Looking at the variety of traps for cockroaches and ants, a resident of a city apartment suffering from an invasion of bed bugs often tries to find similar traps for bugs on sale. Usually such searches end in nothing: there are very few such bedbug traps, and those that are commercially available turn out to be much less effective than their counterparts in the fight against, for example, cockroaches.
The reason that bed bug traps are practically not produced is that the bugs themselves are very difficult to attract to such a trap. With cockroaches and ants, such a problem is not even worth it - they actively run to sweet, salty, water and any food products. Their vulnerability in this case lies in their omnivorous nature.
Bed bugs feed only on human blood, and no treats can attract them into a trap. In addition, they find their prey - a sleeping person - not by one single smell, but by a whole combination of aromas that cannot be imitated by affordable and simple products.
That is why those bedbug traps that you can buy today for crazy money are so difficult to use and manufacture.
But at the same time, if not for complete destruction, then at least for a partial fight against bed bugs, you can quite successfully use the simplest insect traps that work without involving them.
Sticky tape in the fight against bedbugs?
Special Velcro traps are widely known and popular in the fight against moths, cockroaches, flies and house ants. For each pest, such traps have their own shape.
For example, to fight flies, this is an unwinding reel, from which a piece of tape is cut off and hung from the ceiling.
For the fight against bedbugs, sticky tapes from cockroaches are more suitable in the form of sheets of thick cardboard with a special glue that does not dry out for a long time applied to its surface.
They are convenient for placement under bedside tables and in places where cockroaches often move.
Such traps against bedbugs should be used taking into account the specific behavior and habitat of these parasites:
- Glue sheets are placed inside beds and sofas where people sleep. There should be free space above them so that the traps themselves do not stick to furniture surfaces. It is advisable to check the traps frequently and place them where the bugs are found in the greatest numbers.
- Several traps should be placed under the legs of the bed - with a high probability, some of the bedbugs in the house hide in other furniture and climb onto the bed at night along the legs. If the bugs bite at night, but no one sticks to such traps near the legs, then, most likely, the parasites hide in the very bed on which the residents of the room sleep, and to attack at night they simply move from the mattress to sleeping people.In this case, you should take the main step ...
- Completely surround all the legs of the bed with bedbug traps and move to sleep on other beds or sofas for several nights - up to two weeks. If they are not, on the floor. In a few days, bed bugs will get hungry and, guided by the smell, in droves will try to move from the bed surrounded by traps to a new place for people to spend the night. Since they can't fly and can only climb down the legs of the bed, they'll all get stuck on Velcro.
And one more thing: it is generally accepted that if you leave the apartment for a long time, then all the bugs will die of hunger. Let's see if bedbugs can still eat something and how long they can live without human blood
On a note
At normal room temperature, bed bugs feed every 4-5 days.This should be remembered when developing a strategy for their destruction.
It is only important to remember that such an operation should be carried out for at least 10-12 days, until young larvae hatch from the eggs laid in the old mattress and go down from the bed to the traps in search of food.
The disadvantage of this method of getting rid of bedbugs is its duration. In addition, if the bugs in the house live both on the bed and in other secluded places, in order to completely exterminate them, the new sleeping place must be surrounded by a continuous ring of traps. This, in general, is inexpensive - you can buy one such trap for bedbugs for about 5 rubles - but troublesome, and will cause some inconvenience if the person himself accidentally steps on such Velcro at night.
On the other hand, the advantages of this method of removing bedbugs are low cost and safety. No poisons, no complicated mechanisms. Only safe means.
A really effective trap for bedbugs: the principle of operation
A more technologically sophisticated, but also much more advanced bedbug trap is offered by the American company Nuvenco. The unit produced by it is a large vessel with liquid CO2 - carbon dioxide, connected by a tube to a special umbrella, which is installed on the floor.
The principle of operation of this trap is that the bugs are attracted to it by a common product of human respiration - carbon dioxide. Scientists believe that CO2, exhaled by a sleeping person, is a guide for bugs going hunting. Accordingly, if evaporating carbon dioxide constantly escapes under a plastic umbrella, it attracts bedbugs, which believe that this is a sleeping person.
This trap is called the Bed Bug Beacon. It has the following characteristics:
- the volume of the vessel with carbon dioxide is 0.5 liters
- umbrella diameter - 15 cm
- the total weight is about a kilogram.
The trap is set in places where bedbugs move most often - near beds, in wardrobes, along the edge of carpets.
The downside of the Bed Bug Beacon is only the attraction of bedbugs - after getting into the umbrella, they simply remain in it, not knowing where to crawl further. You need to destroy them yourself. To do this, usually insects are poured into the toilet.
