How Well Do Bed Bug Bombs Work

How Well Do Bed Bug Bombs Work

Bed bug bombs come in different forms. You can purchase them at hardware stores and grocery stores. Or, if you’re willing to spend a little more money, you could buy them online. When bed bugs are in every crevice of your home, it can be hard to believe that this one product will get rid of them. With all the different types of bed bug bombs for sale, you’ll want to know the truth about these products before you make a commitment to using one.

Bed bug bombs can be an effective way of eliminating bed bugs. They do require the use of a professional for their application, which can sometimes be costly.

How Well Do Bed Bug Bombs Work

How Well Do Bed Bug Bombs Work?

Bed bug bombs are a popular way to treat bed bugs. This is because they’re a relatively new product and they use materials that are not yet regulated by the EPA. The quality of these products is also questionable, as there aren’t any regulations on how they’re made.

However, bed bug bombs do work. They can get rid of bed bugs in your home, but you should be careful about how you use them and what kind of product you purchase.

Bed bug bombs are a product that uses chemical insecticides to kill bed bugs. These bombs are manufactured to be placed under the bed or near the bed. They are placed in an enclosed space or room and then detonated, which releases the insecticides into the air. The insecticide then settles on surfaces and kills the bed bugs wherever they are hiding.

The effectiveness of a bed bug bomb depends on the type of chemical used, how much is released into the air, and how well it settles onto surfaces. Some chemicals work better than others when it comes to killing bed bugs, but even if a chemical is not very effective at killing bed bugs, it may still be useful for preventing infestations from happening again in the future.

How Well Do Bed Bug Bombs Work

Bed bugs are difficult to remove from your home. On the face of it, they are a potent insecticide spray that will kill any bed bug that breathes it in the toxic fumes, at a fraction of the price of hiring a pest control company. That’s why bed bug bombs have become so popular.

Bed bug bombs do kill bed bugs, because they contain reasonably effective insecticides (pyrethrins). However, they don’t succeed at completely removing bed bug infestations. That’s because they don’t kill eggs, and because many juveniles and adults will be able to hide away from the toxic spray.

Of course, you can still use them, and they’ll kill a significant part of your bed bug infestation. Just don’t think that they’ll solve the problem in its entirety overnight, because they won’t. There are also other disadvantages of bed bug bombs that you need to know.

Bed Bug Bomb Ingredients

Bed bug bombs typically contain one of many chemicals, which are known insecticides. The exact chemicals used varies by brand, but they usually contain pyrethrins. Specifically, they often contain permethrin, which is one chemical in the pyrethrin family.

Pyrethrins are synthetic chemicals that are based on extracts from the chrysanthemum flower. They were first synthesized in 1973. It’s a popular insecticide that’s especially useful against fleas, mosquitos and other small pests. That’s why you can find them in cat flea collars and other similar applications. You can buy permethrin and other pyrethrins as liquids, powders, and aerosols. In the U.S., the lice treatment Nix contains permethrin.

Permethrin can kill all sorts of animals, including people, although some animals are more susceptible to it than others. In particular, insects are highly susceptible to it because their bodies can’t neutralize it and make it safe easily. Permethrin works in many ways. It affects any insect that ingests it, but even touching it can kill them. It affects their nervous system, causing uncontrollable muscle spasms. It eventually leads to paralysis and death.

Permethrin is used to treat scabies, as part of a cream. Studies on creams like these suggest that only 0.5 or 1% of the permethrin is absorbed through the skin. Even if ingested or breathed in, it’s metabolized in the liver. It goes through a chemical process there which renders it harmless, before it’s excreted in urine. However, that doesn’t mean you can stand around breathing in bed bug bomb fumes.

How Does a Bed Bug Bomb Work?

When you use a fogger, it works like this:

1. You place the canister in the room you’d like to use it in. Ideally, place it close to the bed bugs’ main harborage (where most of them live, e.g., under your mattress).
2. Activate the canister and leave the room. You may even have to leave the building entirely, depending on how strong the insecticide is.
3. Wait for however long it says you should on the canister. This varies with the strength of the bed bug bomb.
4. When you go back in, air the room out to make sure that any residual fumes are released from the room.

During the time you spend outside the room, any bed bugs out in the open—or at least that were relatively exposed—will have died. That’s because foggers work best on contact. However, the chemicals in the fogger will hang around for a while; any bed bug that scuttles around that night trying to find you, for example, will get a significant dose too. That’s why the army treats their new uniforms with permethrin, because it can deter mosquitos and other insects long-term.

Do Bed Bug Bombs Work?

Bed bug bombs are ineffective at killing bed bugs. That’s not to say that they don’t work at all, because there’s evidence that they can kill bed bugs. However, there are better, more effective ways to kill bed bugs out there.

Why don’t they work as well as other products? Because of how well bed bugs can hide. Bed bugs are experts when it comes to wriggling into cracks, crevices, and other tiny spaces. Their bodies are wide, but extremely thin, which means they can slip unnoticed into gaps in furniture, or between the baseboard and the wall, for example.

What does that have to do with bed bug bombs? Well, the ‘fog’ they make doesn’t penetrate these tiny spaces. Sure, it gets pretty much everywhere in the air; but if the bed bug is in a tiny crack in the floorboards, or has hidden in the piping underneath the mattress, then they’re not going to come into contact with any of the insecticide you’re trying to spray them with.

Even worse, because bed bug bombs repel the bed bugs as well as kill them, this can make the infestation harder to kill. That’s because when they smell traces of the insecticide in the air, the bed bugs might scatter: into the wall, underneath the carpet, into the floorboards and other hiding places. From there, they can access other areas of the house, which means that they can infest other rooms as well. And even if you spray the whole house, they might hide in the wall and only come out to feed on you.

Why Bed Bug Bombs Don’t Work

Throughout the past hundred years, pest controllers have been using various substances to try and kill bed bugs. The most popular, historically at least, was DDT. Over time, bed bugs almost became extinct in the U.S. It got to the point where the majority of people had never even seen one—and what a time it was.

Unfortunately, people took to spraying pesticides even when there were no bed bugs present. And when they were found, they were bombed with far more pesticide than was necessary. Of course, this kept numbers down at the time. But over the course of decades, bed bugs gradually became immune to various pesticides.

Bed bug bombs typically contain one of a family of chemicals, pyrethroids/pyrethrins. However, according to the Journal of Economic Entomology, bed bugs are becoming immune to these pesticides too. Most bed bugs collected for scientific studies like these demonstrate at least a partial immunity.

Since most kinds of bed bugs bombs contain pyrethrins or pyrethroids, that explains why they’re not as effective as they could be. Coupled with the fact that bed bugs can hide from the spray itself, and that means that bed bug bombs really aren’t your best choice for tackling an infestation.

List Of How Well Do Bed Bug Bombs Work