When exposed to what temperature do bedbugs and their eggs die?

Often, even residents of the cleanest apartments notice a chain of bites on their bodies. They can only guess why bedbugs appeared in their apartment. As a rule, their cleaning is carried out systematically and the carpets are knocked out, but parasites still appear and ruin the lives of the residents.

Before starting a protracted battle with parasites and finding out at what temperature a bug dies, it is important to understand where the insects came from. This will help prevent a new invasion in the future.

Reasons for the appearance of bedbugs in an apartment

There are several factors due to which bedbugs can appear even in a sterile apartment:

1. Neighbours. The main “suppliers” of bedbugs are those who live in the neighborhood. Parasites use tiny cracks in ceilings and easily sneak from one apartment to another. The smell of human blood causes bedbugs to move in a vertical direction. They can easily climb up the wall and seep into the vents. Adults are able to withstand long periods of fasting, so climbing to a floor higher or lower is not a problem for them.
2. Pets. Bedbugs often use pets as transport. The blood of animals is not suitable for feeding parasites, so they wait until the animal returns to the apartment. Even one female bedbug is enough for a whole colony of bed bugs to form in the house after a short period.
3. Trips. A business trip or outdoor recreation in a nearby park can cause bedbugs to appear in the house. Simply looking at your clothes won't help. Parasites can hide in the folds and seams of the bag. To protect yourself and your loved ones, it is recommended that you take your items, including your suitcase, to the dry cleaner after returning home.
4. Old furniture. When purchasing used furniture, you cannot be one hundred percent sure that it is not inhabited by a family of bedbugs. It is best to purchase new products, since in plants and factories the parasites lack one thing - people.

Check your washing machine before use

If you're traveling, you may need to use a public laundry for your washing machine. It is worth remembering that bedbugs can live in such cars. Before you put your items in the drum, carefully inspect the inside of the machine using a flashlight. This will help you make sure there are no bugs left inside from the clothes of previous laundry users.

Life expectancy of bedbugs in various conditions

To understand at what temperature a bug dies, it’s worth taking a closer look at their life expectancy. Under the most favorable conditions, the larva turns into a parasite in thirty-five days. A bug can live for about a year.

If the larva develops at high temperatures - from twenty-five to thirty-two degrees, then the process of development of the adult is noticeably reduced. Heat also shortens the parasite's lifespan to ten months.

At temperatures from twenty to twenty-five degrees Celsius, bedbugs live longer - up to fifteen months.

If the ambient temperature drops below plus fifteen degrees, then the larvae stop developing, and the adults fall into suspended animation. They can spend up to eighteen months in this state.

Critical temperatures - a means of combating bedbugs

High temperatures are fatal to bedbugs. But at what temperature does a bug die? Fifty degrees above zero kills him in a few minutes. The life of an individual is reduced to thirty minutes if it finds itself in an environment where the temperature reaches forty-five degrees. The maximum lifespan of a larva is one day.

Bedbugs are also sensitive to cold. Ten degrees below zero causes them to go into suspended animation. Fifteen degrees below zero is fatal for bedbugs. But they die only when this temperature persists for more than three days. Minus twenty degrees – and the bug dies in a few hours. The larvae last for two days and then die.

Steam and boiling water against bedbugs

When you already know at what temperature the bug dies, you can move on to the next step - exterminating them. First you will have to decide which of the two methods to use: exposure to high or low temperatures.

Eliminating bedbugs in an apartment is not the easiest task. Failure to follow all instructions may result in parasites reproducing. But knowing at what temperature bed bugs die, you can completely get rid of them. There are several ways to combat parasites using high temperatures:

• Steam generator. The device allows you to clean any surface from bedbugs. The hot fog created by the generator against bedbugs destroys both larvae and adults.
• Residents can also use a thermal gun, which is used when installing suspended ceilings, to combat bedbugs. Destroying bedbugs in an apartment using a thermal gun takes little time: the air must be heated to sixty degrees and maintained at temperature for thirty minutes.
• You can clean bed linens and clothes from bedbugs by washing. Things must be washed in water at a temperature of ninety degrees.
• How to get rid of bedbugs in an apartment yourself? The answer is simple: ironing. Linen and clothing will need to be ironed on both sides, using the maximum temperature for the items.
• To get rid of bedbugs in baseboards and cracks, you can pour boiling water over the parasites’ habitats.

