Four Bed Bug Weaknesses That Can Wipe Them Out Permanently
With so many beneficial adaptations in their favor, it's easy to see how bedbugs have spread to such prolific success. They can lay 12 eggs a day, survive for weeks without eating and are resistant to most pesticides in use today. Their ability to hide away, multiply and travel has made them nearly impossible to stop, but these invasive pests do have a few weaknesses for luckless homeowners to exploit. These five biological chinks in a bed bug's armor can make all the difference when you are trying to permanently destroy a colony.
Dehydration
Bed bugs are covered in a specialized, waxy coating that prevents water from leaving their bodies too quickly. Without it, they dehydrate and die within a few hours. Pest control experts can take advantage of this weakness by spreading diatomaceous earth or a powder derived from soy beans along the floors and ledges of your home. Any bedbug that walks through these substances is fatally injured, and it may live long enough to carry more harmful dust back to its colony. This is an especially promising way to eliminate bed bugs, because they cannot develop a resistance to it like they can with pesticides.
Sustained Heat
One key to bed bugs' rapid march across North America is their durability, allowing them to withstand both the hottest summer days and the coldest winter nights. But even the toughest bug can't function at extreme temperatures for long, which is why heat treatments have become such a popular option to dispose of them. By blasting bed bugs with steam or heating an entire room up to their terminal temperature of approximately 140 degrees, you can effectively cook your unwelcome visitors and their eggs, wherever they are hiding.
Freezing Temperatures
Bed bugs also exhibit vulnerabilities at the other end of the temperature scale. Although they are more resistant to cold than heat, bed bugs will eventually succumb to freezing temperatures. It may be too expensive to deep chill a room for days on end, but this can be a helpful way to kill any bugs hiding in small items such as books or clothing. By leaving the suspicious object in your freezer for several days to a week, you can rest assured that no new bugs will enter your home or hide to emerge again later.
Bean Leaves
Originally a traditional folk remedy hailing from Eastern Europe, kidney bean leaves are now receiving scientific attention as a legitimate means to trap and kill bed bugs. The tiny barbs, or trichomes, found on bean leaves are perfectly shaped to stab their way through a bed bug's exoskeleton, ensnaring their legs and leaving them unable to escape. The leaves can then be removed and burned in the morning. If you do not relish the idea of covering your floor in foliage, synthetic treatments that mimic the trichomes of bean leaves are in development and may become commercially available soon.
For more help fighting bed bugs, contact a company that specializes in pest control in Victoria.
Share
