What Attracts Bed Bugs the Most and How to Combat Them [UPDATED]

If you read this article, I assume you are interested in discovering what attracts bed bugs. Now that you got a problem with the infestation of bedbugs in your home or around the neighborhood, it would better to learn further about this irritating insect.

Most people will come across and need to deal with bedbugs at some point in their life. It is crucial to know what conditions or circumstances bedbugs like to reduce the chances of encountering this insect in your lifetime.

In this article, you would learn about any chemicals that may attract bedbugs, the reasons why bedbugs are fascinated with your home and bite humans, and some others. So, let us check them out!

What Catches the Attention of Bedbugs

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Source: http://s.newsweek.com/sites/www.newsweek.com/files/2016/02/02/107728web.jpg

Some people often condemn dirt, dust, and filth as the culprit of a bedbug infestation. However, they are not the case since bedbugs typically attract to an environment where they could find their favorite meal: blood.

Bedbugs tend to love warm circumstances where they could access carbon dioxide effortlessly. In this case, they are particularly attracted by your body’s warmth and the carbon dioxide you exhale.

Considering their food, bedbugs would like to inhabit other living creatures and will settle in areas where humans or animals reside. Indeed, they could survive by feeding on animals, but bedbugs are often discovered feeding on humans’ blood too.

This insect is called bedbug since it is frequently located around or on bedding. Bedrooms in houses, motels, and hotels often become the best place for bedbugs to live in many countries.

Nevertheless, you should keep in mind that bedbugs could also be found beyond your bedroom. It is not impossible to be bitten by bedbugs anywhere and anytime even you are in a cab, on public transportation, or at the cinema.

The bad news is that it is potential for every home to be fascinating for bedbugs to live. That is why comprehensive cleaning and getting rid of garbage and clutter immediately might be needed to provide the pests fewer spots to hide.

Furthermore, regular vacuuming could be necessary as well to lift and drift bedbugs that probably come in on your neighborhoods.

What Make Bedbugs Fascinated to Your Home

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Source: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-m6nKBvGP0gU/T1ujtIaoWhI/AAAAAAAAAJQ/3gWzpOo3L68/s1600/bed_bugs_carpet.jpg

Most people believe that an unclean home could be the reason why bedbugs are attracted to come in. However, it is only a myth since bedbugs could also penetrate any kind of buildings. Being wealthy or deprived does not have something to do with bedbugs’ presence as well.

Bedbugs tend to come into your house through a property on an animal or person. People or their belongings, like coats, purses, bags, or suitcases, often transport these pests into the home. Any area where you have rested or sat could be a spot where the bed bugs picked up.

Besides, if you tend to travel a lot and have some guests visit your home often, the risk of getting bedbugs may increase. You and your guests could come home with a bed bug or two from any public area out there.

Some common places where bedbugs may hitchhike you and your guests include apartments, retail clothing stores, train or bus stations, movie theaters, libraries, and hotels.

Thus, unfortunately, there is no way to keep these pests out of your home completely. To prevent the infestations of bedbugs get bigger, you could only maintain everything dirt-free, do vacuuming regularly, and keeping yourself as well as your pets uncontaminated.

Chemicals That Catch the Attention of Bedbugs the Most

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Source: upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5d/Bed_bug_nymph,_Cimex_lectularius.jpg/1280px-Bed_bug_nymph,_Cimex_lectularius.jpg

If you have ever heard that natural hormones generated by animals and humans or particular cleaning chemicals could attract bedbugs, it should not be true. Scientists do not find any relationship between the uses of any products with the attraction of bedbugs.

Thus, household chemicals like bleach, fabric softeners, or ammonia are not the one that catches the attention of these nauseating pests.

On the other hand, the latest study by a researcher named Dr. Regine Gries suggested that bedbugs might be magnetized towards a chemical they generate themselves called histamine. Humans, in this case, generate this chemical as well during special immune reactions only.

Suffering from an allergic response will not make you attractive to a bedbug. However, this histamine chemical could develop in your skin and bedbugs’ feces. This condition could hint others to move to this safe location accordingly.

According to the research in Dr. Gries’ lab, when histamine develops somewhere, bedbugs will recognize the area as a safe place to have some meals. This is indeed bad news for those of you who already have huge bedbug infestations.

Considering this study, more bedbugs may be attracted to such a place and cause something like a snowball effect. Nevertheless, as you find the irregular bedbug infestations, it would be easier to notice these pests, remove them immediately, and avoid a histamine buildup.

