Destruction of bed bugs: reviews from ordinary people

Self-extermination of bedbugs in the house is quite a difficult task for an unprepared person. Although it is generally accepted that bed bugs can be poisoned in the same way as cockroaches, this is only partly true. Bed bugs actually die from exposure to the same aerosol insecticides and sprays that destroy cockroaches, but no amount of gels, poisoned traps, baits with boric acid and various folk remedies (for the most part) will help destroy them.

The reason for this lies in the specific feeding habits of bed bugs. These insects can only pierce the skin of humans and some domestic animals and then suck blood. They will not eat various baits or run into placed houses with odorous attractants, and this should be taken into account first of all by those who decide to take on the task of exterminating bedbugs on their own.

Reviews from even experienced parasite exterminators clearly demonstrate all the difficulties in fighting them.

Review
“I know first-hand what killing bed bugs is like, and when I read other reviews, it makes me laugh. She poisoned them herself, first in the first apartment, then in the second, then in her mother’s house, and this summer - in the country. Tenacious creatures, they are not always destroyed the first time. Previously, dust helped very well - we scattered it along the baseboards and under the beds when we left home. Then it was banned. At my mother’s, I poisoned bedbugs with Cucaracha. It smells bad and needs to be diluted in a certain concentration. She brought me out twice, with a week break between them. In the second apartment, when I needed to poison, I couldn’t find Cucaracha, I bought Get, I liked it better because it has no smell. You spray everything with it once, and then you don’t need to wash the floors for a week. And that’s all, you just collect dead bedbugs. But Goeth is expensive. Therefore, when bedbugs later appeared at the dacha, I bred simple Karbofos. And this is what I will say - this is the best remedy in general. It smells, of course, but it reliably poisons bedbugs, and it costs a penny. I don’t think I’ll ever run into them again, but if that happens, I’ll poison them with Karbofos.”
Elena Pavlovna, Moscow

Remedies for bedbugs for self-removal

There are several types of products that effectively kill bed bugs:

Aerosol preparations are solutions of insecticides already poured into cylinders with compressed gas for spraying. These include, for example, Combat, Raptor, Dichlorvos Neo, Dichlorvos Eco, Raid, Clean House, etc. They are most often used by housewives in the first stages of fighting bedbugs due to their ease of use. However, their use is rational only when the premises are not heavily infested with bedbugs. For example, if the parasites are localized in only one chair, sofa or computer system unit. Numerous reviews indicate that if there are a large number of bloodsuckers in the apartment, aerosol products either do not help, or they become too expensive to use.
Sprays, more precisely, insecticide concentrates, which for use must be diluted with water and poured into a household spray bottle for subsequent spraying as a spray. For example, this includes many professional pest control products such as Tetrix, Sinuzan, Diazinon and others, which have a very unpleasant odor and are quite toxic to humans. However, there are such preparations for household use - Lambda Zone, Executioner, Get, Delta-Zone, Medilis Cyper, etc. Bedbugs must be destroyed with their help carefully, maintaining the required concentration of the solution and with the mandatory use of personal protective equipment.
Some dusts - for example, Pyrethrum, Phenaxin, Karbofos in powder form. They are scattered in places where bedbugs are frequently encountered, and if the location is guessed accurately, then usually within a few days the bedbugs are poisoned by contact with the poisonous powder.

Potent folk remedies such as denatured alcohol, turpentine and kerosene destroy bedbugs only by directly treating their nests. Those bedbugs that are physically impossible to reach with the solution will not be destroyed, and therefore such folk recipes cannot be considered reliable - you will just waste your time and create a fire hazard in the apartment.

