Before we can solve your bed bug problem, we have to bust a very popular bed bug myth.
Okay, that may be a little strongly worded. Occasionally, people do succeed at eliminating bed bugs on their own. But this is usually due to catching an infestation very early on, or because the person in question wasn’t exactly an amateur at treating pest problems, and had the resources and techniques necessary to knock bed bugs out.
But, for the majority of people out there, do-it-yourself methods tend to fail more often than not. But that doesn’t do anything to diminish the popularity of would-be DIY bed bug exterminators. There are hundreds of sites on the Internet describing DIY ways to kill bed bugs. Some of the more popular methods include:
This is going to require a bit of a history lesson, but we’ll minimize the pin and keep it brlief.
Bed bugs used to be a huge problem, even in “modern” countries like the United States. They were just as common as fleas and ants. Some studies from the time found that one-third of all homes in the United States had bed bugs, and some neighborhoods had a 100% infestation rate, especially in large cities. The development of the vacuum cleaner in the early 1900s definitely helped, but bed bugs were still everywhere. The only insecticides that had been discovered were just as good at killing people. There was no easy way to kill bugs.
Bed bug extermination was extremely dangerous in the late 1800s through the 1930s. The most effective fumigant of the time was hydrogen cyanide. Seriously. It may come as no surprise that accidental deaths were extremely common, even amongst professional exterminators. To give you some idea of the toxicity of the cyanide treatments, one of the most popular insecticide brands in the world was called… Zyklon B. You may know it better for its role in the Holocaust. But Zyklon B was used widely for insect control purposes in the United States, and was manufactured in the US by American Cyanamid up until 1943 (American Cyanamid is better known for creating and selling Pine-Sol up through the late 1980s).
Despite the widespread use of the exceptionally powerful poisons being used at the time, bed bugs were still common in the US through the 1940s. Then, bed bugs disappeared. By the late 50s, finding a bed bug was like stumbling over a dodo bird. Why? What happened?
DDT happened. DDT was developed in the 1870s, but for decades it was an obscure, forgotten compound. Its insecticidal potential wasn’t discovered until 1939. This was such a big deal that the guy who figured out that DDT could kill bugs was awarded a Nobel prize. DDT was amazingly good at wiping out just about every type of insect you could think of, including bed bugs. DDT was everywhere in the ’40s. It was in TV advertisements and magazines. DDT trucks sprayed cities and neighborhoods as people walked through the insecticidal fog. To be fair, it worked. Bed bugs went away, and they stayed away.
It’s safe to say that more than 99.9% of the bed bugs in the United States were wiped out. But we’re talking about a species that probably has billions or trillions of individuals worldwide. They’re a tenacious species, and they found places to hide from DDT. There is evidence that bed bugs survived in particularly isolated communities in the United States and Europe, as well as in, of all things, chicken coops. While crops were routinely sprayed with pesticide, poultry went unnoticed as an oasis for small populations of bed bugs. There’s a lot of genetic evidence discovered in recent studies which indicates that, rather than a small handful of bed bug populations surviving in a geographic area, that there was a large, widely distributed population of bed bugs that survived during the 1940s-1980s, for one reason or another.
While these isolated populations of bed bugs went unnoticed, a very few bugs in the line of fire of DDT just… didn’t die. Bed bugs, like every other creature on earth, are occasionally born with random genetic mutations. Most genetic mutations are harmful, or just do nothing. But, somewhere, a bed bug was born with a mutation that made it much, much more tolerant of DDT. And this didn’t just happen once. Currently, we know of two separate genetic mutations that give bed bugs an immunity to DDT. These very lucky bed bugs crossed paths with the lucky bed bugs that just happened to avoid DDT, and together they produced babies that carried one of the mutations, or the other (and actually, many bed bugs now carry both mutations). This didn’t just happen with bed bugs–many countries that wiped out the mosquitoes that carried malaria soon became infested with DDT-resistant mosquitoes. As a result, we know that at least two DDT-resistant populations developed during this period, though the evidence suggests that it actually happened simultaneously in dozens or hundreds of locations worldwide. Bed bugs are serious competition for cockroaches when it comes to the question of what species will be the last one left on the planet.
While all of this was going on, countries around the world figured out that DDT was bad for a lot of animals. But, unfortunately, it was found that while DDT wasn’t as immediately toxic to animals and people when compared to the old powerful poisons, it was still unacceptably hazardous. Over a period of several years, the pesticide was banned around the world. Today, India is the only country in the world that still manufactures DDT.
The loss of this game changing insecticide necessitated the search for replacements. Quickly, alternatives were discovered and ended up in just about every bug spray imaginable. The vast majority of pesticides we now use rely on active ingredients that called pyrethrins (organic compounds originally derived from Chrysanthemum flowers), and pyrethroids, which are just artificial chemicals that work the same way as pyrethrins. But here’s the problem: while many of the insecticides we now use are much safer, they are toxic to insects in the same way that DDT was. The way that they kill insects is more or less identical to how DDT did the trick.
This means that the few surviving bed bugs weren’t just immune to the now-banned DDT… they were immune to the major pesticides that were used in the decades after DDT. This meant that when these resistant bed bugs slowly started making their way back into the world, their populations were small enough that they didn’t draw special attention, and they weren’t killed by common treatments for other insects. Somewhere between the late ’90s and 2004 or so, bed bug numbers hit a point where the population simply exploded. While it’s not a big deal for a very small number of bed bugs to produce a second generation with 10 or 20 times as many bugs, say, growing from 10 bed bugs to 100 or 200 bed bugs, a few thousand bed bugs spread across the country suddenly became millions of bed bugs.
That’s where we stand now with bed bugs. There has been some investigation into the use of special pesticides known as insect growth regulators. While initial studies were promising, it’s starting to become evident that they don’t kill enough bed bugs to make a significant dent in the population. In fact, there’s some data that indicates that the bed bugs that survive exposure to growth regulators reproduce more quickly than typical bed bugs. And bed bugs haven’t just changed on a genetic level. Today’s bed bugs are more robust, with thicker cuticles (exoskeletons) that not only make them more resistant to pesticides, but also to non-toxic insecticides such as diatomaceous earth.
While some commonly available pesticides and green products do have an effect on bed bugs, they only act as an irritant that bothers them (Celine Dion may be annoying, but her music won’t kill you). These irritants, also known as dispersants, don’t kill bed bugs. Bed bugs simply look around until they find hiding places that haven’t been sprayed. When push comes to shove, they’ll happily deal with the annoyance of mildly bothersome chemicals, as long as there’s a tasty human to feed off of.
This is why it’s absolutely necessary to get help from a professional bed bug exterminator. We know you want to get rid of those bed bugs sooner rather than later. If you’re ready to see how the pros kill bed bugs, take a look at our overview of how pest control services get rid of bed bugs.
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