If you’ve ever had bed bugs, you’ve probably tried everything to get rid of them, including setting off a bug bomb. But a new study shows that these popular consumer products are no match for the blood-sucking pests. Researchers from the Department of Entomology at Ohio State University looked at three brands of bug bombs, also known as foggers, from a nationwide retailer and tested their effectiveness on five different bed bug populations in the lab. What they found was what pest-control experts had long thought. “There has always been this perception and feedback from the pest-management industry that over-the-counter foggers are not effective against bed bugs and might make matters worse,” said lead author Susan Jones, an urban entomologist with the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center, in a statement. “But up until now there has been no published data regarding the efficacy of foggers against bed bugs.” (PHOTOS: Bed Bugs: The Beauty Shots)
Jones and her colleague Joshua Bryant found that Hotshot Bedbug and Flea Fogger, Spectracide Bug Stop Indoor Fogger, and Eliminator Indoor Fogger had little to no effect on the bed bugs. (Only Hotshot Bedbug is specifically labeled for use against bed bugs.) “All three total-release foggers claim ‘kills on contact’ yet all field-collected bed bugs were unaffected upon re-entry,” the authors write. Even five to seven days after contact, the bed bugs remained unharmed. Since bed bugs spend their time hidden under sheets, mattresses and deep inside carpets, the authors say it is likely they are protected from the foggers’ mist. “These foggers don’t penetrate in cracks and crevices where most bed bugs are hiding, so most of them will survive,” said Jones in the statement. Even when the bugs do come into contact with the insecticides, their varying levels of resistance to the insecticide and the foggers’ poor toxicity leave the crawlers unscathed. “If you use these products, you will not get the infestation under control, you will waste your money, and you will delay effective treatment of your infestation,” said Jones.
(MORE: With Bed Bugs, the Cure May Be Worse than the Disease) The majority of foggers contain insecticides pyrethrin and pyrethroid. The authors note that most field-collected bed bugs are now resistant to pyrethroids, fueled largely by the unnecessary introduction of insecticides into the environment by humans, according to the researchers. Such resistance has helped drive the resurgence of bed bugs in recent years. To figure out if your home is infested with bed bugs, here are the (unpleasant) signs to look for, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: (MORE: Key To Bed Bugs’ Persistence: Inbreeding) “The public is ill-served when products do not perform in accordance with labeling and use directions claims,” Jones wrote in the study, published in the Journal of Economic Entomology. This URL is valid but the originating country of your Internet Service Provider is not authorized access due to our security policy. If you are a legitimate visitor looking to obtain access to our website and are not a spammer/hacker, we want to help.
Call us at 402-371-6111 so we can grant access. "You've got bedbugs," probably tops the list of worst things you can hear about your home. It's one thing to get stains out of your couch, but an entirely different beast to get bed bugs out of your bed. So more importantly, how do you avoid them altogether? It might all depend on where you live. Certain cities or metropolitan areas are more prone to bed bugs than others, Orkin Pest Control's 2014 Bed Bug Cities List points out. The company's annual ranking is based on the number of treatments they performed from January to December 2014. Unfortunately, the Windy City took the number one spot for the third year in a row, while three cities and regions in Ohio take up three of the other top 10 spots. But Chicago and Ohio aren't the only spots battling bedbugs. One expert says it's because they are "great hitchhikers." "Bed bugs are a serious issue across the country, and they're very difficult to control," said Orkin Entomologist and Technical Services Director Ron Harrison, Ph.D in the press release.
"Bed bugs are not limited to any level of cleanliness or income, which means they can be found in any home or hotel. They're great hitchhikers, and people often bring them inside on their clothes or in their luggage." To get rid of bed bugs, keep in mind that most quick remedies are often the product of deceptive marketing and only professionals should get the bugs out. However, certain preemptive measures can prevent bed bugs from entering your home, like buying bed bug covers for mattresses and box springs, only buying new furniture from reputable sources and checking to make sure certain hotels aren't infested when you travel. Check out the list below to see where your hometown ranks, and view Orkin's full list here.Check out HuffPost Home on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram. Are you an architect, designer or blogger and would like to get your work seen on HuffPost Home? with the subject line "Project submission." (All PR pitches sent to this address will be ignored.)
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