Review of Karbofos and the remedy for bedbugs Executioner:
“We poisoned bedbugs with Karbofos. And twice and both times with different results. The houses destroyed them in one day, and not one was ever seen again. After this, my wife felt dizzy for a long time - after all, the remedy is harmful. But at the dacha, everything was treated in exactly the same way, but the bugs remained. They poisoned me again - the same effect. Then I only found out that if one of the neighbors constantly poisons bedbugs with Karbofos, they get used to it and no longer die. Apparently our neighbor treats his chicken coop with it. We tried to treat the dacha with the Executioner - it worked. A good product, but expensive. 70 rubles for a small bottle, which can only be used to treat one mattress.”
Vitaly, Chernigov

Feedback on the use of Get and Tetrix tools:
“If you need to poison bedbugs in an apartment, take Tetrix or Get. Definitely. Everything else is just for the kids to have fun. Especially all kinds of spray cans. Get has no smell, but somehow it seemed less effective to me. But Tetrix surprised me. The bedbugs began to die in one room while I was still poisoning in the other. I pushed the closet aside - and they were already dead there. But, really, this Tetrix stinks just horribly.”
Anna, St. Petersburg
See also our experiments on bedbugs:
We catch bedbugs and test different products against them - see the results...
We test the effect of Hector powder on bedbugs in two options: simple treatment and preparation of traps. See the results of the experiment.
Experiment on bedbugs: at what temperature do they die and how it can be used in practice
We put the bedbugs in a container that was treated with the Executioner product a week ago - we’ll see if the parasites are poisoned by the long-dried product...
We tested the Get Express product on bedbugs - let's see what came out of it...
Experiment on bedbugs: The executioner killed them in 8 minutes
We check the residual effect of the Executioner on bedbugs (how quickly they are poisoned upon contact with a previously treated but already dried surface)
Proven methods of killing bedbugs that have shown to be highly effective

It is also useful to read: At what temperature do bed bugs die and will steam treatment help?

And one more thing: Killer methods of killing bedbugs that actually work in practice

How to remove bedbugs? - Adviсe

Nastena : With the purchase of a new sofa, these bloodsuckers started up, we tried karbofos (although it is toxic to humans) it doesn’t help, everyone says dichlorvos is “a waste of money”, well, what else?!!!!

ennina : we had such “happiness”. The children and I left, and my husband sprayed everything (some kind of insect repellent spray from Dr. Klaus), in all the rooms, coated everything wooden with varnish, so they threw everything away without washing, washed all the linen with 90 grams, ironed everything. And then for a long time they collected the dried and dead ones. Yes, they also threw away the mattresses. In short, complete Atas. There's enough work. I also read that they go into suspended animation, so I’m still on the alert. In winter, I ventilate everything in the cold. Diana Beska : They were crawling from our neighbors, but we brought them out with an ordinary raptor (literally “Professional extermination of crawling insects”), and not to say that we strained ourselves? It is almost odorless, although I still felt it, but is it the nostrils? It took about 3 cylinders in three days. And fsyo, t-t-t. I haven't seen it for a year now.

Latika : it looks like some kind of misfortune started with these bugs. My friends recently bought an apartment, but even the previous owner didn’t warn them that bedbugs lived there, and they found out about it on the day of the move by accident from a neighbor.

We quarreled with the former owner and called the sanitary service to combat these parasites at her expense. The move also had to be postponed for several days, because... if things had been moved, then the guard would have started because these bugs love to settle in sofas and armchairs, from where you can’t kick them out later. Attention! Right now there are no more of them. The neighbors actually came running and asked: “What are you doing here? All the bugs came rushing to us!”...although initially they crawled from these neighbors. In general, it seems that we also had these monsters before, only I was very little then and don’t remember. But the parents say that they bred it with karbofos.

Shoma : We also had these “pets”, so I bought some special smoke bombs at a hardware store, I think they are from Raptor, you don’t need to set anything on fire, you pour a little water into the bomb and smoke starts pouring out of it these creatures die, and people need to leave the premises for several hours (well, so as not to die in a heap with bedbugs?)

Natalya Ivanova : We moved to a new apartment, it turned out to be infested with bedbugs, we tried to remove it ourselves with Corbafos, but it didn’t help. They called specialists, the bedbugs died out, but the smell of the drug remained. Whatever they tried to clean the furniture didn’t work, so I had to throw it away. The worst thing is that the walls in some places still stink so much (a year has already passed) and the plaster was torn off along with the wallpaper, it doesn’t help.

