47 thoughts on “Step by Step”

1. How do you fit large 2 ltre or 1 litres under bed. I can hardly get 500 mls under my bed. My bed is average.
   Also i haven’t had any bites since installing plastic (two months) on headboard and mattress/box spring. Plastic reaches floor and i tuck it under the bed. Thanks greatly for your help!

   • Please do notify me by email. Trish

   • Hi Trish,

     One liter and two liters bottles do not fit under most beds. That’s most basic trap, a CO2 bottle in a soup bowl, good enough to catch any and all bedbugs. That is what I used to get rid of my bedbugs over two years ago. Four 2l bottles in soup bowls and a sheet of plastic over my bed. Got rid of all my bedbugs. Cleared out bedbugs for about a year with 2L bottles then made videos and got on the web with them. A viewer commented and suggested I use air line tubing to get CO2 into a cup or a glass. That was a major improvement of the trap. With such a tubing to bring the CO2 gas into a smaller and more convenient receptacle, the pitfall that bedbugs fall into from a soup bowl became a simple drinking glass. Glass is the best bedbug barrier, they just cannot climb up on glass. Smaller than a soup bowl, it takes less time to fill and get to work. It is also easier to handle than a soup bowl with a tipsy bottle in it. But the best advantage was that the bottle itself did not have to be under the bed anymore. Only the glasses (with paper towels on the outside) needed to be under the bed and behind each leg (to keep them from being knocked over). The bottles could now be put out of the way, close to the wall at the head of the bed with only the tubing going from the bottles to the glasses.

     So this is what I suggest you do, use 2L bottles if you wish but you can use any container that is convenient for you, get some of that air line tubing at a local pet store (used in aquariums, usually a length of 10 feet goes for a few dollars). Make or drill a hole in the caps of the bottles (or covers of different containers) to insert and end of the tubing tightly in it. Place the bottle where you would like it to be and place the tubing to go right into one of the glasses that will be put behind each leg of the bed. You can attach the tubing to the underside of the box spring or it can be simply left on the floor. Cut it to fit into the glass and fix it (tie it or tape it to the leg of the bed if you have to) so it will not slip out or tilt the glass. Do the same thing with the other bottles.

     That’s it, the traps are done. Bottles out of the way, discrete tubing for the CO2 and small glasses behind each leg of the bed. With your plastic to stop bites, you have the perfect bedbug trap.

     Because you did the right thing, the most important part of the trap is the plastic over the bed. It is the plastic than neutralizes a bedbug infestation by stopping all bites. The traps on the floor are used to catch bedbugs which might be in the room or anywhere else other than the bed. To stop and eliminate bedbugs already in the bed, you need to cover it with a plastic shield.

     You did that and it paid off, no bites for the last two months. Any bedbug that might still be alive underneath it are not far from dead. You starved them and tortured them by not allowing them to bite you. Bedbugs can’t live without your blood and you took it away from them, Bravo!

     A little known fact: bedbugs cannot live longer than 70-90 days without feeding. It is even shorter than that for bedbugs which are in a bed and subjected to the body heat of their victims without being able to reach them. They spend their energy trying to find a way through the plastic and finding none end up dying sooner.

     Keep the plastic on for another while if it is tolerable for you and all bedbugs will be dead within an additional month. There are ways to make a bed wrapped in plastic comfortable and other ways to make it look better.

     For now, simply set up the traps, they will act as bedbug detectors by catching them as they roam around. Foraging bedbugs are looking for food and will detect and follow the CO2 emitted by the traps and will be lured into them. Any bedbug loose in the room will end up in the traps.

     You probably do not have many bedbugs left, bedbugs need blood to molt and to lay eggs. If you did not get bites for quite a while, no bedbug could have molted and no bedbug could have laid eggs. Bedbugs have been on their reserves for two months. Oh what a nice bedbug starvation, it stopped their growth and their multiplication. You deserve a ten!

     Thank you Trish, this is a nice bedbug message for the Holidays. We feast, the bedbug starves!

     Excellent!
     The best to you,
     Julien

     • Hi Julian – thanks again for your life-saving tips. One can be overwelmed withthese critters!
       I also spray water and neem oil mixedthis apparenly messes with their hormones and they forget to eat and mate.
       Have a great Christmas and thanks to you I will be too.
       God Bless – Trish

2. I have also been struggling with a bedbug infestation. I am definitely going to try this method. I don’t have the money for an exterminator, and I really don’t want poison around my kids and animals. So far, I have been using the following methods with moderate success. I got them from a manual on bedbugs from the Australian government. These methods will definitely kill them:

   I put some diatomaceous earth around my baseboards and under the bed. It is non-toxic (all it is is ground up seashells, so they can’t really develop a resistance to it) and you can get a huge bag (enough to do my small 2 bedroom house many times over, and probably enough to do a big house 3 or 4 times) for around $8 at most hardware stores. You just leave it there and any time they walk across it, they will be dead in 24 hours. I put it in a mustard bottle and spray it around the baseboards. It’s best to wear a mask because it IS dust and it kind of gets in the air when you’re applying it.

   Steam also helps. If the steam heats up to a temperature of over 180 degrees, it will kill both bugs and eggs. It’s also better to use a steamer that doesn’t have forceful pressure because the pressure can just blow the bugs and eggs out. I used my clothes steamer and it worked pretty well (it was about $40 a sears). I had some bedbugs around my headboard and I personally watched it kill a few of them (SO SATISFYING LOL).

   However, as I said, I am still struggling with an infestation. I think, after reading your method, that the reason why is because there are obviously some hiding and I can’t find them. This stuff is keeping them under control, but it didn’t get rid of them completely. I didn’t see any for around 6 months and now they are back (it has been a few months since I last applied the diatomaceous earth). I think that you could probably combine these methods and have really good success.

   Maybe doing your method first, then steaming the mattress, boxspring, and bedframe to get rid of any remaining eggs, and then putting the diatomaceous earth around to prevent them from reinfesting, would be a good system.

3. I just wanted to add, the reason you don’t want a steamer that blows hard is because when you blow them out, there is a good chance they will survive the steam. And one more thing: that manual I read from the Australian government was based on scientific research. You can google it and find it. It said that there are really NO poisons that work on bedbugs. I also want to say thanks for putting this info out there.

4. Help. I think we have bedbugs but are bed is on a wooden platform (drawers underneath) and attached to a huge wall unit. How do we cover this? Also do we do this to the beds in the other 2 rooms at the same time. If we don’t won’t the bedbugs go find them for their meal?

