How to Get Rid of Bed Bugs Organically

Co-authored by Chikezie Onyianta

Last Updated: February 8, 2024 Approved

As anyone who has been the victim of bed bug infestation will tell you, getting rid of these little blood-sucking vampires is just as difficult to deal with as the actual thought of these horrific bugs crawling all over your body and in your bed while you sleep at night, sucking your blood out for their own sustenance. This guide will tell you how to get rid of these monsters in a simple, cheap, non-toxic, and effective manner that won't involve several bug bombings of the furniture closest to your body. This is also a great method for people who cannot afford to just toss out their mattress and buy a new one; and even if you do that, you would still want to do everything on this list as that will more than likely not be the only hiding place for these pests.

Part 1

Part 1 of 4:

Clearing the Clutter

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Organize any clutter or mess in your home as well as you possibly can. It is always easier to isolate the problem and work in a clean environment. And don't assume that just because your house is clean/dirty, that is the reason you have an infestation. Bed bugs are an epidemic, and they prefer any environment that houses a warm, living body for them to feed on, including your pets. Your personal cleanliness has nothing to do with it. Bed bugs do like to hide in piles of laundry and (surprise) your bed, bed-skirt, and box spring. They will make it into couch cushions and blankets, and whatever else they can. More often than not, though, they are coming in through a hole, opening, or crack somewhere.^{[1]
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Clean everything thoroughly.
- Wash any and all exposed clothing, bedding, cushions, fabric, etc. in as hot water as the fabric can stand, and use bleach if possible on anything that you can. A color-safe bleach would be perfect for this purpose.^{[2]
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- Vacuum and mop the carpets and floors. Use bleach on the floor first and then use the water/alcohol solution to spray and mop it down after. Wipe down any surfaces that can handle the water/alcohol solution without suffering any damage as a result.
- If possible, bag up anything you cannot wash with an airtight seal and put it outside (if you live somewhere that temperatures are freezing, somewhere in the snow, or if not, put it somewhere that may expose them to heat but will not damage the bag or the item you have inside it; you are trying to cut off their air supply and kill them with extreme temperature).
- When in doubt, throw it out (if you have the means to do so).
- If there's anything else not mentioned yet, just clean it at the very least with very hot water or freezing.

Part 2

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Preventing Climbing

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Isolate your bed from the wall. That is, move it away from the wall(s) so that there is no direct contact between your bed and said wall(s) (and therefore, no longer an easy route to your sweet, succulent blood). Cover the bed in the mattress cover (if you have one), and if your bed is on a frame or raised from the ground in some other fashion and can handle petroleum jelly on its surface, cover the legs of your frame with the petroleum jelly; these insects cannot fly and, therefore, must crawl to whatever height they reach. If there's a good bit of jelly on there, they'll get stuck and you can just wipe them off and reapply as needed.^{[3]
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Research source} For more tips, see How to Avoid Insect Bites While Sleeping.
- Make sure to keep your bed at least 1–2 feet (0.3–0.6 m) away from everything, including the wall, nightstand, books, etc. Your bed should be surrounded by space only.
- "Climb Up Insect Interceptor Cups" can be placed beneath beds that have four legs. The cups have two rings inside; the bug climbs into the outer ring, which is coated in a fine dust (don't inhale it) and becomes stuck there permanently, unable to grip on to the slippery sides to climb into the second ring where the leg of your bed is standing.
- Make sure the leg of the bed is high enough off the ground so that bed bugs can't reach.
- Make sure no bed sheet or comforter ever touches the floor or you will still get bitten and have to wash everything all over again.
- Make sure you never put something that was sitting on the floor on the bed if you don't want to wash everything again.
- Bed bugs can climb up any object, including the ceiling and fall onto your bed. If your infestation is severe they will even fall down from the ceiling. In that case, it's time to call the exterminator.

