Having a bed bug infestation in your home can be a real nightmare, an experience that for sure will cost you a lot of time and money, as well as emotional distress. Bed bugs are known to be painfully hard to eradicate from the house or business.
Luckily, there are some ways to deal with these nasty pests. It has been scientifically proven that bed bugs stay away from alcohol as they hate its smell. Therefore, you can repel them by using alcohol. But they can also be killed with alcohol.
Read on to find out whether trying to eradicate your bed bug infestation with alcohol is an effective solution to your problem.
What Alcohol Kills Bed Bugs And Their Eggs?
In fact, alcohol can kill bed bugs. This, however, depends on the amount of alcohol concentration you want to use. Isopropyl alcohol (IPA) with concentrations of 70% and 91% is recommended for use in detecting bedbug infestations.
Isopropyl alcohol, commonly known as rubbing alcohol, can kill the bed bugs themselves along with their eggs.
The 70 percentage isopropyl alcohol works somewhat better as it doesn’t evaporate so quickly, which means it has more time to work and kill the insects. The bodies of bed bugs are going to dry out, which will eventually result in their death. The 91 percentage is highly useful for killing and drying out the bedbug eggs as there is less water content.
A solution of both at 70% and 91% IPA concentration can do the trick as it dissolves the outer cells of bed bugs and dries them out until they die.
Having said that, using rubbing alcohol is not an effective method to get rid of the entire infestation from your home. This is because the alcohol only kills bed bugs and their eggs on contact, it has to be directly applied to the insects. And this can be difficult to accomplish as these pests hide in hard-to-reach places like cracks and crevices.
Besides, isopropyl alcohol is a strong chemical that is not healthy for humans or pets when inhaled.
An alcohol-based hand sanitizer that contains a minimum of 70% alcohol can also kill bed bugs on contact.
How Fast Does Alcohol Kill Bed Bugs?
Isopropyl alcohol is capable of exterminating bed bugs and their eggs almost instantly. As it is a dissolvent and desiccant, the alcohol can corrode the exoskeleton (outer shell) of the bug, but it can also dissolve it and cause it to dry up at the same time. Once its shell has been burnt away, the alcohol dries the insect out and kills it.
Isopropyl alcohol also attacks the shell of bedbug eggs. It also dries the egg shell out, prevents the eggs from hatching, and destroys them immediately.
However, keep in mind that although rubbing alcohol can kill bed bugs through direct contact, some studies show that the bed bugs sprayed with it stayed alive for up to 4 days after the treatment.
How Can You Use Alcohol To Kill Bed Bugs?
Now let’s talk about how to use alcohol to kill bed bugs. It’s easy to prepare a homemade bed bug spray. Just mix the isopropyl alcohol with equal parts of clean water and pour the solution into a spray bottle. You can now spray it generously onto the fabric of a mattress or soak any areas where you suspect the bedbugs might be hiding.
Because these insects lay eggs, it is necessary to repeat this process multiple times to eliminate them completely. This can help stop them from spreading and laying eggs. You need to ensure that you don’t get new eggs and nymphs walking around your house. If you prefer to use a hand sanitizer, apply it directly to the bed bug. The disadvantage of using a hand sanitizer is that you need to spend more time walking around your house carrying the product to be able to kill them.
Alternatively, once you find it, you may place the bed bug into a sealed jar along with one teaspoon of isopropyl alcohol.
Know that before you start spraying alcohol around your home to eradicate a bedbug infestation, you should be aware that this homemade method is not efficient and may even be dangerous. There will always be some bedbugs hidden out of sight, so you can easily miss them.
Typically, alcohol treatment is most effective only when applied directly on the insect. In short, most home remedies, such as spraying the house with rubbing alcohol, won’t eradicate the entire infestation. In fact, you risk starting a fire and burning your house down!
So ditch the idea of saving money and call in a professional pest exterminator. You should consult an expert who has the required knowledge and tools to properly get rid of bed bugs.
If you miss even one bed bug or egg, you’ll be back to square one. The cost of an exterminator is nothing compared to the cost of throwing away all your stuff, or what’s worse, moving homes and then realizing you’ve brought these pests with you anyway.
Call the Peachtree Pest Control team in Atlanta for more information and to request a free quote!