remember diatomaceous earth is microscopic silica shards that will do to your airway surfaces what it does to the bug exoskeletons so use a dust mask and keep the scattering to the four winds at a minimum. Its best to tap it into crevices, behind baseboards and into the joins of furniture. You can more rarely get it as a pressed chalk stick instead of powder and draw lines of death on surfaces (which does wonders for cockroaches btw).
  Heat is still your best friend for clothing and linens. Toss into the freezer for a week or two items you can’t cook clean. Steam clean carpets several times with a pest shampoo. The DIY methods need constant repeat and follow up and some people just can’t put that much labour into it.

• [draizinbrew]

  Has anyone used carbon dioxide to freeze and suffocate them? Maybe spray liquid CO2 on the carpet, and put all the linens and clothes in bags and fill them with CO2? If it works there could be a business model there.

• [dada nada]

  I had them, killed them myself. Took a while (2 months?). Got rid of the bed they entered the house on (seattle craigslist freebie, can you believe it? aholes! I know where you live). Pyrethroids worked a little bit, killed some adults, but doesn’t last. Most effective was some hormone that stops development of the immature bedbug before it can become a breeding bedbug. You can get it from the internet, google do it yourself pest control. Not harmful to you, won’t stunt your growth or delay sexual maturity of your children. Spray liberally.

• [quercus]

  Bedbugs won’t kill you, but trying to kill them might:

  http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/hottopics/detail?entry_id=88696&tsp=1

• [Anonymous]

  Not sure about bed bugs, but I know from experience that this will take care of fleas:
  Take all the bedding/clothing potentially infected by bugs to the laundrymat and wash them all in HOT water, and dry them in the dryers.
  Before you unpack the washed stuff, steam clean every surface where they might live, thoroughly. Use essential oils that repel the bugs if you’re feeling superstitious. Cedarwood, mints, and pennyroyal for fleas.

  Let everything dry, and live happily ever after.
  Poison free and very effective.

• [Ronald Pottol]

  Boric acid, diatomaceous earth, etc, will kill them, as will temp extremes (48 deg. f is enough to kill adults in hours, eggs in days), or reasonable heat. Just don’t try to poison them, it seems (the boric acid and such work by abrading holes in them, so they dry out).

• [Anonymous]

  I’ve always felt that one of the most important qualities in a good DIY-er is knowing when you can’t, in fact, do it your self.

• [Anonymous]

  diatomaceous earth has been extremely effective, even more so than the “pros”

  and on top of that, DE is food safe…

• [Anonymous]

  Wagner Steamer does the trick nicely. Apparently they die at 113F, steam at close range FTW. Not toxic and one doesn’t have to blow up an air-conditioner in the attempt.

• [Anonymous]

  Diatomaceous earth and steam are your best weapons against bedbugs. The heat of the steam will get into all crevices and kill bedbugs after an appropriate duration based on their size. Diatomaceous earth is what is know as a mechanical insecticide and there for overly dangerous to people but it will kill all insects who try to walk over it. DIY bedbug extermination is a real pain in the ass and you may have to tear up some walls, floor or ceilings depending on how deep your infestation is.

• [BrendanBabbage]

  I’m a little disgusted by this spin article here.

  I think it total misinformation.

  DDT does kill bedbugs. Know how I know? Cause it’s been long enough since it was banned that we are only now living in a “Post-DDT World” and now that it’s faded from all the buildings and new non DDT soaked ones are built, it’s coming back.

  DDT had a lot of problems and since man was using it in wretched excess it was compounded. As a child I worked with my Dad on college projects and one time he had to stop me from touching bird eggs he collected, they were thin as paper. Going to college, I got laughed at being so careful with eggs in a biology class, though the instructor was really impressed by my explanation.

  We’ve been in a post DDT world for years.

  And, we are in a “Globalist” world which means “Global Sweatshop” not “Global Village”. Now it’s cheaper and quicker than ever to create products in the third world, cheaper matter of fact because “Tax breaks and subsidies” make it cheaper. And there are tons of illegal immigrants being flooded to degrade wages.

  Now we have little or no defense from Bedbugs and they are being flooded back in.

  DDT killed bedbugs because it killed them in all their stages. They go through several life stages, and one form can survive what kills another. Air, temperature, toxins. So, when you wipe them out, they have survivors that come back. DDT used reasonably sealed off the walls, the floor, yes even the beds so they had no safe harbor. The population crashed to critical levels and became virtually unknown for a long time, even in squalor conditions.

  Gawdz,

  If my grandpa was still alive, he’d be funding a trip to MEXICO and we’d be buying wine and dumping it out (giving it to locals in plastic jugs so they don’t hate “Gringos” even more) and filling it with DDT to bring home.

  The solution is to get DDT and carefully apply small amounts of it. Inside walls, inside mattresses, along soffit outside the house, any possible entry point, such as door and window frames.

• [Master Pokes]

  I live in Cincinnati and have dealt with them TWICE and just moved out of another building that had them though we did not. We took GREAT pains to be as cautious as possible when we moved out, cleaning or heating everything and had been dressing out of sealed plastic bags for MONTHS.

  The last bed bug survey in Cincinnati was done in 2008 and one in seven households had them or had them in the last year.It’s estimated that could be one in five or even one in four by now as the numbers have been exploding.

  The fact that our city stopped funding inspections and our local (we’re number one!), state (3 of the top 10 cities for reported cases!) and national governments aren’t doing much, if anything, to help with the problem amazes me.

  Perhaps now that they’ve been shown to carry MRSA something will be done. Source: http://www.salon.com/wires/allwires/2011/05/11/D9N5B57G1_us_med_bedbug_superbug/index.html

• [Gutierrez]

  Speaking of annoying vermin resistant to measures to stop them…