Nadezhda Pimenova : Oh, well, here I am in this topic. Since February, my child began to break out in red blisters. They last for 2-3 days, then they turn pale and gradually go away, and new ones immediately appear. I don’t even want to remember how we visited dermatologists, how many tests we took and how many medications we took/applied. And there was no point, blisters kept appearing and appearing.

And on Friday I caught some kind of beetle in the room. I put this animal in a jar and took it to the laboratory for analysis. At the end of the day, the biologist called back and said: “Congratulations, you are the proud owner of bed bugs!” And he immediately warned that it is better not to waste time on home control methods, but to order special treatment.

Girls, I have one big message for you. Anyone who has encountered this problem and ordered special treatment, please share your experience.

Do they process everything at all? That is, clothes in the closet, papers in drawers, books on shelves, kitchen cabinets, etc.?
Does the treatment agent then need to be washed off throughout the entire apartment? That is, walls, ceilings, carpets, furniture. And what to do with the clothes? Well, it’s clear that dresses and T-shirts should be washed, but what about fur coats and sheepskin coats? And with blankets on the beds...
How long does the smell last after treatment?
I strongly suspect that the source of this “joy” is the neighbors behind the wall; a group of comrades of Tajik nationality rent an apartment there. Well, let’s say we remove the bedbugs, and then they won’t come to us again from the neighbors? Or - oh horror! — will this procedure have to be carried out periodically now?

Oh, my head is spinning. One joy: now it is clear why the child has blisters. We didn’t know what to feed them; we barely subsisted on bread and water. But it turned out that he, poor fellow, was simply bitten around the perimeter by such bastards...

Olga . I will answer in order:

The entire apartment is being processed. Things and papers are at the discretion of the disinfector.
As a rule, treatment is carried out with means of hazard class 3-4; you do not have to wash the entire apartment.
It all depends on the product; you can order treatment with odorless products.
The disinfector should advise you on methods for protecting the apartment. As a rule, if the recommendations are followed, re-infection does not occur.

elena nikitcenko . We also poisoned them with karbofos, they ruined all the walls, but for a while they disappeared, then the infections appeared again, thank God at least they didn’t bite the child. Important! They called the service, treated them with poisons, so even the cockroaches didn’t die, nothing helped, and then I read somewhere about a service that poisons bedbugs using American technology with high temperature and poisons, in short, they called them, they arrived, heated the rooms with some kind of guns and then poisons, well, thank God they have been gone for a long time. I even had a nervous breakdown because of bedbugs, and plus all the time it seemed like something was crawling on you, and I still work in the canteen and all my hands were covered in bites... in short, the guard... but thank God they are no longer there, but I’m afraid God forbid they come back, we have a lot of Asia in our entrance. In general, hang in there girls, it’s very difficult to get them out.

Svetlana Taitskaya : I will have very unexpected advice - install WiFi! Insects are afraid of this radiation, so in apartments where there is a lot of equipment and Wi-Fi, cockroaches quickly disappear forever, I think it will work with bedbugs too)))).

Elena : I'll tell you about my epic. These reptiles were brought to us, I think, by my mother’s friend (as it turned out later, these creatures were found in her son’s apartment). We didn’t immediately understand what was happening, because only my son had bites; others had nothing. I thought maybe it was some kind of allergy. But one day he got sick and fell asleep on his grandmother’s sofa; in the morning it was scary to look at him. Then I found one in the bathtub and an epiphany came, and with it a great desire to get rid of these creatures. It was not our plan to throw away the furniture, since we purchased it only a year ago and for a lot of money. I started by buying Raid and Raptor aerosols. We sprayed it everywhere we could. Nothing helped. I covered all the drawers and cracks with wormwood, it was also complete garbage, it didn’t work. The psychosis intensified (those who are faced with this problem will understand me, you constantly jump up at night, look at the child, at yourself, at the walls, but I didn’t see them often).