Part 3

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Killing the Bedbugs

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Sprinkle food grade diatomaceous earth into and onto any cracks, holes, openings, or anywhere else that is dry that you feel may be the entry point for the bed bugs invading your home. Diatomaceous earth is an ingredient in most of the bombs aimed at bed bugs; the shards of the shell (or powder) are microscopically sharp and puncture the thin, waxy, exoskeletons of these night-feeding demons, causing them to dehydrate and die, our eventual goal in all of this.^{[4]
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You may also want to consider wearing more clothing when you sleep as well; and ladies, pull your hair back or put it in something because they will crawl into loose hair. Anything you can do to prevent them from getting to you, do it! Although bedbugs don't carry disease, and for most people, the bites are unnoticeable, for some they itch, and itch, and itch. Bedbugs can bite you anywhere.
Kill any you see on contact and be prepared to deal with blood stains on your bedding, so you may want to change it. In fact, the small blood stains left as a result of rolling over and killing them is often what makes a lot of people realize they have a bed bug infestation in the first place. One place you may want to look at closely is in the folds of the bed-skirt. The last of them should die off in about a week, possibly two. But it may happen sooner than that; it all depends on the severity of the infestation.^{[5]
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Part 4

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Ensuring The End of The Infestation

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This is to remove any dead bugs lying around and just as another precautionary measure in case there were still some eggs or baby blood-suckers that made it through the initial phase of cleaning. They will get vacuumed up very easily.^{[6]
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Wash everything where a bed bug can potentially hide.^{[7]
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You can't wash these in the laundry machine, so wrap them up with a protector that has a bed bug-proof zipper that will seal any existing bed bugs inside and prevent any new ones from crawling in.

How Do You Get Rid Of Bed Bugs?

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Will heat kill bed bugs?

Chikezie Onyianta
Pest Control Specialist
Chikezie Onyianta is a Pest Control Specialist and the Owner of EcoFusion Pest Control, serving communities in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York. With over 5 years of experience, he specializes in pest control in both residential and commercial spaces. A graduate of Essex County College, Chikezie and EcoFusion assist in rodent, roach, and ant pest control as well as bed bug services.

Chikezie Onyianta

Pest Control Specialist

Expert Answer

Yes, you can use a heat gun to target areas with a lot of bed bugs to quickly kill them. Using a heat gun is better than heating up the whole room since it's faster and doesn't give the bed bugs time to escape.

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What is in the alcohol mixture?

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You should use rubbing alcohol, and rub it all over to get rid of the bed bugs.

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Does moisturizer prevent bedbugs from biting?

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Any cream or sticky substance that creates a barrier can help. The goal is to prevent the bed bug from biting.

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Tips

Put tape around the foot of your bed. ALL the way around. Next you want to put Delta Dust or Moth Balls on the floor of your home.

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Also, if you are going to bomb, make sure to separate the mattress and box spring by standing them up apart from each other and preferably against a wall. They will really come out then and it will be easy to come in and either kill them by hand or grab some of the alcohol (use a more concentrated version this time) or the direct aerosol bed bug spray and hit them with it.

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They will crush with very little effort or force, but be careful when squishing them; they will squirt blood out (and it's probably yours).

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Warnings

Bed bugs are one of the hardest infestations to get rid of. It's possible that the infestation you are battling is beyond the scope of your capabilities and it may be best to call an exterminator if it continues despite repeated treatments and offensive attacks.

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If the bedbugs keep on coming out of the same mattress, throw it out because it's not safe.

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Be careful of the shell powder with babies and pets crawling around the house. Make sure that you don't place it anywhere that they might readily get into it or inhale it. The cracks, the baseboards, door jams, etc. should all be pretty safe but if any area you suspect is right out there in the open, make sure you monitor who's going near it.

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Things You'll Need

Bleach
Alcohol/water solution (you can add a few drops of tea tree oil if you are so inclined; it makes the solution smell better and tea tree oil itself has anti-bacterial properties.)
Diatomaceous earth.
Plastic, seal-able mattress cover(s), if you can afford to do so that is; air-tight is what we're looking for so that we can cut off the bugs' air supplies, and contain the ones that are already present so that they may no longer continue their vampiric rampage.
Petroleum jelly (for those whose bed is raised)