Prevention measures

The reappearance of parasites in an apartment is due to people’s lack of awareness of measures to combat the penetration of bloodsuckers into living quarters.

Bedbugs only need humans to feed, so the parasite seeks to penetrate their territory. This happens in 3 ways:

1. From the neighbors. It only takes 30 minutes for a bedbug to escape from the adjacent premises through communications, cracks in doors and windows. To prevent this from happening, you will have to negotiate with your neighbors to jointly pay for calling a specialist from the SES. Employees of the sanitary and epidemiological station must get rid of bedbugs crawling out of the basement at the expense of the management company.
2. On the clothes of a person who has been in an apartment infested with blood-sucking creatures. Having noticed an object for migration, bedbugs try to move on it to a new place. After visiting such a premises, all clothing should be removed and washed, and shoes and other items should be treated in a suitable manner. The same advice applies after staying in a hotel or rented apartment.
3. On purchased old things. It is better not to use other people's furniture and household items. But if this happens, the purchased items should be left in the cold for several hours, and in the warm season they should be generously sprayed with special pesticides.

After visiting a property with bedbugs, items should be washed with the highest possible water temperature.

Advantages of high temperatures in the fight against bedbugs

There are many advantages to using high temperatures against bedbugs. Among them:

• Harmless to the human body. Only clean water is used for disinfection.
• Treating surfaces with steam or boiling water is quite simple; this is an excellent answer to the question “how to get rid of bedbugs in an apartment yourself.”
• Water and steam help get rid of insects living in clothes and bedding without using insecticides.

• Steam does not penetrate the cracks.
• It is impossible to clean books from bedbugs.
• Steam may damage electrical appliances.

Insulate the doors

Bed bugs are very small and can get through even small openings, but it is still important to take care of the insulation. This is especially significant for those who live in an apartment building. Use thick plastic covers on the bottom of the door to keep your home insect-proof.

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Low temperatures and freezing

Having figured out at what sub-zero temperature bedbugs die, you can begin to destroy them using freezing.

In cold seasons, bedbugs move closer to warmth - into apartments and houses. You can freeze them only when the thermometer registers fifteen degrees below zero. In such cases, it is necessary to open the windows wide and leave the room in this state for several days.

When the thermometer registers minus twenty degrees, it will take only a day to completely get rid of bedbugs. But it is not always possible to leave the windows open for several days. In such cases, you can take the “infected” items outside. If the nest of parasites was found and localized, then they can be destroyed in the freezer.

Safety precautions when fighting bedbugs

When fighting parasites using high temperatures, residents must follow safety precautions:

• When using a steam generator, do not point it at people, varnished furniture or wallpaper.
• While the room is warming up, it is better to remove all plastic items.
• Low temperatures to combat bedbugs can only be used in rooms where there are no sewerage or heating pipes.

If you can’t get rid of bedbugs on your own, then the only way out is to seek help from specialists.

To completely clear a room of bedbugs, it is necessary to destroy not only the adult bedbugs, but also their oviposition. To figure out how to kill bed bugs and their eggs, you need to know how eggs are laid, what they look like, when they hatch, as well as the means by which you can fight the insect and its larvae.

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If you want to lure bedbugs out of their hiding place, a regular hairdryer can help. Simply use it on the lowest setting, directing the heat to the baseboard or other area you suspect. As a result, insects may appear on the surface, and it will be easier for you to get rid of them.

What do bedbug eggs look like, photo

Bedbug eggs are very small, the length of the eggs does not exceed 1-1.5 mm. That is why it is quite difficult to detect a bedbug nest, especially if it is located in a hidden place, such as the upholstery of upholstered furniture or the foam underside of a mattress. Insect eggs often go unnoticed and are not destroyed when the premises are treated together with adult insects. Since the eggs of bloodsuckers are less susceptible to the effects of chemicals used in disinfestation than the bedbugs themselves, this often becomes the reason for re-infection of the room, after a certain time after treatment with insecticides.

