How I fought bed bugs and won (but not without victims)

Who are bedbugs and why are they needed?

Before this adventure, I assumed that bed bugs were a thing of the past. You can only read about them in classical Russian literature - mattresses in shabby roadside hotels were often infested with them. Well, in the village as a child, I heard that sometimes they can spawn somewhere in the floorboards of a house.

A bed bug is a small brown bug (relatively speaking, they are not actually beetles) up to eight millimeters long. Unlike the cilantro-smelling bugs that you get on raspberries or sometimes swoop down on your head in the summer, they don’t smell much. And in general, they do not immediately announce their presence. And one could put up with them, but bedbugs need blood to reproduce and develop. And we become its source. Fun (not really) fact: a small animal like a rat can be eaten to death by a large enough colony of bedbugs.

These parasites crawl out in the dark, usually between two and five in the morning, bite warm human bodies and hide as if they were never there. But hungry beetles can crawl out at any time. This is what both adults do and just hatched bugs, which you can barely see at all. And because they are small and flat, they are almost impossible to crush when tossing and turning in your sleep. And their bites are painless - they won’t wake you up. They can chew even when you are not sleeping at all.

Adult bedbugs

Herbs against bloodsuckers

“Poison” does not come from the word “grass.” But if you think about it, you can identify an obvious connection between representatives of the flora and the destruction of parasites. It is not possible to eliminate bed bugs with the help of plants, but it is easy to scare them away. The table will tell you which herbs can “poison” blood-sucking insects.

Table - Plants against bedbugs

Plant repellents work well as preventive measures. But they are not able to drive bedbugs out of the house once and for all. Most likely, the insects will find a secluded corner, protected from unpleasant herbal odors. And when the “insecticide” plants lose their aromatic properties, the pests will return.

It is useless to fight bedbugs with garlic. Insects are not disgusted by its pungent smell.

How to get bedbugs in your home?

It’s very simple - just bring home one fertilized female. She will lay eggs almost all her life, about five eggs per day. Within a couple of months, a whole colony can form. You can bring bedbugs from anywhere, but the likelihood of picking them up is especially high in rural areas, on farms and farms (as was the case in my case). Bedbugs don’t care whether your home is clean or dirty, dry or damp, cold or hot. The main thing is that there is a source of blood. They can also crawl from their neighbors, but in general they don’t like to walk a lot and often change their habitat, just like people.

Bedbugs settle in any secluded places. Most often in the sofa or bed, where the owners sleep. They can be in the joints and under the casing. But old clothes on shelves and baseboards suit them just as well. They can also find a place for themselves under wallpaper - and also in books and even equipment. Their survival rate is extremely powerful. They can live for more than a year without food, hibernating. The only thing these creatures definitely don’t like is sudden temperature changes. Bedbugs die within an hour at temperatures above fifty degrees. Or you can try to freeze them, if the house stays at minus twenty or below for a couple of months, the parasites will die. In the villages this is how they used to deal with them: they went to stay with relatives and left the house open. My grandfather also told me a story about a gentleman who put the legs of his bed in buckets of water so that bedbugs could not climb on them. They say it didn't help - bedbugs can swim.

What chemicals will help?

Unfortunately, almost all “targeted” drugs sold in stores are ineffective. This is explained by the fact that if a couple of individuals survive after being treated with chemicals, their offspring become insensitive to it. Professional products work, but they are absorbed into walls, floors, and furniture. They cannot be washed for months. Therefore, apparently, allergies often develop.

After a while, you just want to get rid of bedbugs. And the method is not important - only the result is important

There are several other drugs that help get rid of bedbugs. Read below about their action and how to use all these means.

Colloidal microcalcite

This is not poison, but a powder that absorbs moisture. It is contained in the pharmaceutical drug "Polysorb" and the like, so the development of allergies is unlikely. The Hector product is based on this substance. Almost pure colloidal microcalcite contains Aerosil 200, a thickener for epoxy compounds. You can find it where they sell resins and fiberglass. The same substance in a different form is found in Diatomite (food grade) and Diatomaceous earth - these are food additives. They differ from those listed above in that they do not dry out the air and only bring benefits to people. Bed bugs die from them in the same way as from their analogues.

The release form or name of the drug is not so important

How does this substance work? Bed bugs catch particles of powder on their legs and shell. They do not die instantly, but walk around “dusted.” But after a couple of days you begin to find their shells. The powder simply dries them out and the insects die.

They don't die immediately from the powder. And every other day they still don’t die. But after a couple of days you start to find their dry shells

The only problem is that the powder will “dry out” you too if you inhale it. So you need to spray colloidal microcalcite wearing a respirator, long sleeves and gloves.

Powdered colloidal microcalcite should be sprayed in bedbug-infested areas. It is volatile and this will not be a problem. If you bought not the drug, but the powder in its pure form, make a “dust bottle”. Take a plastic bottle and add powder to 1/2 volume. Put on the lid with small diameter holes made in it (burn with a needle heated on the fire). Then simply squeeze the bottle, spraying the powder. Aim at the places where there may be nests. The volatile suspension will reach the rest on its own. It is better to leave the powder indoors for at least a month. And it’s better not to clean under baseboards and in crevices at all.

Delcid

Delcid also helps get rid of domestic bed mites. This is a veterinary drug (insectoacaricidal drug) that is used to treat animals and places where they are kept. It is also effective against bedbugs. Sold in ampoules and even in canisters in veterinary pharmacies or stores. The good thing is that it is not harmful to birds and animals (and humans). But toxic to fish and bees .