What Makes Bedbugs Attracted to Humans

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Source: bedbugguide.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/DSC01476.jpg

As mentioned above, the carbon dioxide you exhale is the main reason why bedbugs are fascinated by your place. Your levels of carbon dioxide naturally improve as you fall asleep and these become a signal for bedbugs to feed on your blood.

More importantly, we could not deny what attracts bed bugs the most is blood and seven percent of human body weight is blood. Just like the way you view a slice of meat or potato as tasty meals, bedbugs look at you with a similar thought.

Unluckily, you do not have many ways to make yourself less eye-catching to bedbugs. A rule of thumb is to keep you well-groomed and dirt-free. Since bedbugs typically get a ride on people, staying clean could make sure that the bugs are swept away throughout the day.

Moreover, it would be easier for you to notice them by keeping your home neat and clean. Although a messy and dirty room does not essentially appeal bedbugs, you could at least provide them fewer spots to hide by keeping everything neat.

What Makes Bedbugs Bite You

Indeed, bedbugs bite you because they feed on the blood of your body. They know where you are by identifying the carbon dioxide you exhale.

There is no special way to stop bedbugs from biting you and sucking your blood as they please. You will not try to stop breathing so that bedbugs do not know where you are as well.

What you can do is trying to keep these pests out of your environment by doing the necessary things to remove them. From bedbug steamers to sprays, you have many options to avoid and eliminate them in your environment.

However, sometimes, you do not need to spend lots of money to prevent bedbugs simply from coming to your home. For instance, you could examine your room upon arrival when traveling. Consider looking over the mattress and box spring to find if there are bedbugs around.

Moreover, you should consider keeping your belongings safe from bedbugs during traveling. In this case, enclosing your clothes and other belongings with plastic bags would be a good idea. Also, consider placing pest strips within the luggage after use and keep it in an isolated space.

What Makes Bedbugs Attracted to Mattresses

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Source: walkerpestmanagement.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/bedbugs.jpg

Bedbugs love mattresses since they could become an ideal spot to hide. Moreover, mattresses are also close to their primary food source: humans.

These insects are typically five to seven millimeters long and two to three millimeters wide. Considering how small these pests are, they are capable to slip easily between the fabrics and fibers of your mattress to hide.

For your information, almost all bedbugs will stay around 10 ft. from their main source of meal. Due to their nocturnal behavior, bedbugs will find asleep humans in their bedrooms to feed on them. Moreover, staying around the mattress is the best method to keep them close to their food source.

To prevent bedbug infestations in your box spring and mattress, it is suggested to invest in a good mattress cover. This small investment saves you thousands in the end.

What Makes Bedbugs Attracted to You at Night

As a nocturnal species, bedbugs search for their food throughout the night. At this time, humans as the main food source for bedbugs are likely to be sleeping and do not move too much. It becomes an ideal situation for bedbugs to feed on you.

It was said that bedbugs would not feed on you at night as long as you are inactive. They will typically only feed on sleeping humans.

What Type of Blood Bedbugs Like

Some people believe that a particular type of blood could influence whether bedbugs will attract and bite a person and not another. Indeed, bedbugs may only bite a person and completely disregard another one even though they are sleeping next to each other.

However, there is no trustworthy research showing that the reason why bedbugs may only bite a particular person is blood type. Well, there could be some blogs on internet publishing such notions, but the proof is not strong enough.

Meanwhile, many news sources said that bedbugs do not like blood combined with alcohol followed by a study. For this reason, bedbugs are not likely to bite someone who has just been drinking alcohol lately.

Of course, it does not necessarily mean that you have to drink more to keep the bedbugs away. Instead, this study helps professions find new ways to combat bedbugs.

What Kind of Scents or Human Foods Bedbugs Like

Just like the way chemicals may catch these pests’ attention, bedbugs do not have a special attraction towards particular scents from humans. This is because histamine and blood are two things that catch the attention of bedbugs the most.

Humans and animals have blood, so bedbugs tend to live around these living creatures to get some food. Thus, if you have some pets at home, they could be the target of bedbugs as well.

Even though bedbugs do not have any preference for their food source, animals like dogs and cats are highly possible targets of these pests.

How about human foods? Since bedbugs only consume blood, particular human foods will not draw the attention of these pests to your home.