With visualization, you can clearly see what bedbug eggs look like, which will help you quickly recognize and destroy them, thus increasing the effectiveness of the disinfestation.

Bedbug eggs are oval in shape and resemble rice. They are translucent and pearly white in color. At one end they have a specific convex lid, which can be easily broken by the reflecting bug larva.

If left lying for a long time, the eggs may acquire a yellowish tint. Due to a special sticky secretion, they are tightly attached to the surface on which they were deposited. The eggs are easily held even on a vertical surface; in most cases they are collected in piles of 5-10 pieces. Sometimes there are also large clutches.

Sometimes bedbug eggs are confused with bedbug excrement, which is small, dark pellets. The black color of bedbug stool is due to the large amount of iron in the digested blood. Insect excrement stains wallpaper and light-colored furniture.

In the photo you can see an enlarged picture of bedbug eggs, which allows you to recognize and distinguish insect eggs from its feces.

Where do bed bugs lay eggs - how to detect bed bug eggs?

Clutches of bedbugs are mainly found in their habitats during the daytime. Bedbugs prefer dark, secluded, dry and well-protected areas located close to a food source, that is, places where people sleep. Small and not very fast larvae begin to feed immediately after hatching, and therefore adult individuals pay special attention to their placement location.

Basically, the masonry is located under mattresses, inside upholstered furniture, under wallpaper peeled off from the walls and under paintings, between the walls and baseboards next to the bed. To be sure to detect bedbug eggs, you first need to inspect these areas in the apartment.

Female bedbugs make several clutches far enough apart from each other so that if the offspring in one of them die, the rest have time to hatch and remain unharmed. The destruction of one nest cannot guarantee the complete extermination of their entire population. You need to carefully examine all potential masonry sites, which will help solve the problem once and for all.

I've been sleeping on an air mattress for a couple of weeks now because of bedbugs.

I threw the sofa in the trash. An absolutely beautiful sofa that was only three years old. There was only one alternative - to remove all the upholstery and find the nests, but it was cheaper to throw it away.

If bedbugs remain in the apartment, they will happily set up a colony in the new sofa (and new sofas can come from the factory with their own bedbugs - this happens). Therefore, a strategic decision was made to buy an air mattress for a while. If parasites are still living in the house, they will almost certainly soon be found under the mattress. But so far they are not visible, and the bites have finally passed. After I threw out the couch, I only caught a couple of bugs in the first two days - perhaps they came from the couch itself while I was tearing it apart and tearfully kicking it to get it into the elevator.

The war lasted all of August and now seems over, but I am not relaxing. A control treatment is planned for the near future - the room will already be devoid of baseboards and linoleum, just to be sure. And only then will I decide to add a new sofa to the house. I wish you never to face this misfortune!

Source

How many days do bed bug eggs take to hatch?

The temperature regime in the room where they mature has an important influence on the development of bedbug larvae. The optimal temperature for insects is from 20 to 35 degrees. Under favorable conditions, the larvae hatch 5-25 days after egg laying. Non-simultaneous hatching is aimed at preserving part of the population even if several larvae die. The female lays eggs throughout the year. If the room temperature is below 20 degrees, the development of the larvae slows down and hatching occurs much later.

It takes 30–90 days for the larva to develop into an adult insect.

How many bedbugs hatch from one egg?

Bedbugs mate through traumatic means. The female does not have external genitalia, so the male pierces the wall of the abdominal cavity and injects seminal fluid into it. It is stored in a special compartment and used as needed. To create new clutches, females no longer need a sexual partner; they use the reserves of seminal fluid stored inside their body. At the posterior end of the female’s body there is an ovipositor, where eggs are formed within 5 days. Afterwards, the female begins to lay up to 12 future individuals per day. And throughout her life she lays from 300 to 500 eggs. The reproduction rate and fertility of insects depends on temperature factors and adequate nutrition. One meal can enable the female to lay up to 20 eggs after 2 days.