The next step was a steam cleaner (bought by Koerner on Avito) and steamed everything I could, including things and furniture. The bites became fewer, but they did not disappear. Finally, we decided to contact a special service (I won’t write the name), if you are interested, write, I will answer.

Method of exterminating bedbugs

The main task when exterminating bedbugs is to ensure contact of the poisonous agent with their chitinous cover or respiratory system. That is why the preparations are produced in the form of aerosols or for spraying in the form of a spray - the smallest particles of insecticides remain in the air for a long time and enter the body of insects when they breathe, or settle on parasites and the surfaces on which they move.

Effective remedies for bedbugs often have a contact poisoning effect, that is, even if they get on the body of a bedbug, they will penetrate its body and lead to poisoning (drugs Lambda Zone, Delta Zone, Get, etc.). Such products are very effective, many of them are odorless, but in general they are relatively expensive when compared with the outdated Karbofos.

The insecticide should be sprayed on as many surfaces as possible, and areas such as cabinets, baseboards or beds should simply be sprayed on top. The more completely the entire room is treated, the less chance bedbugs will have to survive.

After the procedure, the apartment must be closed for several hours and then cleaned.

If there were a lot of bedbugs in the room before treatment, then even after the destruction of adults and larvae, eggs may survive here. In a few days, new nymphs will emerge from them and begin to bite the residents of the apartment. In these cases, one should not blame the ineffectiveness of the drug used - even the most powerful insecticide may simply not reach immobile eggs and will not lead to their death.

Therefore, in many cases, re-treatment of the premises will be necessary. It should be carried out 2-3 weeks after the first. During this time, all the larvae will hatch from the eggs, but none of them will have time to turn into an adult bug and lay new eggs.

Review
“I immediately tried Klopomor for bedbugs. I haven't read the reviews, I don't believe them. I really didn't like this drug. It smells bad, toxic, in addition to it I bought a respirator, gloves, a robe - in short, I spent almost the same amount of money on protection. Klopov was brought out only on the third try. I lived with them for almost a month. And this despite the fact that after each treatment I did not find any live parasites in the house. It was probably better to call exterminators.”
Ilya, Moscow

How to get rid of bedbugs?

Ladies and gentlemen, trouble came from where we didn’t expect it... The neighbors are just great, there’s no other way to put it. Last year they got to the point where they had a proliferation of cockroaches - they had to re-glue the wallpaper... And this year - why not, really - they bought a sofa secondhand... And, as a result, bedbugs!!!!!! ! Attention! I’ve been living with them wall to wall for three years now, and I’m already sick of it, of course, this is all... But their sofa - the same one - stands right next to our shared wall. I wasn't worried until yesterday morning when I woke up with the feeling that my leg was really, really itchy!!!! And just the wildest itch... I seem to have checked everything, but there could be only one bug... What to do?! It probably won’t be possible to move - financially it’s normal here... Maybe something to do with it? Or are there folk remedies? I’m a fucking student and I don’t even know how to deal with this...

Marina, Irkutsk : Here you go straight to the store. And buy all kinds of remedies from them and wait for a miracle. Something should help.

Well, or as a second option, call a special service that poisons cockroaches. I think she can cope with bedbugs, but she will have to leave the apartment for the night, because the smell is strong.

In fact, I would also wash the furniture well, with some vinegar, something pungent-smelling. Suddenly the pungent smell will scare them away and they will run away from you. And dichlorvos is also a thing, people often forget about it, but it really helps. Tonya, Kaliningrad : I doubt that there are medications that will save you from bedbugs. Now just burn it all...

Actually, don't panic. Maybe you're just nervous? In general, my opinion is that you should have moved out even when the neighbors’ cockroaches “divorced.” Seriously, what do you have to do in the room that you even had to re-paste the wallpaper??? Hmm...

