Personally, I have not encountered bed bugs in my adult life yet, knock on wood I wouldn’t ever ! I said adult life because when I was a child one of my aunt’s apartments got a bed bugs problem. One of the things my uncle did was get pet turtles to roam around the house and eat all the bed bugs away. I am not sure if it worked but it was fun to see turtles all over the place as a kid.
I posted the question on my personal Facebook to ask friends if they have encountered bed bugs and what they do to get rid of it and one of them answered another bizarre way old people do things back in the day.
Azrael Colladilla said what he was told was to put the infested area near a goat or bring a goat at home! OMG! But going back to my childhood I also remember my Uncle having goats, was it because of bed bugs too? I am not sure.
All I know is when we have special occasions all sorts of animals get slaughtered to feast on. Imagine a great big fat Greek Wedding kind of thing going. There are cows, pigs, chickens, goats, and hmmm sometimes dogs (yes dogs and that was decades ago when it wasn’t illegal and you know exotic taste buds eeeks!) I never ate dog btw I just can’t ! I just saw everything get slaughtered, roasted, and chopped.
Anyway, back to DIY bed bugs solutions. According to my friends on Facebook the top DIY hacks to keep bed bugs away is exposing the infested item in the sunlight !
You may read the discussion here
Anyway, I did some digging and stumbled upon Pest Advisors articles on bed bugs https://www.pestadvisors.com/bed-bugs/ and they said that these pests don’t like heat and so exposing the item infested on sunlight will definitely work!
DIY Hacks to Keep Bed Bugs Away that works
- Expose infested items on sunlight.
- Clean infested items and douse with warm to even boiling water to kill pests.
- If it’s clothing or fabrics that are washable you should run them through a hot wash and hot dryer cycle.
- If the item is not machine washable, make sure to place the item in a vacuum-sealed bag. But be warned that bed bugs can survive up to a year without a meal! Eeeks!
- When all else fail, burn infested item and buy a new one. Replace it, honey, because you can be carrying the pests anywhere you go. They can live in purses, clothing and laundry, travel bags, and secondhand upholstered furniture.
To get rid of these pests you need to understand their nature.
How long do bed bugs live
Bed bugs have five distinct live stages, beginning as a nymph, and ending as a fully developed adult. Molting requires a lot of energy, so each stage transition requires a full blood meal to complete.
- Eggs (1mm in length). Eggs take about 10-15 days to hatch in most home environments.
- 1st stage nymph (1.5 mm in length).
- 2nd stage nymph (2 mm in length).
- 3rd stage nymph (2.5 mm in length).
- 4th stage nymph (3 mm in length).
- 5th stage nymph (4.5 mm in length).
- Adult
Signs of Bed Bugs *
If you are unsure if you have bed bugs or not here’s ways you can find out
- If you see black or rusty fecal deposits that looks kind of like a cluster of dirt specks
- Molted shells: bed bugs shed their skin during each of the five growth stages
- Eggshells: bed bugs colonies can produce hundreds of eggs in a short time, and once the nymphs hatch they leave behind the shell
- Blood spots: their bodies fill with blood while feeding, and when they’re squished they leave small blood spots
*source https://www.pestadvisors.com/bed-bugs/how-to-check-for-bed-bugs/
Bed bugs love humid and cool places so make sure to always clean your homes make sure everything is dry, vacuum as often as you can. Infestation means you don’t clean your house enough to make pests live and thrive. Remember, prevention is better than cure. Always remember to clean up if not every day maybe every other day worst once a week! If you do it often it will become a part of your habit and less daunting to do.