   • @ __ Karen
     Modern beds can be very practical offering lots of storage space and style. However, manufacturers do not build them taking the possibility of bedbugs into account. Such beds can be more difficult to cover and to make them bedbug proof. In the case of a wooden platform attached to a huge wall unit, the shield must be made to be part of the bed and make a barrier that bedbugs cannot cross.
     I suggest that you install a plastic sheet directly on the lattice and under the mattress, this plastic, about 5 feet wide by 7 feet long, should be cut to fit in the upper frame of the platform and taped to it. It will keep bedbugs from being able to go directly onto the mattress and will keep them stuck in the lower part of the frame.
     We must also keep bedbugs from being able to go around it. This is easily done by taping a long band of plastic, about 2 feet high by 20 feet long, to the outside of the platform. It will cover both sides and the foot of the bed, hanging down vertically and almost down all the way to the floor.
     The difficult part is to cover or isolate the large wall unit, keeping bedbugs from crossing over to the top of the bed using that wall unit. At the height of the plastic covering the lattice but under the mattress, use and tape additional strips of plastic that will seal any possible openings or pathways that bedbugs can use and tape those strips to the plastic covering the lattice of the platform. Then you can add an additional band of plastic, about 2 feet high by 8 feet long, to make the fourth and top plastic hanging side around the wall unit. That way, all sides of the bed will have a plastic that will keep bedbugs from being able to cross over to the top. Note that you can protect painted surface from tape damage using painter’s masking tape first and tape the plastic on top of it instead of directly on the painted surface. This is appreciated when we remove the plastic once the bedbug infestation is over.
     But before you set the plastics in place, look at the upper part of the wall unit and fill any joint or crack with paste wax, leaving no place where bedbugs could slip and crawl in. Be very thorough; especially in the corners as bedbugs take advantage of any crevice or hiding place. The wax will fill and seal all and any small interstices and stop bedbugs in the lower part of the bed and wall unit.
     Also move the bed and wall unit ½ inch away from the wall. That way, bedbugs will not be able to cross from the wall to the unit and will have to go down to the floor where traps will be waiting for them.
     Last but not least, the mattress should be encased in another bedbug barrier. An inexpensive and comfortable mattress encasement can be made with two regular contour bed sheets. Put one on top of the mattress and one on the other side, sealing them together with duct tape all around the sides of the mattress. Bedbugs cannot get or bite through fabric and the homemade encasement will entomb any bedbugs in it.
     Once you are done, you should be able to see a large piece of plastic covering the bed with four sides around the platform and the unit and hanging down almost to the floor. That plastic will be taped and sealed to the wall unit, making it impossible for bedbugs to get through or around it. That plastic will form a shield that bedbugs will be stuck underneath. Have a second look and if there are no holes or openings, you will be able to use the bed without getting a bite. That shield will stop all bedbugs from being able to feed and without their only source of food, bedbugs will die of starvation.
     With the shield in place, all you will need to do is to make CO2 traps to be put on the floor and behind the plastic to catch foraging bedbugs in the room. The shield blocks and starves bedbugs already in the bed while traps catch and suffocate bedbugs anywhere else in the room.
     This shield is more elaborate than a simple sheet of plastic draped over the bed but if you are careful to make it as one piece without any holes or openings, it is just as efficient to stop and eliminate bedbugs. The idea is to make a barrier that bedbugs absolutely will not be able to cross and make them die of starvation.
     Try it and if you have any difficulties, contact me to find a solution

     ————————————————-

     At your stage, you do not have to cover the beds in the two other rooms.
     Since you discovered bedbugs in the platform bed only recently, it means that it where the first colony is growing. You could have a single adult and lots of nymphs of all early stages in this bed. Being small and nearly transparent, very few people can detect them or even know where to look to find them. But young molting bedbugs stay as close as possible to the source of their food and do not go too far to, so they hide under the mattress and further down in the frame of the bed. As long as the bed is used, they do not tend to leave the bed.
     They will only leave the bed under pressure. Natural scattering occurs when the first males appear and makes blood-fed bedbugs flee for their life. More scattering happens from intense human activities when we discover them. Even more scattering is made by the use of repellents and poisons that do not kill them.
     Finding a few in a single place is a sign of where they are and what to cover. Bedbugs will not migrate to another room as long as the place where they feed is used. Do not change your sleeping habits, put a shield on the bed and it will starve all the bedbugs in that room. Traps under the bed will catch roaming bedbugs.

     Regards
     JulesNoise

5. Hi. I guess I am just really slow when it comes to Trap building. Question..if we cover the hole in the 2 liter bottle cap with plastic, letting the plastic hang to the floor, how do the bugs smell the CO2 and how do they get into the container?? Wouldn’t the plastic block them? There’s no mention of tubing or using a straw in the instructions on this page…is that being used in the Trap? Better yet, is there a place where I can simply buy a trap?Thank you so much!

6. Hi I think I have bed bugs but I think they are in my couches does any one have any advice on how I can get rid of them. I don’t have the money for a exterminator .

   • Brandy,
     Couches are often bedbug harborages (22,6%) and three times as often in the bed (70.4%). The remaining 7,0% are elsewhere in the room.

     Bedbugs are stopped by a shield, no matter if you have a very light or heavy infestation. A shield is a physical barrier that no bedbug can get through or around. The simplest bedbug shield is a large sheet of plastic draped over the couch with its sides hanging down and cut a small space above the floor. It stops all bedbugs abd all bedbug bites at once.

     Plastic is slippery and can be sweaty, to make it more comfortable, it is better to cover it with something permeable, a fabric sheet or a comforter . It must also be secured or fitted to the couch so that it does not slip off. I made a video showing how to fit a plastic sheet on a couch [Bedbug Shield – Couch __ ]

     That is the least expensive method to stop and eliminate bedbugs in a couch. A better cover can be made for a couch using fabric instead of plastic. It eliminates the slipperiness and sweatiness of plastic, only the edges of this fabric cover have to be with plastic, only the hanging down sides near the floor have to be fitted with a plastic strip to keep bedbugs from being able to get from the underside to the topside where we sit and rest.

     There is a more drastic solution that can replace a shield and that is to kill all bedbugs in the couch with dry ice. Dry ice is CO2 in its solid form, it turns into an invisible gas that when it is released inside a sealed plastic encasing the whole couch, suffocates bedbugs in a few hours. It can be removed 24 hours later with all the bedbugs in it dead. After that, you only need to slightly elevate the couch from the floor by a very small space using plastic floor protectors (the floor protectors need to be nailed through a round plastic cut-out twice the diameter of the protector). The dry ice procedure is more work than a plastic shield and needs more preparation. It also costs more having to buy dry ice and a roll of painter’s plastic.

     You will also have to make traps to catch bedbugs which will not be in the couch and roaming around somewhere in the room. Those are the bedbugs caught by the trap when they come out of hiding to feed.
     If you stop and starve all bedbugs in the couch and catch and suffocate all the bedbugs in the room, you will not have a bedbug problem no more.

7. Thank you for all the detailed instructions. I am going to try this method. But i have a couple of concerns and would greatly appreciate your feedback. I have a 1 & 3 yr old. The infestation seems to be in my bedroom and the 3 yr old’s. But no signs of any in the 1 yr old’s which is in between the two rooms. How do I ensure that they will not migrate to the middle room. Should I still use a trap in there anyway under the crib? Im pretty sure the crib mattress is safe since it is waterproof and already fully covered with vinyl. Am I correct in stating that? Also…i want to make it comfortable and discreet for my 3 yr old. I don’t want to install a fear of bugs in the room. I bought a new mattress and encased it right away. Do I still need to use the plastic drape? Can we use sheets to lie on and cover with? Your feedback would be greatly appreciated!

   Thank you.
   Stef

8. I read from your other link about tying twine around the plastic bed shield. Is that really necessary? Can I just put the plastic down, and put my fitted bed sheet over it, without using twine? As long as it’s two inches from the ground and not touching the wall, it should be ok?

   Also, is any kind of talcum powder ok to use in the trap? I read somewhere online that the baby powder scent may repel them. Is there an unscented talcum powder?

   We have two boys in the other room and it will be next to impossible to have them keep their blankets and pillows and bedding from touching the walls and floor. Should we even bother putting traps in their room? What if we had them leave (stay at grandparents) for a few days, and we then shielded their beds and put traps in there. Could we eliminate the bugs from their room in that short of a period?

9. I am wondering if this method works if you have pets in the home. I have dogs and cats. The dogs sleep in the bedroom on the floor in their own beds. The cats sleep outside the bedroom. If I keep the bed bugs off of me using these instructions, won’t they just start feeding on my pets? Does anyone know if the CO2 traps are more attractive to bed bugs than hairy pets?

   • @__Beth
     Bedbugs cannot feed on hairy pets because they have thin flat bodies which cannot fit between hair. they can be attracted to their respiration (CO2) and body heat, but they cannot reach the skin of the animals. Bedbugs are more attracted to the animals than to the traps because the animals give off body heat and the traps do not. you can trn this to your advantage by making a small elevated platform (about half inch off the floor with slippery short legs, vertical scotch tape brushed or covered with talcum powder) and vacuum any bedbug that unsuccessfully tried to climb up on those short legs during the night. Within a week or two most bedbugs anywhere in the room will have tried to get to those slippery legs and failed and you will be able to vacuum them out. Your litte animals will give you a great service without even trying while sleeping without a bite. For yourself, get the same protection with a bedbug shield on the bed without the need of a CO2 bedbug trap.