In general, you need to consult hardware stores or veterinarians. Even if you don’t have bedbugs yet, they can get one very quickly. Treat yourself, just as a preventive measure.

Veronica, Moscow : Were there any bites on your leg? Usually, if there are bedbugs, they will leave a trail of bites. There are very small dots in a row like this... Were there? Important! In any case, I would pickle, honestly, I wouldn’t wait to see if they would appear for sure or not. Nowadays there are such means that they are not noticeable and harmless to humans at all. And then later, when it’s clearly clear that there are bedbugs, there will be so many of them that it will actually be easier to burn them)) They multiply quickly... Phew! If you live alone, you can use the most effective remedy of my childhood - dichlorvos! In general, you can kill anything with it))) We used it to poison moths, ants, and cockroaches. I think the bedbugs will die too) I think, and among all the raptors or raids there are some things against bedbugs.

If it doesn’t help, call a pest control service. Or whatever they are)) It is, of course, expensive, but changing an apartment is more expensive. And then go file a lawsuit against your neighbors demanding compensation))) Seriously, maybe you and your neighbors will chip in to call specialists? Still, they will etch once and for all.

Marie, Moscow : It’s better to pay specialists once than to spend money on various chemicals. You also need to know how to work with all these “poisons,” otherwise it won’t take long to get poisoned. My niece brought these “cute creatures” to me from her friend.

These creatures multiplied very quickly. As soon as we discovered bedbugs, we immediately began looking for specialists in this matter. We found a good company - Ecocontrol for Podolsk cadets.

The guys arrived and processed everything. After treatment, no living creatures were found in the house. A couple of weeks later, the guys from this company came again for re-processing. It eliminates problems with these crawling and running creatures for a long time.

What if you call specialists?

In most cases, to destroy bedbugs in an apartment, it is easier and more reliable to call a special pest control service, whose workers will treat the premises themselves and guarantee that the parasites will not appear again.

The services of pest control companies cost approximately 3-4 times more than what the owner of the premises will have to pay for the insecticidal preparation alone. For example, in Moscow, killing bedbugs in a one-room apartment costs about 2,000 rubles, while the cost of the drug Get, which is enough to treat the same area, is about 750 rubles. But at the same time, reliable companies guarantee the destruction of bedbugs, but the result of independent treatment, even with an effective means, is not always predictable.

It is also useful to read: How to deal with bed bugs

And one more thing: Proven methods of killing bedbugs that have shown high efficiency

Review
“I remember how my grandmother flooded the apartment with dichlorvos, and after that it was impossible to stay there for a week. In my apartment, I immediately called a team of specialists and asked them to ensure that when I returned, there would be no smell or bedbugs in it. And indeed, all the bedbugs were destroyed, the apartment took a long time to ventilate, but when I came in, the smell was still noticeable. By evening he had disappeared.”
Alena, Ekaterinburg

bedbugs

Rowena : We've got bed bugs. :swoon: Arrived in a bag with a laptop from the Far East. :doh: It took them a week to settle into their new home. For the next week they ate me mercilessly. Only me. Advice! But I couldn’t understand what was happening. I even ate Claritin - I thought it was an allergy. Then I found them under the mattress of the bed. I changed and washed the clothes. My husband treated the room with dichlorvos. I slept like a princess for two nights. And today I discovered new bites. I read it on the Internet - it makes my hair stand on end... Is it really possible to get rid of bedbugs??? The mood is below par. ? Tell me, has anyone had experience fighting these animals?

Atika Bayra and Natasha : It’s possible to get rid of it. But you need to go to the SES and buy a solution there. Dilute and treat everything, everything, everything in the apartment, house. That is, spray with a spray bottle. Perhaps the SES won’t sell this poison, but then they will come and process it themselves. True, it’s probably expensive.