Eggs are usually laid in clutches of 5-12 pieces, with one embryo containing one embryo.

What do bedbug larvae look like?

Bedbug larvae have a structure and appearance similar to that of adult individuals. The difference is the specificity of size and vital activity. The larvae at the time of hatching from the eggs are small, their size does not exceed 1.5 mm.

The chitinous cover is soft, transparent, and when feeding, you can clearly see the blood filling the digestive system of the insect. The bodies of the larvae are flattened from top to bottom and somewhat more elongated than those of the adult.

The larvae move slowly and live close to the food source. To move into the next phase of development, the larva must feed. The nymph can molt and increase in size only with adequate nutrition. By the 4th-5th molt, it becomes 3 times larger than the initial value and reaches a size of 4.5 mm. The larva transformed into an adult begins to change the color of its chitinous cover, which becomes dark brown.

Nymphs go through 5 molts and then become adult bugs without undergoing morphological changes, on the basis of which the development cycle is considered incomplete.

Signs of sofa bed bugs

You can find out if there are blood-sucking insects in your home by the following signs:

1. Bites of a certain nature on the human body. They appear in the morning. In addition, depending on external signs, the resulting spots can easily be mistaken for a reaction to a mosquito bite or other parasite. Bed bugs make several bites in food they find nearby. Pests attack a person on the sofa while moving, creating a trail of red dots or spots.
2. Drops of blood left by pests on the sofa. They are always small in size and appear if a person crushes an insect in a dream. The furniture beetle is very swollen, with a lot of blood, and is easy to crush.
3. A specific smell reminiscent of old cognac. It appears when there are more bed bugs. They multiply quickly inside the sofa, so the pest population increases in a short time.

   Signs of sofa parasites

   This symptom is a consequence of the accumulation of waste products of bed bugs on various surfaces and on the sofa.

4. The presence of “shells” in various hidden places of the apartment. As insects grow, they shed their chitinous coverings several times, which allows them to become sexually mature individuals. The more pests there are inside the sofa, the faster the amount of debris will increase.
5. When bitten by bedbug larvae, a person may wake up immediately, since at this stage of development they have not yet developed the function of administering an anesthetic substance. Used by adults for bites.
6. Pest feces inside the sofa. Industrial waste is similar to poppy seeds.

The most obvious sign is bed bugs. If their number increases, parasites are found in a variety of places and on the inside of sofas. As soon as there are suspicions that an apartment is infested with bedbugs, you first need to look for them where the sleeping places of family members are located.

At what temperature do bedbugs and their eggs die?

To live, bedbugs need food and favorable climatic conditions (+20-30). Under these conditions, bedbugs actively reproduce. At high temperatures, the reproduction process accelerates and the larva develops faster.

If the temperature is too high, bedbugs can die quite quickly. Short-term exposure to cold (below 0) is tolerated by them normally, but prolonged cold can cause the death of insects. At +15 and below, the reproduction process stops, the larva freezes in development.

Given optimal conditions, a bedbug can live for about a year. When the temperature rises to 32 degrees, the development of an adult from an egg accelerates. Life expectancy is reduced by 2 months.

At temperatures from 20 to 25 degrees, bedbugs can live up to 15 months. At temperatures below 15 degrees Celsius, adult individuals enter suspended animation. Bedbugs can remain in this state for about 1.5 years. The smell of blood can wake them up.

At +50 and above, bedbugs live no longer than 2 minutes, then die. At +45 they can live no more than 30 minutes. An egg lives in such temperature conditions for up to one day.

At a temperature of -10 degrees, insects fall into suspended animation. At -15 and below, they will die, but provided that this regime is maintained for 3 days or longer. At -20 degrees, death will occur within a few hours. An egg under such conditions will last a maximum of 2 days.

Products that kill adult bedbugs

To kill adult bedbugs, a fairly large selection of chemicals in different forms is offered.