10. I put the barrier on my bed last night all seems fine. However, my concern is when I walk around my home can’t the bed bugs jump on me, get on my clothes then ill bring them to bed with me?

    • A__Shay
      Sorry about the long delay before I could answer to a legitimate question like yours. But here it is, hoping that it will still be of use to you or profit others.

      Bedbugs do not pounce on people. Instead they wait until it is dark (most of the time) and not moving anymore like when you are sleeping. Bedbugs are not fast, moving around four feet a minute (0.075 kph or 0.05 mph) so they are very vulnerable if you see them on the move, the very reason why they wait in the dark and until you are not moving.

      But they can get on clothes, hiding away from the light to get a free ride towards their meal. Only bedbugs scattered in the room will do that, about 7% of them. The real threat however comes from bedbugs already hiding in the bed, about 70% of them in a mature infestation and 93% in a beginning infestation. Those are the bedbugs that you have to block and keep from feeding and it is done with a bedbug shield. A bedbug shield will also protect you from the 7% of bedbugs elsewhere in the room keeping them from being able to reach you in the bed during the night.

      So bedbug shield to stop bedbugs already in the bed and CO2 traps under the bed to catch bedbugs on the move will give you a nearly 100% protection against bedbug bites, the only precaution to take being not giving a ride the very few bedbugs that can do that.

      • I read that bedbugs will climb to the ceiling and drop on you from there if they cannot get up any other way. I thought about running wide cellophane tape but it will wreck the paint. Any suggestions?

11. Thank you, thank you, thank you. We have had bed bug for awhile now and do not have the money for professional help. We have been reading everything we can to figure out how to get rid of these things and bought that dust stuff that everyone talks about, but that stuff kills so slowly they are able to lay eggs before dying and my girls were breaking out horrible bad because they are allergic to the dust. I have tried to find our how to kill them like putting plastic over the couches and then didn’t know what to do till I found your page. IT is very informative and I love how you go step by step and explain EVERYTHING you need to do to get rid of them DIY steps. I finally made trap today and was gone for a couple of hours and guess what, already caught one in the trap. I feel so hopeful now that we will be able to rid them for good and quickly and cheap. Again thank you so much. Will keep updated about how well the trap continues to work and how long it takes to get rid of them. WE had them all over our house before I figured out what they were. Just one question, how can you tell if the traps are still working? THANK YOU SOOOOO MUCH FOR THE INFORMATION GOD BLESS YOU!

    • @__Patricia

      Welcome to a bedbug free world. I’m glad to know that you already know how to make a trap, it is the beginning of a whole method that will make you bedbug proof. You will feel proud of yourself and very much empowered once you will have made it on your own, you will never be bothered by bedbugs again. Bedbugs are shrouded by mystery and myths; that’s what give them so much power and make them bigger than life. Soon you will discover that they are only insignificant insects, much more vulnerable than what everybody is telling us. You have the ultimate power over bedbugs; you can control their only source of food. Take their food away and bedbugs, like any other creature on this planet, wither and die of starvation. End of the line.

      Your trap works, but what is a trap? It is the oldest trick in the world; a pitfall from which bedbugs cannot get out of. Bedbugs are attracted only by two things; CO2 from our respiration and Heat from our body. So there is a trap that uses CO2 and another trap that uses Heat. This method uses both of them. It is a powerful combination that eliminates all bedbugs, right down to the last one. Using their hunger against them, bedbugs eliminate themselves.

      Here is how it works. Bedbugs are attracted to our body heat while we sleep on the bed or rest on a couch. Those bedbugs will reach us and bite unless we stop them. So the first thing to do is to put a barrier between the bedbugs and us. Think of it like a screen in the window or a net over the bed to stop mosquitoes from being able to get to us and bite us. But since bedbugs can’t fly and are in the bed, a screen or a net do not work on them. Instead that barrier must be over the mattress and the whole bed or couch to stop them from being able to reach us and bite us. That barrier stops them and they cannot feed anymore. As simple as that, bedbugs absolutely need our blood to be able to molt and grow, they absolutely need our blood to be able to incubate and lay their eggs and they absolutely need our blood to simply be able to survive. Without our blood, bedbugs are nothing but a mere psychological nuisance that cannot last more than a few weeks if they remain active and they cannot last more than a few months if they go dormant without moving.

      The Shield keeps them active, being so close to their food, yet forever unable to reach it. They foolishly spend any energy or reserve they have, stuck as they are under the shield and die of starvation. Any bedbug that can get back down to the floor are attracted to what they see as the CO2 that is normally in our respiration and fall blindly into the traps where they quickly suffocate in the pool of CO2 that is in the glasses, bedbugs need oxygen to breathe, like any other creature on this planet and in the pitfall glasses there is none. This is due to the fact that CO2 is heavier than air and the glasses are always full of nearly pure CO2.

      The combination of the shield on the bed and traps on the floor will catch and kill all and any bedbugs. Even the bedbugs that could be anywhere else in the room, as at some point they will come out of hiding and detect the person sleeping on the bed, but will not be able to reach their goal, meeting first the traps on the floor and later, if they make it that far, the shield on the bed. In a more colorful language, they are screwed!

      That should be enough to eliminate all bedbugs, but I raise the bar and suggest adding bedbug barriers to their misery. Bedbug barriers are vertical obstacles to keep bedbugs from being able to climb up in the bed or the furniture as well as on the walls, closets, ceiling, light switches, picture frames, headboards or any places you want to keep bedbugs from being able to reach. The technology behind it is amazing, to make bedbug barriers, all you need is a roll of scotch tape and a bottle of baby powder! So common and so inexpensive, yet so efficient. It is based on the fact that bedbugs are climbers with filament pincer hooks at the end of their legs. It works fine on any porous or uneven surfaces like wood, paper, tissue, Latex paint… but they have more difficulties on vertical smooth hard surfaces like glass, porcelain, ceramics, polished metal…A good example are the glasses I use to make the pitfall bedbugs fall into, we must cover the outside of the glasses with cloth or paper towels so that bedbug can be able to climb up on and in them, but once they have felt into them, they can’t get out because the inside of the glass is too smooth.

      But bedbugs are still able to crawl up on some smooth but soft surfaces like paint and plastic. For those surfaces we use talcum powder. By applying or brushing a very thin coat of talcum powder on any smooth surface, then they become too slippery for any bedbug to be able to hang on to them. They slip; they slide and fall to the ground, and guess what, that is where the CO2 bedbug traps are.

      Well bedbugs are easy to get rid of when you know how, they cannot walk through plastic or fabric, they cannot chew or dig and we also know how to keep them from being able to climb. They have nowhere to go but down to the ground where we lure them into traps. That is the secret of the bedbug trap, keep them from feeding and use their hunger against them. The undefeatable bedbug? I don’t think so, I eliminated millions of bedbugs and I will keep doing it. Welcome to a bedbug free world.

      With my respect,
      JulesNoise

12. Would adding those hand warmers (I think they’re carbon based) that they sellthis time of year. They only last a few hrs but maybe from 3 to 5 a.m..the prime feeding time . ..would they help to add ro the trap somehow? To mimic our body heat or no? Thanks for everything. U r a genius!

    • @__Dianne,

      There are many types of hand warmers, air activated, supersaturated solution, lighter fluid, battery and charcoal. The ones that produce some CO2 are the lighter fluid and charcoal types. Any additional CO2 to the CO2 of the trap would not hurt but also would add much power to the trap. It takes only a little bit of CO2 to attract bedbugs, no more than from the breathing of a small animal like a hamster, Bedbugs evolved on bats in caves and the slight CO2 emitted by a bat is enough to be detected by bedbugs.