What Doesn’t Catch Bedbugs Attention

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Source: felixhudson.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/bed-bugs.jpg

We cannot deny that various myths related to bedbugs are available out there. However, you should note that bedbugs will not be attracted to things like cleaning products, particular scents from candles, dirt or grime, and human foods as some people might say before.

Besides, excrement or human waste and specific blood types do not necessarily make bedbugs attracted to you. It is safe to say that bedbugs do not discriminate when they are feeding on living creatures.

Things that attract bed bugs the most do not have something to do with your spotless place or your skin color. They just generally love to feed on living creatures, especially humans and animals.

What to Do If You Suspect Bedbugs at Home

You already knew several things that probably draw bedbugs towards your place. Then, what should you do in case there are bedbugs around your environment?

For your information, bedbugs are very good at hiding and they live for about 12 months as a grown-up. For this reason, do-it-yourself methods are typically your last way to deal with these pests.

If you believe that there are bedbugs in your home, contacting a professional would be a good idea. This is especially recommended if the pests have been bigger in number at the time you suspect them.

However, in case you want to know some ways to do against bedbugs, here are several things to take into account.

How to Trap Bedbugs with Active Monitors

Knowing how bedbugs are attracted to humans and find where you are could be a simple yet useful understanding about these pests.

This way, you should recognize that snoozing on the ground or simply removing your mattress would not help since bedbugs could conceal themselves in a different place around your house.

Moreover, you cannot simply move to another room to get away from bedbugs since your body will bring the chemical emissions as well as the heat with you. Instead, you should use this understanding to trap bedbugs.

Nowadays, pest control professionals utilize a bedbug trap monitor that imitates the way people draw this pest’s attention. Considering the way it takes advantage of active lures to catch bedbugs’ attention, this inventive instrument is normally named an active monitor.

This active monitor typically uses electric heat radiation, chemical lures, or slow-release carbon dioxide to attract nearby bedbugs going out from their hiding place. Some tools even mix all these three rules to improve their efficiency.

How to Trap Bedbugs with Passive Monitors

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Source: bedbugtreatmentsite.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/bed-bug-traps-1024×1024.jpg

Aside from active monitors, professionals often utilize passive monitors as well to deal with bedbug infestations. These passive monitors are typically used to trap bedbugs in an occupied room since active monitors are more effective in a vacant space.

This is because bedbugs would be more attracted to humans than the tools. Sleeping humans would be a much stronger and bigger lure for attracting bedbugs instead of the tools.

To use passive monitors in an in-use room, professionals tend to arm you while utilizing your luring ability for this bedbug handling. In this case, they will treat the bed first and detach it with passive traps.

This way, the professionals could create a bedbug-proof bed for you to continue sleeping safely. Then, they may apply some residual powders and sprays to the place so that the sleeping host could attract bedbugs from the hiding and get in touch with the trap.

Other Things To Do To Combat Bedbugs

Just as an old saying suggests that prevention has always been better than treatment, preventing bedbugs to come into your house would be perfect. For instance, you may need to avoid purchasing secondhand clothes or furniture since they may bring in bedbugs.

In case you cannot avoid buying secondhand properties, make sure to inspect them first before bringing the furniture or clothes into the home. When it comes to chairs and sofas, consider utilizing steamer to heat the item to get rid of the possible bedbug infestations.

If you get secondhand clothes, wash and dry them with as much heat as possible. It would be better to ask questions related to the item history as well when you are purchasing something from a thrift store.

The Final Thought

In conclusion, bedbugs are somehow confusing to deal with. Different from other common insects such as cockroaches, rodents, and ants, these pests are not fascinated to unclean environments. They do not like human foods or pass on any diseases as well.

The most effective way to prevent bedbugs from coming across your life is by staying well-groomed and checking your belongings after visiting a public area. Nevertheless, doing so does not necessarily stop the chance for bedbugs to strike your home somehow.

As a result, when the problem persists and the infestation getting larger, you may need professional helps to deal with the bedbugs. Moreover, remember that developing an infestation of bedbugs is often not your fault.

That is all everything you should know about what attracts bed bugs the most. Hope this information helpful for your bedbug problems now or in the future.

References:

https://www.peststrategies.com/pest-guides/bed-bug-guides/what-attracts-bed-bugs/

https://www.bedbugsupply.com/blog/faq/what-attracts-bed-bugs

https://www.terminix.com/blog/education/what-attracts-bed-bugs

https://www.peststrategies.com/pest-guides/bed-bug-guides/