And further: The Get Express tool really killed all the bugs quickly - after 42 minutes only corpses were lying around
It is interesting
Today, inventors are trying to use odorous substances secreted by the bugs themselves in traps of this type to attract individuals of their own species. These devices are still only going through the experimental stage, but they are already giving encouraging results: a concentrated bug attractant should be more attractive to insects than the smell of a sleeping person.
A few more traps work on a similar principle. For example, a more cumbersome NightWatch Bed Bug Trap and Monitor trap for bedbugs, which, in addition, also allows using a night vision device to notice parasites simply moving around it.
It is quite difficult to buy a trap for bedbugs of a similar design today. Domestic manufacturers do not produce them, the Chinese have not yet launched the production of cheap analogs, and the original device from the USA costs about $50 for the Bed Bug Beacon and $350 for the NightWatch Bed Bug Trap and Monitor. The cost of delivery depends on the conditions of the online store and may exceed the price of the trap itself.
Industrial specialized traps from bedbugs
Some sanitary and epidemiological stations have bedbug traps in their arsenal, the principle of which is to build special houses in which bedbugs try to hide, as if in shelters.
Inside such houses there are plates with contact action insecticides, after sitting in which the parasites are poisoned.
The effectiveness of this kind of traps is extremely low. Bed bugs are very conservative in their choice of shelters, and just like that, they won’t get into the trap en masse. In addition, the likelihood that even the slightest bit of a significant part of the parasites will simply find such a trap is also quite low. It is not surprising that exterminators prefer to use a more dangerous, but reliable method to combat bedbugs - treating the premises with insecticides.
Homemade traps for detecting bedbugs in the house
Such traps are intended not so much to fight bedbugs, but to detect them and identify their hiding places. They are made according to two main schemes:
- Two cardboard glasses are taken from McDonald's or from Mivina, one is smaller, the other is larger. Powdered sugar is poured into a large glass at the very bottom and vegetable oil is dripped. Once in such a mixture, the bug loses the opportunity to get out of the glass. A small glass is placed in a large one, and the leg of the bed on which people sleep is placed in a small glass. A similar design is being prepared for all the legs of the bed.
- A plastic plate is taken, talc is poured into it, and its edges are smeared with graphite grease. One such plate is placed under the leg of the bed.
Detection and identification of bedbugs occurs in the same way as when using Velcro.In general, sticky traps are much easier to use, and it makes sense to play with glasses and saucers when there are no such sticky traps on sale.
In general, such devices have the right to life and can help in the fight against bedbugs. But if a resident of an apartment wants to get rid of bedbugs quickly and without much hassle, it is easier and more efficient for him to call a team of exterminators or use an effective insecticidal agent on his own.
How can you get rid of bedbugs yourself and what nuances should be taken into account
And this is what bed bugs and their larvae actually look like
Hello! We recently bought an apartment, after a month and a half, insect bites began to appear on the child, she itched. At first they thought that someone was biting in the garden, but then they found a bug. Further more. They called exterminators, went to the laundry. At night there were few of them, in two days - an army of different ages. Called other exterminators. Everything happened again.We treated ourselves with dichlorvos - again a zero result, since we found few dead ones, but a lot of bites. Now they began to appear even during the day. Tell me how to be, what to do?
Buy your house. There is nothing to get rid of this mess.
Spill everything with boiling water, and you will forget about them forever, because by pouring boiling water on them, you kill not only adults, but also eggs. The old folk method, why no one uses it.
Boiling water is useless. We steam once a week. The week is rest. But, apparently, we still miss one or two, and they instantly multiply again.
Yes, they themselves eat 1-2 times a week. And you think you're killing them with the ferry. These creatures can hide where it is even difficult to imagine (
And a building hair dryer to help you. Boiling water will not fill everywhere, but with air of 150 degrees you can blow through almost everything, even sockets.
And at the same time set fire to some tow behind the plinth ...
We got rid of bedbugs with dichlorvos. They treated the room with dichlorvos in the morning. They left the apartment for a day, aired it in the evening. And slept in another room. And in two treatments they disappear, but several rooms are needed so that there is a place to sleep for the duration of the treatment.
We also glued wallpaper, adding dust to the glue. It was efficient. The neighbors had bed bugs, but we didn't. Bedbugs enter the bed from the ceiling. They run up the wall to the ceiling and fall from the ceiling into the bed. Traps on the legs of the beds won't help. Previously, from bedbugs, canopies were hung over beds.