Bed bugs are small, blood-feeding insects that can cause health and skin conditions such as red bumps, itchiness, dark spots, and more. According to research, around 91% of bed bugs insects can be located in a family house.
This makes it crucial to prevent these bed bugs instantly. Even though there are tons of professional methods available to get rid of these bugs, not everyone wants to get into a professional approach as they can cost a lot, and most of us aren’t up for that.
No worries, because there are always natural and affordable methods available.
In this article, I will mention all the beneficial methods to prevent these bed bugs naturally, along with signs and areas where you can find and kill bed bugs instantly.
7 Natural Bed Bugs Repellent Methods
1. Rubbing Alcohol
Rubbing alcohol is a natural method that can help you prevent bed bugs. You must take an adequate amount of alcohol and pour it into the sprinkle bottle to use this procedure.
You can use this sprinkle bottle all over the areas wherever you notice bed bugs. This will assist you in removing the bed bugs.
Alcohol is an excellent way to kill bed bugs, as they die as soon as they contact them. Rubbing alcohol can reduce half the amount of bed bugs from your house but will not eliminate all of them.
Some of the reasons why alcohol won’t be able to kill bed bugs entirely are as follows:
- One of the prime reasons why the alcohol approach can only remove half of the bed bugs is their strength to hide remarkably well, making it tough to spray alcohol to get rid of them.
- Bed bugs come out of their hiding spots, particularly at night. You might not observe them during the day, making it hard for you to kill them, but you might get great results if you use them accurately.
2. Essential Oil
Using essential oils such as paraffin, silicone, lavender, and more can be an exceptional technique to kill bed bugs immediately. You can also use a variety of oils to kill bed bugs.
Using essential oils to cover box springs, furniture, mattresses, or any infested areas suffocates the bed bugs and kills them.
Research says that utilizing several essential oils is recognized as a valuable and helpful method to remove these bugs.
For this procedure, you can utilize any kind of essential oil to get rid of bed bugs. Paraffin oil and silicone oil are considered the most promising essential oil.
You should make sure you use these oils equally in all the bugs-filled places.
It’s vital to reach all the places or else you won’t fully get rid of them.
Using essential oils is a natural, effective, and affordable method to prevent bed bugs from your house. Also, this process is exceptionally beneficial among users as it doesn’t include any toxic insecticide.
3. Peppermint Leaves And Oil
Peppermint oil and leaves contain several pest prevention properties, which makes them an excellent natural way to eliminate bed bugs from your homes.
You can take peppermint leaves and crush them well, spreading them all over the infested areas, which can help distribute peppermint oil.
You should redo this process until you observe that all the bed bugs are removed, and there aren’t any further symptoms of bed bugs.
4. Diatomaceous Earth
A Diatomaceous earth is a synthetic that can be spread evenly all around the room, box spring, crevices, cracks, and mattress. This compound appears in powder form, which you can purchase in any neighborhood appliance store.
When employed, they slowly begin to evaporate the insects, and then additionally, it ends their exoskeleton and removes them.
This method can’t be described as a speedy process since it takes time to function thoroughly and exclude all bed bugs, but this approach remains useful until it is undisturbed.
5. Petroleum Jelly
You can use petroleum jelly in various methods to eliminate bed bugs naturally from your house. One of the conventional methods is to smear petroleum jelly all across the headboard, bed frame, and below the bed legs.
It is assumed pests would get stuck while crawling up the bed searching for the sleeper. However, this method can only help you prevent bed bugs from traveling to your bed; this won’t kill them.
6. Steam
Steam is a technique that can benefit you in eliminating bed bugs directly. By employing steam of approximately 122°F can eliminate bugs and eggs immediately.
You can utilize this steam in different areas of your house to limit bed bugs in your house’s hidden spots. Although it’s crucial to be extra careful as the heat temperature is high, so ensure you don’t hurt yourself or damage any surrounding outputs.
Also, make sure you keep this hot steam away from all the delicate stuff in order to prevent any damage. Regular steam use might help cure bed bugs issues of your house completely.
You might face a drawback in the steam method as there are many places or areas these bed bugs can hide in, and few can be challenging to reach to use this method. So, this might not be fully effective in some selective places.
Therefore you should check all the areas around your house as much as possible and try not to skip major areas near the bed.
7. Vacuum
This is an effortless and convenient way to eliminate bed bugs. Since most people have vacuum cleaners, you can employ them in all the infested areas to get rid of bed bugs, including furniture, bedding, mattress, walls, bed frame, wallpaper, and more.
The method to use a vacuum is straightforward. You have to start by searching the spaces where bed bugs are hiding and run over the vacuum in those areas.