      CO2 is not the only bedbug attractant. Body heat is even superior as it can be seen from a distance by bedbugs that possess night vision, also called thermal vision and infrared vision. Bedbugs can detect infrared and we are the only warm spot they see in a room. No wonder they can always find us. Bedbugs can also see CO2 which is invisible to us by the lack of infrared light as CO2 absorbs infrared, so bedbug see Co2 as dark trails cascading down from the bed (our breathing) and running on the floor. Both are very powerful attractant for bedbugs because they both show them where to get their blood meal.

      So yes, your idea to use hand warmers would double the power of attraction of the traps when there is no one around, like an unoccupied guest room or a living room at night. In the presence of a human, a trap using both heat and CO2 would be detected as a minor source of blood like one of a small animal besides the much larger and closer source of food. At night we are the superior attractant and our body heat and CO2 from our respiration draw bedbug towards us in our sleep. That is why we put a barrier, a bedbug shield between us and the bedbugs to stop them and the CO2 traps on the floor to intercept them when they try to climb on the legs of the bed.

      A few months ago, I talked with another correspondent with the unusual combination of being an engineer who came up with a similar idea but using medical heating pads on top of the traps to clear her son’s mostly unoccupied room out of bedbugs with amazing results. She was good and you can see pictures of her very creative traps in the first page of my website. The section named “Bedbug Whip” works also on the same principle, a trap using both major attractant to wake up dormant bedbugs.

      You’re great. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to develop on this rarely talked aspect of the bedbug trap. You clearly demonstrated that you understand how a bedbug trap works, and I added a few details.

      JulesNoise

13. Just an update on the trap. Had set for about 3 or 4 days and only had a couple. Noticed as the bubbles seemed to get better in the bottles and the little bugs seemed more attracted to it. So, after about a week looked in because I was a little discouraged and guess what, there were about 30 in it, from little ones to big ones. THIS WAS SO AWESOME. Figured out two things about the trap that I wanted to share, one I put lice shampoo in the bottom of the container because I didn’t have powder (forgot to buy it) had it handy just in case they get in our hair and had one crawling out of the trap so thought i better do something. Well long story short found the bugs dead in the shampoo in container, I think they are like lice and the shampoo killed them. Also we had fruit flies because my kids never shut the door and there is about ten of those things in the bottles so served a duel purpose. I thank you again for your much detailed website, it has saved my sanity. I was crying and getting upset thinking we were never going to get rid of these things now I see a light at the end of the tunnel. Wow didn’t realize how many stupid bugs we had around.

    • @__Patricia

      Wow, it seems I have only good news these days.

      You are learning about the trap, analyzing your results. That�s the right way to do it. It seems you had a slow fermentation that got better, it happens sometimes. Could it be from the shelf life of the yeast or from too little mixing, the kick start procedure or maybe some bacteria in the bottles… there is no way to tell. It could even be from the bedbug reaction to recent activities that made them hide and wait until they do not feel threatened anymore

      But finding them into the traps later is the reward of your efforts and most of the time puts an end to the bedbug nightmare. That�s it, from now on you will not feel helpless anymore, you know now that the trap works and will keep working until you will catch the last of them. It is not a theory, it happens every time bedbugs want to feed. They just can�t help it and follow CO2 which normally leads them to their victims and their meal. And you fooled them by offering them a false meal and right under your bed which is the normal way they use to get to you! Their problems are not over yet, you also have a shield to block their way and keep them from reaching you. Oh, bedbugs must really hate you now!

      That lice shampoo does kill bedbugs; in fact it kills just about every insect. When bedbugs take a bath in it, the permethrine it contains attack their nervous system and they die in convulsions.

      Fruit flies are not attracted by CO2 but by the odor of the sugar in the water. It is also the permethrine in the lice shampoo that kills them. It is an unexpected side of the bedbug trap. If it catches bedbugs in a pitfall, it also does the same thing to any crawler that climb on its outside and slip and fall in the pit without being able to get out again.

      Your sanity has been restored and you will never cry because of bedbugs again.

      Have a look at this video someone made, a testimonial about the bedbug trap. @__Patricia

      Wow, it seems I have only good news these days.

      You are learning about the trap, analyzing your results. That�s the right way to do it. It seems you had a slow fermentation that got better, it happens sometimes. Could it be from the shelf life of the yeast or from too little mixing, the kick start procedure or maybe some bacteria in the bottles… there is no way to tell. It could even be from the bedbug reaction to recent activities that made them hide and wait until they do not feel threatened anymore

      But finding them into the traps later is the reward of your efforts and most of the time puts an end to the bedbug nightmare. That�s it, from now on you will not feel helpless anymore, you know now that the trap works and will keep working until you will catch the last of them. It is not a theory, it happens every time bedbugs want to feed. They just can�t help it and follow CO2 which normally leads them to their victims and their meal. And you fooled them by offering them a false meal and right under your bed which is the normal way they use to get to you! Their problems are not over yet, you also have a shield to block their way and keep them from reaching you. Oh, bedbugs must really hate you now!

      That lice shampoo does kill bedbugs; in fact it kills just about every insect. When bedbugs take a bath in it, the permethrine it contains attack their nervous system and they die in convulsions.

      Fruit flies are not attracted by CO2 but by the odor of the sugar in the water. It is also the permethrine in the lice shampoo that kills them. It is an unexpected side of the bedbug trap. If it catches bedbugs in a pitfall, it also does the same thing to any crawler that climb on its outside and slip and fall in the pit without being able to get out again.

      Your sanity has been restored and you will never cry because of bedbugs again.

      Have a look at this video someone made, a testimonial about the bedbug trap.

      In friendship

      Julien

14. Your measurements are confusing me. IT says remove 1/2 cup of water sugar mixture. Then on the next line it says add the yest to the 1/4 cup of water. Am I adding the yeast to 1/4 cup or 1/2 cup of the sugar water mixture?

    • @__Dave

      “Your measurements are confusing me.“ _You are right, it is confusing. It should be the same measure of half a cup of sweet water taken from the bottle to kickproof (positive start) the yeast into a glass and then poured back in the bottle when the yeast is active(bubbling and foaming).

      I’m sorry about that, I made the necessary corrections in the Step-by-Step section, under The Recipe/directions. Thank you for pointing it out to me.

15. Have tried 8 traps over a three week period and gotten 0 bedbugs. I did ensure the yeast was viable and etc. etc. etc. Continue to get bitten, mostly on face now, as everything else is covered (even wear gloves to bed) but cannot quite manage to get my face covered and breathe, too. I have most of the floor lightly dusted with DE but find no carcasses. Unfortunately, it must be time to contact the exterminator; I cannot live this way much longer.

    • @__ Pam M,

      You need a shield. Those bites have to stop right now.

      A bedbug shield is a simple sheet of plastic draped over the whole bed to keep bedbugs from being able to reach you and feed from your blood.

      If your bedbugs are in the bed, no trap or DE on the floor will stop them. Make your own bedbug barrier to stop all bites at once.
      Use this link to see how to make the Bedbug Shield: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Wy-ry66A7U

      Contact me to find out why your traps did not seem to work. We will trap and eliminate all the bedbugs you got without having to call an exterminator and without receiving any other bites.

      JulesNoise

16. Thank you very much for sharing this information with everybody . Do you have any advice for bunk bed . We have metal frame bunk bed for our kids and I don’t know how to make shield for it . Thank you again and GOD BLESS YOU !!!

    • @__Julia

      Bedbug-proof Bunk Beds

      I am in the process of writing a new page for the website. I had many requests about making a shield for bunk beds. It can be done in many different ways. I want to present them together, from the simple draping of a plastic sheet over the whole bed to putting bedbug barriers in strategic places of the bunk bed. I will join pictures of bunk beds, showing those strategic points.

      Inside a bunk bed, those bedbug barriers serve the same thing as the shield on a bed does; it stops bedbugs from climbing up any higher. We use barriers that no bedbug can cross. Bedbug barriers can make any bunk bed impervious to bedbugs, too slippery for them to be able to grip and climb up on it. The wonder of scotch tape and talcum powder to fight and win the war against bedbugs.

      Metal bunk beds will also be mentioned as more difficult to infest because bedbugs have a hard time climbing on polished metal.

