In the effort to maintain a bed bug-free environment, many people turn to bed bug sprays as a quick fix. However, the effectiveness of these sprays is often overestimated, leading to frustration and continued infestation.
This comprehensive guide explores why bed bug sprays fall short, and outlines the more effective strategies for eliminating bed bugs.
Incomplete Treatment
Bed bug sprays often fail in commercial environments because they do not reach the entirety of the infestation. These pests are adept at hiding in spaces as thin as a credit card, making them a formidable challenge to find. Spray treatments, including those used by professionals, will not be effective unless you know where all the bed bugs are hiding so you can spray them. Bed bugs could be anywhere, such as in mattresses, cracks, electrical sockets, on curtains, or in furniture.
If you don’t spray them all and ensure 100% elimination they will continue to breed and multiply.
In addition, sprays don’t kill bed bug eggs so any eggs that are present during the treatment will hatch after the treatment and the problem will continue.
You can vacuum up the eggs to get rid of them, but they are the size of a grain of sand, so again very difficult to find by eye.
Pesticide Resistance
One of the most daunting challenges in commercial pest control is bed bugs’ ability to develop resistance to chemical pesticides. This resistance means that even correctly applied treatments may be ineffective, allowing the infestation to continue, even if you have located bed bugs and applied spray directly to them.
Toxicity
Misapplication of bed bug sprays is a common pitfall in commercial settings. Using too little pesticide can be ineffective, while too much can pose health risks without offering additional benefits. Furthermore, not adhering to the recommended treatment schedule can allow bed bugs to rebound between applications. Regardless of how much insecticidal spray is used, would you be comfortable sleeping in a room that had been sprayed with chemicals? For many people the answer is ‘no’, and for a good reason. It’s just not healthy for humans to ingest insecticide and it says so on the packet.
The most effective solutions to bed bugs
Heat treatment
Heat treatment is the gold standard in pest control for eradicating bed bugs. These pests are sensitive to temperature changes, and exposing them to temperatures of at least 50°C for over 90 minutes will kill 100% of bed bugs in the room, 100% of the time. Pest control professionals utilise specialised equipment to heat entire rooms, ensuring that bed bugs at all life stages, from eggs to adults, are completely eliminated.
Heat treatment is a professional service as special heating equipment is needed, coupled with expertise in identifying cold spots in the room, and insect migration.
However, in a domestic setting, you can use a tumble drier on a hot setting to heat clothes and bedding suspected of containing bed bugs, to eliminate them and any eggs that might be there.
However, it’s worth noting that bed bugs might be hiding in other places in the room, that can’t be put in a drier. Such places include, headboards, furnishings, cracks and crevices, wall sockets etc. This is why it’s best to bet professionals to heat the entire room and kill everything inside it.
Learn more about professional heat treatment for bed bugs here.
Sniffer dogs
As mentioned above, one of the main issues with using sprays is that you need to know where all the bed bugs are in order to apply the spray to them.
This is where bed bug sniffer dogs come in.
We use dogs that are trained to find bed bugs by their scent and show human pest controllers where they are hiding. Using dogs we then apply spot-heat treatments directly to the bed bugs without needing to heat the whole room. This method is more affordable than whole-room heat treatment and allows us to effectively treat an entire building quickly.
We don’t use insecticide to treat the bed bugs that the dogs find, because it’s not healthy for the dogs to be around, and it’s not healthy for our customers either.
Our service
As a commercial pest control company our services are available to businesses only. We serve all areas of the UK and Ireland. Get in touch with us if you have a bed bug problem in your business.