Popular and highly effective products include:

• Executioner . The drug affects the insect's nervous system, paralyzing it. The product is harmless to the human body, however, its disadvantage is an unpleasant and persistent odor. When using this product, you must follow safety precautions, wear rubber gloves, a mask, and goggles.
• Klopoveron . The drug contains a strong poison and is capable of killing bedbugs, instantly paralyzing them. The insecticide produces a prolonged effect; re-treatment is not required. Available in powder form, which is poured in the usual way, or in a form diluted in water. Processing should be carried out wearing a mask and gloves.
• Insecticide . The drug contains a toxic substance of the pyrethroid group. The drug destroys insects by paralyzing them. It has a specific smell and comes in a convenient bottle with a sprayer.

All of the above remedies have a detrimental effect on adult insects, however, they cannot destroy parasite eggs.

Egg killers

If after disinfection the parasite eggs remain unharmed, after some time the problem of bedbug infestation will again bother the owners of the apartment where chemical treatment was recently carried out. The eggs are quite resistant to external aggressive factors and insecticides, and they need to be combated with special means that belong to the group of organophosphorus substances that poison both adult bedbugs and their eggs.

Such means include:

• Diazinon . It is a universal preparation that is often used for professional treatment of premises. The product is not sold in the public domain because it is a strong poisonous drug.
• Karbofos . The product is capable of destroying imagoes, as well as larvae with eggs, from the first use. It has a persistent odor, so you need to ventilate the room for a long time after use.
• Chlorophos . The product is available in powder form. Destroys adults, larvae and eggs of bed bugs.
• Chlorpyrifos . Paralyzes the nervous system of adult bedbugs. Destructive for eggs and insect larvae.

Is it possible to kill bedbugs by starvation?

It is completely inadvisable to leave your home after learning how bed bugs live. Such a decision will most likely not contribute to a favorable outcome, because bedbugs hibernate between meals, and most of them reduce the amount of food they eat, and the process of digesting food stops completely.

Resistant bugs and eggs will survive even in the absence of humans for a long time, because they have developed suspended animation as a means of survival, and insects live for several months without food.

Another possible option is that under favorable conditions, the eggs hatch, and new bugs will “move” to live with the nearest neighbors, and then return again. Only the most sensitive individuals will die.

Treating your living space with modern, proven pesticides is the best option for getting rid of annoying pests.

Traditional methods

Sometimes problems arise with the use of chemicals to kill bedbugs. In such cases, folk methods come to the rescue. However, such methods are effective only when the premises are not heavily infested with bedbugs.

Bedbug mixtures

To kill bedbugs, it is recommended to use a mixture of turpentine, water and kerosene. The ingredients must be mixed in a ratio of 10:100:15 ml with the addition of liquid soap.

Ammonia mixed with denatured alcohol and benzene (10:150:40), and a mixture of denatured alcohol (300 ml) with naphthalene (10 g) are effective. The components are mixed, and the resulting composition is sprayed onto problem areas of the apartment.

Cold and heat exposure

Both frost (below minus 20 degrees) and very high temperatures have a detrimental effect on bedbugs. Heat treatment of mattresses, bed linen and clothing with hot steam, iron or boiling water (70 - 80 degrees) allows you to destroy adult individuals and even their eggs.

Plants with a pungent odor

Tansy, valerian, wild rosemary, wormwood, chamomile, calamus - all these plants have a detrimental effect on bedbugs. It is better to use them fresh, when the smell is most powerful due to the essential oils contained in the herbs. But in the cold season, when it is not possible to use fresh herbs, dried plants are also suitable.

Bedbug bite

Bedbug bites are not always painful and can go unnoticed for a long time. The bloodsucker chooses the most vulnerable and exposed places on the human body, such as the legs, arms or neck.

A bug bite can cause an allergy, which is an individual reaction to toxic substances contained in the insect's saliva. Signs of a bug bite are swelling around the bite site, severe itching, inflammation of the skin at the puncture site, and reddish spots located close to each other.

If an allergic reaction occurs at the site of the bite, it is recommended to apply Fenistil gel. In severe cases, tablet antihistamines are prescribed: Suprastin, Claritin.

Compliance with hygiene standards and timely destruction of bedbugs using modern insecticides help to quickly cope with a bedbug infestation. If necessary, you can contact specialists and organize professional disinfestation, destroying both adult individuals and their eggs and larvae.