      I’ll try to get it out in a day or two.
      Thank you
      JulesNoise

17. These are actually great ideas in regarding blogging. You have touched some pleasant factors here.
    Anny way keep uup wrinting.

18. You actually make it appear really easy with your presentation however
    I find this topic to be really one thing which I believe I’d by no means understand.
    It seems too complicated and extremely wide for me.
    I am taking a look forward for your next put up, I will attempt to get the hold of it!

    • @__deadtrigger2hack__You are right, this whole thing about bedbugs and whatever is really heavy and difficult to understand. It is the case of the overachiever that puts too much and doesn’t know how to limit his comments to the essential.

      We do not really care how bedbugs behave and if they have night vision or not to find us, we do not care about who spreads bedbugs for a profit and all that crap, all we really care about is how to make the trap and be sure that it really works.

      Here is the short version. Bedbugs are climbers, so we use vertical plastic to make barriers impossible to climb. It is the bedbug shield as shown in another video aptly named: “The Bedbug Shield”

      Bedbugs are attracted to CO2, so we make traps that produces CO2 to lure them into small glass pitfalls where they die of suffocation.

      That’s it. That’s all we need to know to defeat bedbugs and as you mentioned it, easily defeat them as they go all by all by themselves into the traps and under the shield where they cannot bite and will die of suffocation and starvation. The logo is Bedbug RIP for a reason, because it stops, catches and kills bedbugs right down to the last one. Real bedbug killers use hunger against bedbugs and make them suffer for weeks before they finally croak in gut wrenching hunger bubble agony. (see bedbug hunger bubbles picture at http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8f/Bed_bug_with_hunger_bubbles_dsws.JPG

      Everything else is only answering specific questions from a multitude of people trying to find out how bedbug traps work and if it will work for them too. Rest assured it will work for you too as it has worked for hundreds of people so far and keeps working.

      The idea is simple: Feed bedbugs and you will raise and have more bedbugs. It is the same for every other insect. Stop feeding bedbugs and you get rid of bedbugs. The only thing to do is to put insurmontable obstacles and traps in their path. The traps and the shield keep bedbugs from feeding. I’m sure a sharp mind can grasp the concept of the trap and make their own starting from scratch. Funny thing is once you done that part, it seems to be easy. Bedbugs are hardly a threat if they can’t bite.

      “Good night, sleep tight; don’t let the bedbug bite!”

19. First, I want to thank you for your web site – we have already killed 100-200 bed bugs using your trap designs! Thank you! You are an angel for doing this! But we are still catching them after 3 months and have some questions:

    Second, some background: My mother-in-law’s room is the only room we ever found any bugs in. Being that she is elderly, she spent a lot of lying *still* time in her bed with the lights off (e.g., 9PM to 9AM). We found dozens in her bed/box spring area. So we shipped her off to my brother-in-law’s house (after having her shower in hot water thoroughly and putting all the stuff she’d bring with her in the dryer on high) and then we thoroughly steamed her mattress, box spring and bed frame/headboard/footboard. When we steamed them we also used a specially design vacuum to suck them up and we caught/killed several dozen in the process. We threw away all of her bedding (after sealing them air-tight in heavy plastic trash bags), as well as her pillows and stuffed animals, etc. We probably killed about at least 100 bugs by doing the above. Then we encased her mattress and box spring with a high quality encasement. Note that we did *not* wrap her bed in plastic sheeting because she/no one would be sleeping there. We then immediately set up 6 traps in her room and started catching bugs in them immediately. Since we didn’t find any traces of bugs anywhere else in the house, we set up traps only in her room and have kept it relatively dark in there with the door closed. In our own bedroom, which is immediately adjacent to her bedroom, we wrapped our bed in plastic sheeting, as you recommended, and also put talc-filled dishes under the feet of our bed. After 3 months we have still seen no traces of bugs anywhere but in our Mom’s (vacated) bedroom and we don’t believe we have suffered any bites from them (our Mom, however did have bites, before we shipped her off). So we think we’re doing the right thing – we are have isolated our own bed, encased her mattress/box spring and are catching bugs in the traps, which we re-do every 2 weeks, in her room. So that’s all good, but now for our questions:

    1. We live in a temperate climate, a block from the ocean, where the outside temperature varies between 45 degrees at night to 70 degrees during the day, this time of the year. We don’t bother to cool or heat our house at all. So at night, our Mom’s room might be going below 60 degrees, but we’re not sure as we haven’t measured it. Given that, how long do you think the bugs in her room, without a blood meal, might live? Our 3 months of traps & no food will be up soon, but we’re still catching 20-30 bugs every two weeks. Worrying that it might be too cold in there (to starve / kill the bugs the fastest possible), today we put a small heater (with a thermostat) in her room on top of her bed. Note that near one of our traps, we also have a heating pad and it’s been on, that way, for several weeks now. So again, our main question is, how long do you think they will live in our climate (California’s Central Coast climate)?

    2. Do you think the small space heater on top of her vacant bed is a good idea? It has a tip-over safety feature and we have it on top of a large non-flammable sheet of material, on the center of her bed.

    3. Do we need to go into our Mom’s room periodically (other than every 2 weeks to re-do the traps) to “wake the bugs up”?

    4. Do you think our overall strategy is correct – plastic-wrapping our bed; encasing but not plastic-wrapping her bed; installing traps in only her bedroom (again after nearly 3 months we still haven’t seen them anywhere but her room)?

    5. Even though we haven’t found any bites on us, and again we have plastic-wrapped our bed, when we get up in the middle of the night (we’re over 60, what can I say?), we are worried that when we walk from the bathroom back to our bed, that if there were any bugs there they could hitch a ride on our feet. So each time before we get in our bed we vigorously rub/wipe off our feet. Do you recommend this or are we just crazy? That is, even if your bed is protected, how do you make sure you don’t bring them into the bed with you?

    Thank you again for your site! We considered whole-house fumigation, and bug-bombing just her room, but in the end we felt your recommended solutions made the most sense. Thank you thank you thank you!

    Eric

    • Hi Eric
      You seem to be dealing with the last dormant bedbugs. At first, you discovered bedbug in your mother-in-law’s room, mostly in her bed. Since she is elderly, she spent a lot of time in her bed and as you exactly described it, a lot of still time which is the best for bedbugs that need people to stay still to be able to crawl up on them and be able to bite and feed of their warm blood. When we move, bedbugs tend to hide, afraid that we will see them and squish them. Bedbugs are slow, running at about four feet a minute, easily overtaken with a single step, so bedbugs do not run in a straight line and go in the first interstice they find and always away from the light where they cannot detect the heat from our body anymore, they feel safe. And then they can wait for their next opportunity when there will be someone present and unmoving in the room before they move toward their blood meal in the dark of the night.

      This behavior explains why there are little chance of bringing a bedbug with you when you wake up in the middle of the night from the bathroom back to your bed, you do not keep still long enough for bedbugs to be able to reach you and catch up to you from their hiding spots. On the other hand, there might not be any bedbugs in the bathroom to begin with. Bedbugs stay and hide close to the source of their food, and in a bathroom there is hardly ever someone standing still long enough for bedbugs to be able to get to us and feed, so bedbugs do not hide in a place where there is no food. They are called bedbugs because the bed and sometimes the couch, truly are the places where we rest and where we are standing still long enough for bedbugs to be able to reach us and feed from our warm blood.

      You know where bedbugs are. From your last three months of bedbug-hunting, you found bedbugs and traces of bedbugs in this adjacent room only. Bites gives us information and shows us our target. That’s what you did, as soon as you found out bedbugs, you used everything you had at your disposal and attacked them with with steam, vacuum and heavy clean-ups, adding plastic covers to the suspected mattress and box spring, and completing your set-up by plastic-wrapping your own bed and making six traps to catch them; and you did, killing 100-200 bed bugs using your traps.

