Killing bed bugs by yourself in your house is far from being an easy job. It is made difficult due to their ability to fit their flat oval shaped bodies in the most minute cracks and gaps. This makes actually reaching them to exterminate them extremely difficult.

Therefore, the dilemma is what kills bed bugs?

Well, you are probably aware that there are probably countless products available to you that will get the task done. However, chemical products come with a handful of major draw backs.

1. They can cause future health problems for occupants of a house.

2. These blood sucking bugs have over time acquired resistance to them, making them useless.

Consequently, what kills bed bugs but is 100% non hazardous and safe?

There are lots of techniques you can use here are a number of examples:

HEAT: This in my opinion is simply the most effective option to kill bed bugs in your home and there are a few ways you might go about it.

Steam: Once the infested area has been totally cleared of clutter and everything possible is vacuumed you may get to work with your steam cleaner. It is vital that you devote time and move the steam head over areas such as your bed and soft furnishings carefully, moving inch by inch with the steam cleaner hovering just above the surface. You must always keep the steam head as near as you possibly can to the area undergoing treatment to ensure that the steam temperature remains as high as possible. Hold it too far away and the temperature of the vapor falls which will make it much less effective.

If you're thinking about getting a steam cleaner there are several points you need to bear in mind:

1. Make certain it can reach temperatures over 120 oC.

2. Buy one in which the pressure of steam may be changed. If the steam is released at really high pressure the risk is that you merely blow the bed bugs to a new area of the room!

3. Look for a steam cleaner that generates "dry" vapor. {This is important|This is very important in order to prevent treated things including mattresses for instance becoming very wet and perhaps forming black mold or mildew.

You can find however various other heat treatment methods that can destroy bed bugs.

Clothes dryer: Before you begin any major treatment for bed bugs the initial step usually involves laundering all clothing and bedding from the affected area. Whilst laundering items at high temperatures will certainly clean and freshen them the most crucial step is actually drying in the tumble dryer (do not be tempted to air dry!) The high setting will certainly kill bed bugs at all of the stages of development - even eggs. This is a good way to remove bed bugs from things that should not be laundered, if at all possible just place them in your clothes dryer for around 15 minutes on as high a setting as materials will allow.

What should you do with things that can't be steamed, laundered or tumble dried?

Heat Treatment Device: This is simply a heated container. It is just a case of simply placing items inside like maybe shoes, books, sleeping bags, luggage and so on. switching on and allowing the items to "cook" for a number of hours. You can get these commercially or there are directions for building your own on various internet site.

Still, there are other techniques for eliminating bed bugs you may wish to try which do not include heat:

Bed Bug Traps: You will find a wide selection of these from the pretty complex, expensive ones to the practical, low cost versions. The one I actually like is the "cup" shaped one. The legs of the bed or bits of furniture close to the bed are placed in this "cup" containing crawling pest dust. Bed bugs on the search for a blood dinner crawl up and drop inside and subsequently are unable to get out. The crawling pest dust causes them to dry out and die. It should be mentioned that though this will without any doubt kill bed bugs, used by themselves they will not fix an infestation. They're best utilized as a method of establishing the success of other bed bug treatments.

Crawling Insect Dust: I talked about this being used together with bed bug traps. Having said that, the food quality product is 100% safe for human beings and pets, therefore, you may place a light dusting of this in places in which bed bugs might be hiding out for example. along base boards etc. It is better used in areas where it is least inclined to be disturbed. It will kill bed bugs by working its way between the sections in the bed bugs exoskeleton body, causing them to dry up and perish.

This really is excellent for the treatment of bed bugs however it takes quite a long time before the effects are evident.

Mattress Encasements: These are placed over your mattress (you can get them for box springs and also pillows as well) and will avoid bed bugs getting inside. However, the best use of these as far as I am concerned is to put these on after treatment. Which means any bugs or indeed eggs that have not already been destroyed are going to be trapped and as a consequence can not bite. It must be noted that bed bugs can live for roughly a year without food given the correct conditions therefore mattress encasements will have to be left in position long term.

Alright, so which one of these methods honestly kills bed bugs successfully? To be honest you need to make use of mix of them all in other words. heat, traps,encasements, crawling insect dust along with possibly even a non harmful bed bug spray (make certain you get one which has a residual effect and doesn't just kill on contact.)