Chemical substances

Many Internet users write on forums about their unwillingness to use insecticides. The reason is the toxicity of the main components. We must admit that there is some truth in this opinion. Most professional pest control products, if used incorrectly, can lead to poisoning of a person or warm-blooded animal.

Some poisons are especially dangerous for aquatic inhabitants, such as aquarium fish. With the help of others, they carry out not only the destruction of bedbugs, but also the correction of the population of some birds. In addition, after using insecticides, the apartment needs to be ventilated for a long time, washed, and personal belongings treated with soda solution. All these difficulties force people attacked by bedbugs to opt for traditional methods of control.

Recipes with turpentine

If you know exactly where the nests of bloodsuckers are located, and are ready to go on the warpath with them yourself, look into the pantry or garage. There will probably be components for one of the three “combustible mixtures”, with the help of which you can precisely neutralize the enemy.

1. Turpentine, clean water, kerosene and laundry soap. Take 10, 100, 40 and 30 ml of components, respectively. The soap is ground with a grater. All components are mixed until dissolved. Treat sites where insect nests are located.
2. Turpentine, kerosene, naphthalene. You need 100 ml of the first two components and 20 ml of the third. The nests are treated with a spray bottle.
3. Turpentine, phenol, salicylic acid. Take 40, 20 and 3 ml, respectively. Apply using a cotton swab.

“Turpentine” methods have a targeted poisoning effect on insects, but do not in any way affect the shell of bloodsucker eggs. In one and a half to two weeks the population will be renewed, and the treatment will have to be carried out again.

Solutions with vinegar

Vinegar is no less popular a remedy for bedbugs than turpentine. The reason for the demand is not only the relative effectiveness, but also the low cost of the main ingredient of homemade emulsions. The “stronger” the acetic acid, the stronger the effect will be, especially if this substance is correctly supplemented with other chemicals. Vinegar “insecticides” will not be able to destroy eggs, but they can easily eliminate several dozen adult bedbugs. Recipes for preparing drugs are presented in the table.

Table - Recipes for folk remedies based on vinegar

Most often, bedbug nests are located in hard-to-reach places. For example, behind cabinet furniture that is tightly pushed against the walls, on curtains under the ceiling, behind wallpaper that has come loose from the wall, in the upholstery of upholstered furniture and under baseboards where the owner cannot reach with her hands.

Treatment with boric acid is ineffective. If in the case of cockroaches this substance can serve as bait, then bed bugs are not at all interested in it.

Valerian bait

Valerian has a special property. It is well known to cat owners who have repeatedly observed how a mustachioed pet goes crazy from the cloying smell of the tincture. Drops can be used as bait for blood-sucking insects. The algorithm of actions consists of three steps.

1. Installation of "traps". Place sticky traps on the headboard and base of the bed.
2. Luring by smell. Add a few drops of valerian to each trap.
3. Waiting for the result. Wait until the bed bugs come running to the smell of the bait and stick to the adhesive tape.

If there is a cat living in the house, you will have to stop using the drug. The animal will lick the drops faster than the bugs can smell its characteristic aroma.

Reviews

Dear readers, you can leave your feedback on how to kill bed bugs and their eggs in the comments, your opinion will be useful to other users of the site!

Hope

I fought bedbugs using old methods, that is, I treated baseboards and other places where they lived with boiling water. After some time they became active again. I consulted with specialists, they explained that it was necessary to destroy both adult bedbugs and their eggs. We carried out disinfection, thanks to which the house was completely free of parasites.

Regina

We managed to get rid of bedbugs using the drug Chlorophos. A very effective remedy. Destroys pests immediately, within a few days the bodies of dead insects were found. Afterwards I carried out wet cleaning and vacuumed upholstered furniture. The results are good.

Get rid of the clutter

The first step to reducing the risk of bed bugs or finding bed bugs is to keep your home as clean as possible. Try to keep your room organized by immediately putting stacks of laundry, mail, or any other items in their place. Then the insects will not have a place to hide, and it will be much easier for you to notice them. Only after you have cleaned up does it make sense to think about subsequent measures.