The most important thing is that the bedbugs do not spread throughout the house, since then it will be extremely difficult to remove them. Not all neighbors will treat the apartment at the same time, and some refuse to carry out treatment at all. We lived in the north in a “wooden village”, it was a nightmare there in the 90s. Bedbugs crawled from all the cracks((((((It’s good that a distant relative worked for me at the SES. She gave me a solution for treatment for free. AnnZZZ : Once there was a similar story, bedbugs were found in the back of the sofa. I got it out instantly with the usual Bars spray! The bedbugs died after the first spraying, but I sprayed this place several more times (read how many days they hatch in order to catch all the new ones, I don’t remember now, about a week - 10 days). The bedbugs disappeared completely and never appeared again .

tori760 : We also had such a misfortune. They taught me this: I went to a garden supply store, bought a bedbug repellent there, diluted it in water and doused all the corners, upholstered furniture and sprayed the walls with a spray bottle. Place the laundry in the washing machine at 90 degrees and everything is OK! Good luck in your fight! By the way, here, too, these bastards only ate me and the child, and my husband slept at least!!!

Denis&Alla : We did. They came through the ventilation from the drunk neighbor upstairs (he started a renovation, but they didn’t like it) and began to eat the youngest child (for some reason they didn’t touch the rest). As a result, we treated the upholstered furniture, all the seams and mattresses (I don’t remember with what, some kind of chemical) and REPLACED THE WALLPAPER (since they like to live under the wallpaper). The ventilation had to be sealed. But there were no more bedbugs. Attention! niary : I sympathize with you! It is very difficult to get rid of bedbugs on your own, we used to live in a communal apartment, they attacked us too, we didn’t know what to do. In the end, we tried everything possible. Then we found an advertisement for the extermination of insects at home, including bedbugs. They called a man, he came and asked for how long, they do it either for half a year or for a year. He processed everything and paid him 600 rubles, as far as I remember. So for two years we didn’t have any bugs, not even mosquitoes or flies, despite the fact that the windows were open in the summer.

The only thing you can’t do after treatment is stay in the apartment for 2 hours, and then ventilate everything, wash the floors, then this product gets eaten away. And I think you shouldn’t show up with dogs for a couple of days, you never know… they’ll lick you or something…

In general, bedbugs do not bite everyone, they are selective bastards! They bit me and my dad. no one else was touched. They are also carriers of all kinds of infection, be careful!

Yolka and Sofiyka : We called!!! This was the only thing that helped. The treatment of the apartment cost 6 thousand (this was 2 and 3 years ago). No purchased products helped. And they called - it helped the first time. But a year later, just in case, the treatment was repeated. The rubbish is very strong, it stinks... I can’t even say what. Not with chemicals, but rather with plastic/rubber...

After 6 hours you can already be indoors and open the windows. That night the dog also spent the night. All OK. But it wouldn’t hurt to eat some coal))) If necessary, I can look for a phone number.

Oleg123 : Hello everyone, I’ll tell you a little about my problem! At the beginning of May, I suddenly woke up because everything was itching. At first I thought that mosquitoes had bitten me, then I saw some oblong-shaped creatures climbing on the sofa.

I went online and looked at pictures of various insects, and it turned out that I had bedbugs in my house. By the way, they ate me all up, but they didn’t touch my wife at all. Why did I ask the question, read it, it turns out that these insects do not go to everyone, but there is a legend that they determine who is there and who is not worth it by their blood type!

What cute creatures!!! I started to fight them, first I read on the net that you can use dichlorvos, I tried it one day, I almost suffocated myself, but these creatures are all alive. Then I treated all the cracks, frames of sofas and beds with boiling water. In the morning a couple pieces fell, but the main part remained. Important! Well, in general, I was tired, bitten, not getting enough sleep to go to work, and not comfortable in front of my colleagues, all my arms were bitten in a long-sleeved shirt in such heat. The guys advised me to contact the insect extermination service. A master, pleasant to talk to, arrived and treated the apartment along the perimeter in the evening, when I get up in the morning, most of the bugs were found on the trail. There are no days left!!! By the way, it’s very inexpensive!!! So guys, if you encounter bedbugs at home, don’t waste your time, patience and healthy sleep, simply call real professionals in their field.