After using the vacuum, carefully remove the vacuum bag by wrapping up its contents and sealing it to dodge any potential spreading of bed bugs in your house or near your area.
This is a speedy method, and it can help you get rid of bed bugs quickly without using specialist treatment.
However, don’t forget to be extra careful while practicing the vacuum, ensure you aren’t hurting any electronics or other tools, and just concentrate on the infected bed bugs spaces.
Signs Of Bed bugs
Now that we have talked about several natural methods to prevent bed bugs, let’s look into various signs that can help you know whether you have bed bugs in your house or not.
Bed bugs are great at hiding. Therefore, make sure you are extra careful while looking for signs and avoid any sudden weird changes around you.
Here are some of the signs of having bed bugs as follows:
1. Bloodstains Or Dark Spots In Your Bed Sheets Or Pillow
A few of the significant signs of bed bugs are finding bloodstains in your sheets or pillow.
Dark spots are recognized as the evacuation of these bugs. They might also bleed on your mattress or pillowcase.
Another likely reason for bloodstain is that often, the bed bugs in infesting people tend to move and kill them while still being asleep, which can result in blood over your sheets or pillows.
2. Itchiness
If you feel sudden itchiness all over your body in the morning without any reason, then it might be because of bed bugs. Most people tend to get bed bugs in their house due to a purchase of used mattresses, furniture, or bed. So if you have bought any used stuff, you should check it entirely before taking it home.
3. Skin Shedding
Bed bugs can shed a lot of their skin, which can also indicate that you contain bed bugs in your house. This shedding skin might look quite similar to the bug itself, especially in terms of shape. But this skin is usually in translucent colour.
4. Smell
Just like various other insects, bed bugs also contain ascent in the gland that might produce a musty smell.
However, you won’t be able to smell anything if only a few bed bugs exist in your house, as the smell is more obvious when a high number of bed bugs are present.
This smell might also be different for everyone as few people tend to find it similar to coriander, while some feel it is more like spoiled raspberries.
5. Eggs
Another potential sign of having bed bugs in your house is finding eggs or eggshells of bed bugs. They usually have yellow or pale colour, and as they grow into an adult, they tend to shed skin.
In case you feel bed bugs exist in your house, then you must lift all the covers or beddings thoroughly from your house and start looking for these bed bugs.
Where Should You Inspect For Bed Bugs?
Since we have covered essential signs of bed bugs, let’s look into the places where bed bugs are most likely to hide. It is vital to know where you should often check or start the inspecting from if you witness some signs of bed bugs.
To verify bed bugs are hiding in your house, you need to examine almost every spot in your house, including the cracks and holes.
Since they are short, they can easily hide in small areas without getting caught, such as under your closet, furniture, bed, and more.
Another place where you might find bed bugs hiding is bed frames, mattresses, headboards, footboards, and more.
Start checking all the wood framing areas, all the furniture that contains cracks or small areas, take the dust cover off as well from the box springs, and explore everything carefully.
Don’t forget less common areas such as bookshelf, outlets, edges of carpet and closet and more. You might find bed bugs hidden in your clothes as well; they might crawl over to your clothes to hide in a safer place, so ensure you are checking your clothes properly as well.
You might find most bed bugs hiding in areas that are within 5-7 feet of your bed.
They mostly prefer to sneak nearby bed areas so they can easily move towards you at night for blood-feeding.
Despite the apparent areas like mattresses, bed frames, and more, you can find bed bugs in other possible places as well, such as window areas, wall outlets, door frames, and edges where carpet connects with the walls.
All the spots mentioned above and areas will help you indicate where to look for bed bugs in order to eliminate or remove them.
FAQs
1. Do bed bugs exist in a neat and clean house?
Bed bugs can exist in any house because they might spread by crawling on your luggage while traveling, or they might also enter your home when you purchase used stuff such as a used bed, mattress, furniture, or more. A clean house or area doesn’t matter in terms of bed bugs.
2. Where can a bed bug bite you?
Bed bugs can bite any place where they find bare skin, but mostly they go for upper body areas like the arms, neck, face, and also legs.
3. Do bed bugs infest or bite you every night?
No, bed bugs don’t usually bite every night as they often complete their desired blood need by infesting several times in a single night, so they don’t need to come back the next day. They can infest either once or twice in one week.
You May Also Like To Read:
How To Find Bed Bugs During The Day?
Conclusion
The process to remove bed bugs from your house can be a bit challenging for everyone. But now, with numerous methods and techniques, you can prevent these bed bugs easily.
Here we have mentioned various ways through which you can get rid of these bugs naturally. All these procedures and techniques are affordable, simple and easy for everyone to work on. This will assist you in removing all the bed bugs easily without trouble.
Notify us in the comments if you face any doubts or queries regarding how to prevent bed bugs.