One of the release forms. Maybe for dogs. There is also water concentrate in bottles or canisters

In veterinary pharmacies it is usually sold in ampoules. They contain a concentrate that is diluted with water. The amount of water is indicated on the package (concentration may vary). Forms a white emulsion with water. You can spray it from a regular spray bottle. For animals and their habitats, double treatment is recommended. The apartment will probably require more repetitions - just to be sure.

Any insectoacaricidal drug

To kill ticks, you can use any insectoacaricidal drug from a veterinary pharmacy. Drugs in this group are aimed at destroying animal parasites, including bedbugs. So any of them will work. For animals, double treatment with an interval of 10 days is recommended. For an apartment with a high degree of infestation, more repetitions will be required.

It needs to be processed very carefully. Insects can settle in any fold or crevice.

When choosing, take release forms for large dogs or even larger animals. The concentration of active substances in them will be sufficient to quickly kill insects. Sprays are the most convenient. With their help, you can apply the drug even to the farthest corners. Upholstered furniture can be processed point by point, but make at least 2-3 “points” per square meter. At the same time, it is better to apply more of the drug into all possible cracks (between the railing and the seat, in the cracks of the frame, in the folds of the upholstery, etc.). Don’t forget that ventilation also needs to be treated. You can put rags soaked in the product there. To guarantee, it is better to carry out several “extra” treatments.

Bedbugs will turn you into an itchy paranoid

Each bug comes out to eat regularly once a week. It leaves a trail of bites on a person - from three to eight, but depending on your luck. If you are completely unlucky and you are allergic to bedbugs, each bite will swell like a healthy pie, like after a Mantoux test. Most often, their bites are similar to mosquito bites, but they itch many times more. In addition to the itching, there is also a burning sensation, as if you fell from a bicycle into nettles. And the main bonus is that bedbugs love to bite fingers and hands, the most unpleasant places for bites in principle.

A newly hatched bug immediately goes for blood, otherwise it will not be able to grow

Each bite lasts about two weeks. At the beginning of a relationship with bedbugs, there will be only a few of them - not a tragedy. But at the peak of the war I had more than a hundred of them. Arms, legs, feet, back and even neck were bitten. All this burned, itched and aesthetically looked rather creepy. It is almost impossible not to scratch the affected areas. I had to get a soft hair brush to comb it neatly. Well, spend some money on soothing ointments, but these are minor things.

At some point, bedbugs become so overwhelming that you start looking for them everywhere. You check your legs and arms every minute to see if a bug is running? Every breath of summer breeze that tickles your skin becomes a signal: it’s a bug! It’s difficult to get rid of this paranoia - I feel like it will stay with me for a long time.

Situation 4. Bedbugs disappear for a long time (more than a month), but then appear again

Here we are almost certainly talking about re-infestation of the premises: bedbugs are either brought by people in their belongings or with furniture, or they themselves crawl into the apartment from neighboring premises. For more than a month, live bedbugs will not sit in a room where people constantly spend the night without biting their victims, and if there was such a long period of no bites, it means that there were no bedbugs in the apartment at that time.

In this situation, repeated disinfestation is required immediately after identifying bedbugs that have again entered the apartment.

Bedbugs have to be poisoned - preparing for this process is similar to a search

In theory, everything is simple. The master will come and fill your home with a fog that kills all living things. In places where bedbugs are most likely to live, powdered poison will also be poured. But before the master arrives, you need to literally pack your whole life. All clothes (they will definitely have to be washed) and books, CDs, small equipment - everything is in bags. TV, computer, consoles - everything needs to be hidden. Move the furniture away. It is advisable to tear off the baseboards. And God forbid you have an old house with wooden floors: it is likely that you will have to remove the covering and then fill all the cracks with sealant.

With God's help, one treatment may be enough. But more often this procedure has to be repeated two or three times with a difference of a couple of weeks. The best part is that the bedbugs don’t die right away, but you can’t move out of the apartment. Surviving parasites must come out and come into contact with the poison. You literally have to sacrifice your flesh to them. Each treatment will cost about three thousand rubles, but it’s impossible to calculate the nerves spent. For an ideal result, you need to persuade the neighbors above, below and on the floor to do the same exterminatus - good luck!

I was especially lucky: although two treatments reduced the number of bedbugs, they did not kill them completely. And this is a normal phenomenon; back in the mid-1990s, American scientists reported that they were finding more and more colonies of bedbugs that were generally immune to most poisons - that’s evolution for you. I was absolutely sure that they lived in the sofa and even found one of them under the armrest - with beetle shit and chitin dropped by nymphs. As a result, we had to take extreme measures, but statistics say that they are required in approximately half of the cases.

I've been sleeping on an air mattress for a couple of weeks now because of bedbugs.

I threw the sofa in the trash. An absolutely beautiful sofa that was only three years old. There was only one alternative - to remove all the upholstery and find the nests, but it was cheaper to throw it away.

If bedbugs remain in the apartment, they will happily set up a colony in the new sofa (and new sofas can come from the factory with their own bedbugs - this happens). Therefore, a strategic decision was made to buy an air mattress for a while. If parasites are still living in the house, they will almost certainly soon be found under the mattress. But so far they are not visible, and the bites have finally passed. After I threw out the couch, I only caught a couple of bugs in the first two days - perhaps they came from the couch itself while I was tearing it apart and tearfully kicking it to get it into the elevator.

The war lasted all of August and now seems over, but I am not relaxing. A control treatment is planned for the near future - the room will already be devoid of baseboards and linoleum, just to be sure. And only then will I decide to add a new sofa to the house. I wish you never to face this misfortune!

Check your washing machine before use

If you're traveling, you may need to use a public laundry for your washing machine. It is worth remembering that bedbugs can live in such cars. Before you put your items in the drum, carefully inspect the inside of the machine using a flashlight. This will help you make sure there are no bugs left inside from the clothes of previous laundry users.