      You did not have any bedbug bites since making your set-up three months ago, but you still find bedbugs in your traps after the long period of three months that should be enough to starve any bedbug to death as it usually does by that time.

      1. You guessed correctly that temperature has an effect on how long bedbugs can survive without food. The 3 months of traps & no food is based on reliable scientific studies made by Alvero Romaro, University of Kentucky who performed experiments where colonies of bedbugs were placed in an unoccupied building at 68F and recorded their behavior with time lapse cameras. The bed bugs didn’t forage or feed and the study gave a normal mortality rate of 92 days (average).

      In 2009, at the 57th Annual Meeting of the Entomological Society of America, newer generations of pesticide-resistant bedbugs in Virginia were reported to survive only two months without feeding, at normal room temperature of 75-80°F. Below 16.1 °C (61 °F), adult bedbugs enter semi-hibernation and can survive for an extended period of time depending how long the semi-hibernation lasts, sometimes up to 5-6 months. Below temperatures of 50°F or less, bedbugs enter full hibernation and can last nearly a year.

      The opposite is also true as bedbugs will be much more active and spend more energy at higher temperatures and those bedbugs will last much less longer without feeding, sometimes only weeks as the temperature gets close to 98,6°F, which is our body temperature. If the temperature rises by a mere 15°F and reaches 113°F, bedbugs start to die within hours.

      So your answer to how come there are still bedbugs around after three months is found in your accurate description of the situation. If your Mom’s room might be going below 60 degrees, bedbugs in that room will hardly move at all and become dormant most of the time, and their starvation will last longer, increased by the temperature factor. The bedbugs you still catch into the traps are bedbugs that slowly wake up during the day when it warms up, detect CO2 on the floor and make it to the traps, attracted by the CO2 that always leads them towards food, except that this time the CO2 comes from a trap.

      This has a negative and positive side to it. Negative in the sense that we are fed up with bedbugs and we want to be rid of them as soon as possible, even if they are immobile and do nothing, no bites, no traces and no bedbugs anywhere other than the ones caught by the traps. The positive side is that if bedbugs are kept cold and numb, they will not forage and migrate to another room, dormant bedbugs stay immobile, trying to last as long as possible on the blood they got before, until they have a chance to detect another warm big spot in the room to feed on it again. It could be what kept them out of the rest of the house, limiting the infestation where it began and making it easy to eliminate all of them together since there are no bedbugs anywhere else.

      Time is irrelevant here. It does not matter how long a bedbug can live or not without feeding, the only thing that matters is that it will never feed again! We have bedbugs only because we feed them, take away their only source of blood and bedbugs die of starvation, it is a law of Nature and bedbugs are no exceptions. So even if an improbable bedbug could live up to six months without having a bite, we simply keep the trap running for seven months, and without getting a single bite all the while. Bedbugs that can’t bite are no big deal, an annoyance maybe but hardly a threat. You know exactly how it is, invisible non-biting bedbugs that are found only in the amazing CO2 bedbug traps, on the job 24/7, relentlessly catching the remaining bedbugs even if they go dormant and even if we don’t see them, right down to the last one until there are none left. Just the trap dong its job.

      2. A small heater as a decoy on the bed is an excellent idea. Bedbugs are attracted to our body heat just as much as to the CO2 in our breathing. The heater should be set on low heat, about 100°F matching body temperature to attract bedbugs while bedbugs will avoid temperatures of 120°F and higher because it kills them. Heat pads are easier to control and also safer. An old electric blanket could also be used as decoy.
      Your idea of a heating pad used with a CO2 bedbug trap make the most efficient bedbug traps, combining the two most powerful lures that attract bedbugs. It shows your understanding of the trap, it is excellent. The heat pad should preferably placed above the trap, as it is in real life, someone sleeping on a bed with CO2 coming down and spreading out on the floor.

      3. Going into your Mom’s room periodically to “wake the bugs up” depends on what you want to do. You could simply wait it out and have nothing to do other than clean up after traps do not catch anything any more, or you could take measures to speed up the process and, yes, wake up dormant bedbugs with simple means. We wake up bedbugs with heat and CO2. Heat makes them active and hungry, so turning up the thermostat or using a safe electric heater will kickstart dormant bedbugs. We can also use CO2, with or without the heat, and the CO2 will wake up bedbugs, CO2 excites bedbugs because it always leads them to a blood meal. To blow CO2 in corners and hard to reach places, a simple CO2 fire extinguisher will do the trick. It does not take much, short blasts in corners, closets, drawers, switches, frames, baseboards, any place a bedbug might hide. A combination of heat and CO2 works even faster, bedbugs already being hungry.

      4. Your strategy was excellent, your results proved it. There might have been things that could have been made differently but doing it as good as that on your first trial is a tremendous success. You used the two best things you have, two good hands and a sharp mind.

      5. Bedbugs makes us over-cautious and we can’t be blamed, the simple thought of bringing a bedbug with us in bed is bothersome, sometimes enough to keep us from being able to sleep. It passes with time, time without bites and without seeing any bedbug, the time it takes for bedbugs to die. And then you think “I haven’t seen bedbug for a while.”, that when you know you won, just like a headache that’s gone.

      Your mother-in-law needs a bedbug shield. If you wrap a long strip of plastic, about 2 feet wide by 25 feet long, like a skirl hanging down about one inch above the floor, fix it to the sides of the mattress with small pieces of duct tape, and then cover the mattress with a regular fabric contour sheet and sealing it to the plastic top of the skirt with white duct tape (white looks better than the usual grey one), that’s all you need to give your elderly mother-in-law permanent protection against bedbugs. She will never be bothered by bedbugs again, ever. The shield stops all bedbugs and it will also stop the very first bedbug if she ever gets one again. That bedbug, I call it the mother-of-all-bedbugs will be stopped by the shield, it will not be able to bite, not be able to lay eggs and will never multiply. Instead it will starve without any possibility of ever having a bite and will never feed. It is total protection against bedbugs even before they can become an infestation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Wy-ry66A7U

      It’s a nice sunny day nere in Quebec, only -17°C and not a single bedbug around.
      JulesNoise

20. Thank you Jules!

    • Hi Jules,

      Just wanted to give you a final (well, hopefully it’s a “final”) update: so we continued our program of keeping my mother-in-law’s bedroom empty (of humans) and isolated (door always locked), refreshing our 6 traps in there every 2 weeks. And I am happy to announce that we finally have no bugs! THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR INFORMATION AND GUIDENCE! IT PROVED INVALUABLE!

      I do want you and your readers to know however, that it took much longer than we expected – it took **9 MONTHS** of using traps until we had no bugs. As a brief recap (see our prior discussion above for more detail), we live near the ocean on the California central coast and as such our weather is very temperate. So much so that no one here has air conditioners. The important point is that even though we were starving the bugs, they managed to last 9 months because of our cool climate. Mom’s bedroom during the first 3 months (during the winter) was often well below 68 degrees. And when we past the first 3 months and still had bugs, we realized that they must be in a semi-hibernation mode due to the cool climate and that’s when we added a small portable heater and kept the temperature in the room above 68 degrees at all times. The number of bugs caught in our traps rose significantly upon the addition of the heater (about 50 bugs every 2 weeks), until finally dwindling (slowly) down to nothing. So for you folks out there in climates below 68 degrees, it’s vital that you keep temperatures up with heating or your bugs will last a long time! Note also that even after adding the heater, we were still trapping bugs for **6 MONTHS**. So even with temps maintained over 68 degrees, they can still hang in there for quite some time.

      Anyway, I’m happy to say that traps work and so did our bed protection — the bugs never left my mom’s room, and my wife and I never got even 1 bite, nor did we ever see even 1 bug in our bedroom or in any other room of the house.

      So thank you again Jules for all your help! My only remaining question is this: your site talks about using dry ice in a sealed mattress to kill any remaining bugs in the mattress, at the end of the multi-step process. We are clearly at the end of the process now, having seen no bugs at all in our traps for the last 2 months. But my question is, after all this time (9 months of trapping bugs + 2 months of no bugs), do you think we still need to do the dry ice procedure with the mattress? Shouldn’t any bugs within that encased mattress be dead by now?