Ksenia2 : Good time! There are two options for exterminating bedbugs, either call a service, or buy a drug, fortunately there are a lot of them on sale now!

Mikhail Zhilyaev: Here I will share my experience in fighting bedbugs. These nasty bugs can turn a quiet family life into hell on earth. Nobody knows where they came from. No one knows when they left and when they will come next time. There are a huge variety of means and tactics, and yes, tactics, because this cunning little creature pesters you so much that you will become afraid to sleep and, as a result, you are in danger of a nervous breakdown. So, I poisoned them many times at intervals of two weeks, that’s when the eggs ripen. But they crawl out of the entrance from other residents. Well, they love to travel. Don’t worry, call Ecoconirol professionals. They will clean the whole house. This is the only way to kill this little creature.

Safe extermination of bedbugs

With any chosen method of exterminating bedbugs, it should be remembered that agents that are toxic to parasites can also have an effect on the human body.

Modern insecticides used in the preparations Get, Executioner, Delta Zone, Agran, Tsifoks, Cucaracha and others do not cause severe poisoning in humans when moderate quantities are ingested.

But they can also lead to an allergic reaction, dizziness and other side effects. Therefore, when exterminating bed bugs yourself, you must use:

respirator or gauze bandage
gloves
headdress
glasses
clothes with long sleeves.

Before treating the room, make sure that there are no people or pets in the apartment. If there is an aquarium in the apartment, it should be covered with a cover glass and the compressor should be turned off.

It is generally not recommended to use folk flammable products such as kerosene or alcohol to kill bed bugs, since they leave an odor in the room for a long time and create a risk of fire.

Review
“In our family, only our daughter was bitten by bedbugs; she was not even a year old at that time. All the time, the bitten woman woke up in the morning, we ran around, looked for mosquitoes and did not find them. Only once did I catch a bug while cleaning and almost fainted. I really started to get hysterical. I called my husband from work, called the hotel and went there for two days with the little one. My husband flooded the entire apartment with some new Dichlorvos, spent the night in it, and the next day he fell ill. Probably poisoned himself. The bedbugs disappeared, we specifically checked all the sofas and carpets - we only found dead ones. Two days later we returned to the apartment, a day later my husband felt fine and went to work.”
Oksana, Volokolamsk

5 effective ways to destroy bedbugs in an apartment

Bed bugs. More about parasites. Destruction of bedbugs

A bedbug (lat. Cimex lectularius) is a special type of bedbug that literally drinks our blood while we sleep. Actually from the name it becomes clear that the habitat of such bugs is the human bed.

If other insects that can be found in human homes, for example, cockroaches, ants and moths, harm a person by spoiling food supplies and clothing, and also causing disgust, then bed bugs encroach directly on the most sacred thing - a person’s sleep and rest. Therefore, we are ready to endure the fact that cockroaches run around the table, and moths fly out of the cabinets for years, restless sleep and unpleasant bites on the body, which not only itch, but also look ugly - there are hardly any brave people who can endure more two or three such restless nights.

Bed bug bites. A real health threat?

To date, numerous studies have found that bed bugs do not pose an epidemiological danger ! That is, not a single case has yet been registered in which a bed bug infected a person with a bacterial or viral infection with its bite.

It is surprising that bed bugs themselves are carriers of pathogens of various diseases, but none of these viruses and microorganisms are transmitted to the victim through a bite. It would seem, what’s the catch here? Once again, Nature surprises with its wisdom - in the process of evolution, parasites have developed a special strategy - the less risk the owner is exposed to, the greater the chances of bedbugs to preserve their main source of food for many years. After all, if they spread a deadly infection, the bedbugs themselves risk soon being left without food.