      Thanks again!

      Eric

      • Hi Eric,
        Nine months to get rid of bedbugs does not happen often.

        There are three types of bedbugs depending on the temperature. A bedbug that stays relatively close in a bed stays warm and remain active and hungry , looking for a place to crawl into to get to the sleeper on the bed. If the bedbug cannot find any way to get to you, it will keep trying and spend its energy much faster than a bedbug that can go dormant. Active bedbugs cannot last much more than a few weeks.

        The second type of bedbugsests are dormant bedbugs which usually hide away from the bed and cannot detect any hunan in the room at any time. They become still, totally immobile and wait for the next time someone will get in the empty room, wake them up and that person stays in the room long enough for bedbugs to reach them. Tests made with time-lapse cameras in an unoccupied building at 68°F gives the bedbug mortality rate at about 90 days.

        You guessed the third type, the hibernating or semi-hibernating bedbug that can last twice as long as dormant bedbugs. Below 61 °F, adult bedbugs enter semi-hibernation and can survive for an extended period of time and survive a whole winter. All inbsects do that. If it does not happen often, it is because we keep out homes to 70°-80°F year round and bedbugs almost never go to cool or cold temperature.

        Dry ice in a sealed mattress, box spring or even the whole bed kills all bedbugs and eggs in a matter of hours. It is the concentration levels of the CO2 that axphixiate bedbug. Bedbugs need oxygen and there is none inside the plastic that seals the bed. Height to ten hours later, the plastic can be removed and all bedbugs will be dead. This dry ice method is not really part of the shield or trap, but has been made for those who just can’t stand the idea of having bedbugs around and absulutely want to kill everything at once. This procedure is not at the end of the process but at the very beginning replacing the shield because all bedbugs in the bed will be dead. In your case after nine months, the dry ice procedure would be useless since you do not have any bedbugs anymore.

        You see Eric, you do not have bedbugs, nine months without feeding is nearly impossible. Bedbugs can be controlled with temperature. In Phoenix where temperature often go as high as 120°F, all you have to do to get rid of bedbugs in a bed or a couch is to take them out outside and the sun will kill them. Here in Canada, it is the other way around. We simply wait for the extreme winter cold and bedbugs freeze to death within a day or two.

        I’m very happy for you Eric. You trusted me and tried something that worked How many bedbugs did you caught? A few hundreds and now there is no bedbug to be seen or detected anywhere. You won the bedbug war, 100% bedbug elimination. Bravo!

        With my respect Eric, you are good!

        Jules

21. Hey Jules,
    First, thanks a lot for this post! I am wondering how to go through with the first step proposed here.

    My room is infested. I have a mattress and bed frame but have been sleeping on the floor for long now, as I find it better on my back. Also, My bed frame does not stand on legs. It rests directly on the floor. I can’t find the exact frame, but it is a bit like this (minus the top section and the stairs/ drawers leading up to the top section):
    http://www.cymax.com/coaster-rustic-full-over-full-wood-bunk-bed-in-natural-wood-finish.htm?src=PLA&srcid=6305869&gclid=Cj0KEQjwyIyqBRD4janGs5e67IsBEiQAoF8DGq2jXMfpPevooE8EpHiocAQ6WoDxZekIxD-fFxdm7ZsaAtT28P8HAQ&gclsrc=aw.ds

    The first step seems to a) prevent further bites and b) create the conditions necessary for the final-step dry ice trap. I am sleeping in the basement at the moment (and have been careful not to bring anything from my room there), so am not too worried about not being bitten. I am hoping the bugs stay in my room, though, rather than travel to the other bedrooms in the house in search of some CO2! Is the basic purpose of the first step, other than prevention of bites, to keep all the bed bugs that are in the frame and mattress within that space? If so, I could cover the entire thing with a plastic drape and seal it shut, and still have it so the plastic touches the floor but wraps around the entire frame, so it would not be possible for the bugs to leave or enter. Thanks for any tips and this hugely informative and valuable post Jules!
    Arjuna

    • Hi Arjuna,

      Bedbugs chassed you out of your room and you can’t go back. Given time,hungry bedbugs will search for their food which is now missing and if they can detect you where you now sleep, they will move and start a second harborage where you are. Switching sleeping habit do not get rid of bedbugs but only slows them down for a while.

      Because that is where bedbugs are, bedbugs begin in the bed and remain in the bed until something chases them out of the bed. Two things make bedbugs scatter elsewhere in a room, the first one is natural scattering caused by male bedbugs attacking any other blood-filled bedbugs and the other is human scattering caused by obsessive bedbug hunting and intensive clean-ups and use of poison. These first attempts to get rid of bedbugs are a lot of work and worries, very frustrating and useless most of the time. It is not the will to get rid of them that is missing, it is the way to do it and eliminate them completely.

      The first thing to do is to keep all and any bedbug from being able to bite and feed. Most bedbug bites are at night while we sleep, bedbugs are nearby, hiding mostly in the bed and waiting that we are not moving to climb on us, find bare skin and bite us to feed. An adult bedbug bite lasts 10-15 minutes, if we move bedbugs flee and go back in hiding. we are very dangerous when we move, red streaks in the bed sheets are squished bedbugs that have disturbed us in our sleep.

      So it is protection you need, an impassable barrier between yourself and any and all bedbugs. You are right in saying that the first step is to prevent further bites because that is exactly what a bedbug shield does, it stops all bedbug bites at once. As soon as your shield is in place, bedbugs cannot feed anymore and bedbugs are not immortal, if they starve long enough, they become thin and flat and simply die of starvation. Killing bedbugs from lack of food while you sleep soundly without getting a single bite. How’s that for defeating bedbugs completely and permanently, and the shield is not done yet, if the shield is left in place after all bedbugs are gone, it will prevent any future bedbug infestation by stopping the very first bedbug even before it can bite and lay eggs.

      There are many ways to make a shield for your bed but the best one is to kill all bedbug that are in the bed in a single strike and then prevent bedbugs that might be in the room from being to able to re-infest the bed with bands of scotch tape that serves as bedbug barriers.

      High concentrations of CO2 is a deadly killer, and pure CO2 will kill all bedbugs in the bed including the eggs. You will need a large plastic sheet, about 12 feet by 15 feet, six plastic floor protectors, a roll of small rope or twine, and a roll of 2″ clear wrapping tape.

      First, set the large plastic sheet on the floor, lift and place the bed in the middle of the plastic, and then raise and bring the sides together above the bed to tie them together like a plastic bag over the bed. Untie it to introduce a chunk of dry ice inside the bag and close it again for 24 hours. The dry ice will sublimate into gas and fill the plastic bag with nearly pure CO2. CO2 is heavier than air and will accumulate at the bottom of the large plastic bag, asphyxiating bedbugs in nearly pure deadly CO2. Leave a small hole at the top of the plastic where all sides are tied together to let the air floating on top of the CO2 escape from that pencil-size hole. At first a small white cloud will appear inside the bag, it is moisture from the air that condenses from the extreme cold of the dry ice. Dry ice does not cause any damage, the bed only gets cold and since dry ice does not turn liquid but goes directly into gas, there are no traces, no damage or any residue from dry ice, the only thing that can be found inside the plastic bag are dead bedbugs. As for the CO2, it escapes as soon as the bag is open and the CO2 mixes with the air in the room and become totally inoffensive. A double size bed needs about 8 pounds of dry ice to fill it with CO2 gas but I recommend too much than too little so better to get 10 pounds of dry ice. Dry ice does not keep even in deep freeze, so it is best tpo prepare everything before getting the dry ice that begins to ‘melts” as soon as you get it. It takes 6-8 hours for a chunk of dry ice that size to “melt”. Dry ice can be found locally with a search with the words “dry ice” and the name of your city.