But it’s too early to relax, because nevertheless, a bedbug bite can be fraught with certain troubles:

Allergic reaction to a bite . According to statistics, allergies to bedbug bites in one form or another are observed in 80% of people. Such manifestations may include the appearance of papules, extensive redness, itching and pain, and extremely rarely, even anaphylactic shock.
Inflammation, damage to the skin, pustules that occur when scratching bite sites. Through such microscratches, pathogenic organisms more easily penetrate into the human body.
Iron deficiency anemia in children . This is a very rare consequence of bed bug bites. It occurs when there are a very large number of simultaneously biting parasites, when the amount of blood they suck is significant, and the action of their saliva leads to some changes in the composition of the blood.

What does a bed bug look like? How to distinguish from other insects in the apartment

The bed bug has a flat, wide body. Being hungry, it generally becomes almost round when viewed from above. Moreover, due to the absence of wings, constrictions at the junction of abdominal segments are always clearly visible on its body.

Adult bed bugs have a uniform brown coloration. If a particular insect is hungry, it may be light, almost red. After saturation with blood, the bed bug darkens, sometimes almost black.

In addition, the body of a well-fed bedbug lengthens and increases in thickness due to its filling with blood. Such a bug becomes like a wingless cockroach larva. The body size of a bed bug varies from 4 to 8 mm , and there is practically no difference in size between males and females.

The flat shape of the bedbug's body protects it well from being crushed by a person tossing and turning on the bed. However, after drinking blood, the bug becomes more vulnerable. It is the crushed, well-fed bugs that leave unsightly brown spots on the bed, which are often the first sign that there are bed bugs in the apartment .

Bed bug larvae resemble adult insects in appearance, but are smaller and lighter in color. The larvae of the earliest instars, when hungry, are generally transparent, and after they are saturated, a drop of blood is clearly visible on them.

The laid eggs of bed bugs look like reduced grains of rice - they have the same white color, elongated shape and length of no more than a millimeter.

Differences between bed bugs and other “household” insects:

Cockroaches. Unlike bed bugs, cockroaches have two characteristic appendages on the back of their abdomen, similar to short antennae. Bedbugs do not have such outgrowths. In addition, adult cockroaches are larger than bedbugs and have wings and a more elongated abdomen.
Ticks. In appearance, bedbugs are more or less similar to ticks. Here, to distinguish, it is enough to count the legs of the parasite. Bed bugs, like all insects, have 6 of them, and ticks, as representatives of the arachnid order, have 8.
Ants - the body shape of ants is very well known: these insects are slender and have a constriction in the “waist” area. Even the larvae of bedbugs are wide and do not have such constriction.
Fleas and lice. It is almost impossible to confuse bedbugs with fleas and lice due to their size: while the former are very difficult to see with the naked eye, bedbugs are easily visible insects.

Bed bugs - lifestyle and activity

Bed bugs are strictly nocturnal parasites. The only thing that can force them to move during the day is “anxiety” - the destruction of their place of accumulation or the action of some insecticide.

Bedbugs are most active from 3 to 6 am . It is at this time that the largest number of their attacks on humans and, as a result, bites occur. Thanks to their mobility and fairly high speed of movement, bedbugs can get from any corner of the apartment to the bed in a matter of minutes, spend 20-25 minutes feeding and just as quickly return to the shelter.

Where does the bed bug hide?

Bed bugs hide for most of their lives and crawl out of hiding only to feed or when looking for new housing, when the food source is no longer in the apartment or the bugs have multiplied enough to take over new territories. A bedbug feeds approximately once a week, so if you are bitten every day, this is a serious signal that there are a lot of parasites in your apartment.

The rest of the time, when the insect is digesting our blood, it is in a shelter away from human eyes. If you find a couple of bedbugs on your bed or sofa, this means that somewhere nearby in a shelter you can find significantly more individuals.

In secluded places where bed bugs wait out the day, females lay eggs.

The bedbug, like any other parasite, is an extremely prolific insect. Each female lays more than 300 eggs during her life , about 4-5 every day.

Bedbug larvae hatch from eggs on days 5-6 and turn into adult parasites after 4-5 weeks. During this time, they molt several times, and the chitinous shells remaining after molting can serve as a good sign of the presence of bed bugs in the house.