      The plastic bag can be opened after 24 hours and a simple brushing or vacuuming will get rid od all the dead bedbugs. Some people prefer to use soapy water to remove all traces of bedbugs and the bed can be used as new, totally cleared of bedbugs.

      Once the dry ice procedure is done, turn the bed upside down and place a second piece of plastic on the underside of the frame of the bed. That plastic should be about 6 inches larger than the size of the frame. Nail it down with the six plastic floor protectors that will make a small 1/2 inch space between the bed frame and the floor. Bedbugs 1/4 inch long cannot reach up that high and will not be able to reach up and be able to climb. The excess plastic all around the frame should be raised up and held vertically in place using 2″ clear wrapping tape.

      And that’s it, bedbugs in the bed will all be dead, bedbugs anywhere else in the room will not be able to climb up on the floor protectors and even less of the plastic on the underside of the bed frame, as well as keeping any bedbug that could make it to the vertical 2″ clear wrapping tape surrounding the base of the frame of the bed and that bedbugs cannot climb on. See live bedbugs try and fail to get on vertical tape that serves as bedbug barriers, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5sFz9jC-nQ

      Once the bed is protected against bedbugs, make at least two but preferably four CO2 bedbug traps to be placed on each side of the bed to catch hungry bedbugs coming out of hiding from anywhere in the room. Bedbugs will tend to go towards the bed even if it is protected and it is there that the traps will catch them.

      You will not be bothered by bedbugs again, you will not even see them as they will struggle always trying to hide, and fail to get to you and feed from your warm blood. Bedbugs that cannot feed have zero chance of ever feeding again and all you have to do is wait for bedbugs to die and they all starve to death.

      CO2 bedbug traps are fairly simple to make, here is the recipe and a working bedbug trap:
      The Recipe ___ http://julesnoise.com/2014/02/11/30/
      A simple bedbug trap ___ http://julesnoise.com/2014/10/27/a-simple-bedbug-trap/

      Here is more information about the growth of a bedbug infestation, http://julesnoise.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/bedbug-infestation-graph-1664×2200-copie.jpg and what happens to bedbugs when they can’t feed, painful hunger bubbles that develop in their abdomen and makes them dry from the inside, http://julesnoise.com/2014/02/05/40/.

      I hope everything will go well but if you need more information, contact me again and I will give you additional details you might want.

      JulesNoise

    • I forgot something, since in your case you do not have any space under the bed to place your traps, I suggest making traps with a long airline tubing (found in hardware stores or pet shops) to bring the CO2 in small glasses that are the pitfalls bedbugs fall into, but from bottles or containers that can be placed close to a wall and be out of the way so they do not get knocked down and spill the sugar and yeast mixture. Again you have the “simple bedbug trap” as an example of a trap with tubing (in this case drinking straws assembled together)and be able to place the bottles or container anywhere you want.
      This might come in handy for a bed such as yours.
      JulesNoise

22. Awesome Jules, many thanks! I will try this out and keep you posted on how it turns out.

    • Hi Arjuna, it is me again. It is about something you said, sleeping on the floor being better for your back. I think that you would prefer to sleep in your bed again once it is cleared out of bedbugs. A sagging bed can be made to be more rigid by adding a thin piece of plywood, 1/4 inch or 3/8 of an inch thick, and place it directly under the mattress. You will get something similar to the flat floor for your back but with the cushion of the mattress which will not bend or sag. It will make your bed much more comfortable and enjoyable it as if you had a new bed. The size of that plywood board should be about two inches less than the size of the mattress, meaning 52 inches by 73 inches long for a double bed of 54″ by75″.

      It is just a trick that is not usually part of a bedbug trap but that you might adopt to keep your bed straight and flat and treat your back right.

      I thought you might appreciate it.
      JulesNoise

23. Hmm, that sounds like a great idea. Thanks a lot Jules!

24. Dear Jules,

    Greetings from Estonia. I will apologize ahead for my English and I will try to explain things to the best of my abilities. Few nights ago, I stayed up til 4 am, working on a project for work, As I stood up to go to the bathroom, I noticed something odd on my couch. As I looked closer, it was a bug. I grabbed my phone, snapped a picture and then grabbed a tissue and managed to catch that little twerp before it got away. Needless to say I squashed it and sent it swimming down the toilet. I immediately looked up bedbugs online and compared the picture and indeed it was a bedbug. It had obviously had some of my blood, since the back/belly was red. I have not found any bite marks on myself for a while until I noticed a very tiny dot on my hand. So apparently I don’t react to bedbug bites at all, which is problematic in a sense that I don’t know how long have I not been aware of them. How long have I had them, without realizing it? Where did I manage to pick them up? I was disgusted but tried not to panic. I live alone in a 3 room apartment. Due to an injury to my back, I have been sleeping on the sofa in my living room and I have not slept in my bedroom in ages. I am glad I didn’t sleep in my bedroom and now I will have to continue to sleep in my living room on the sofa until the issue is resolved since I don’t want to give them the pleasure of following me to the bedroom. I want to solve it as soon as possible, not because I’m panicking, but because I don’t want to spread them. For me, the end of the world would be, if I spread them to someone else. I have tried to look things up in my own language, but some “expert” pesticide control companies have listed such load of bull on their website that I am hesitant to call in a pro, to pay them a lot of money and then end up seeing how ignorant they are in the matter. (for example, one of the companies listed the bedbugs as dangerous critters to humans, because they transmit disease etc). This is how I ended up on your website, because you seem to know what you are talking about. I don’t want to look down on the pest control companies in my country, but I am a little hesitant, since it will cost me a lot of money and I am not guaranteed that they can get them out.

    My question is, how effective is this method? There was one article, written by a someone who works in the pest control field about how CO2 traps are unreliable and shouldn’t be trusted and that you should only use it to lure out the bedbugs in order to catch them, so that you could show them to your landlord or the pest control.
    How ever, I’ve seen a lot of positive feedback on your page, saying that it worked. I’m willing to try anything.

    The problem is, the traps will not fit under my sofa and my sofa is very long, so I am not too sure about how to cover it with plastic.

    My sofa is a bed sofa and it looks like this
    

    the sofa is up against the wall.
    I am not sure what to do with it. I have a steam cleaner and I have caught few of them. But I am honestly at loss at how to deal with the sofa and where to place the traps.

    How do I know whether they have traveled elsewhere in my apartment?

    I also had a blood stain on my pillow. Did I squish one in my sleep? I hope I did. The last thing I want is them feasting on me and then leaving a bloodstain as a taunting present before crawling away into darkness.
    Any tips would be appreciated.

    Anne

    • Hi Anne of Estonia,

      Bedbugs is a problem made bigger than life when it is actually a simple insect that we can eliminate easily with simple things we already have at home or get around us.

      Everybody dreads bedbugs because life becomes a nightmare when they invade our homes and it seems we just can’t get rid of them. We could make a long list of all the problems caused by bedbugs, bedbugs drive people insane, ready to throw away their belongings and endanger their lives for months with poison. Bedbugs were nearly extinct until greedy fools brought them back and lost control. Now we have an ever expanding population of super bedbugs resistant to pesticides, and more pesticides will not stop them but make them spread. Those are the bedbugs we now find.

      And you found them, well you found one because you stayed up one night and saw a red and round bedbug where you usually sleep. Alarm bells started ringing and you wanted to know what is that thing that got in your couch, and if there might be more bedbugs elsewhere.

      At this stage of a bedbug infestation, you are not supposed to know you have bedbugs. At the beginning of an infestation, there are very few bedbugs and they stay together in the place where they can feed. Scattering begins when a colony matures, 70-100 bedbugs including male bedbugs. Before that, most often there is only one unnoticed bedbug that can feed at will and lays eggs to get more bedbugs. They feed on our warm blood and they multiply in our bed, or couch if we sleep on it, until the first eggs reach the adult stage and begin laying eggs themselves. The infestation increases and we start seeing bedbugs everywhere.

      Here is a graph of the bedbug life cycle and how a bedbug infestation multiplies:

      ⦁ The Life Cycle of a Bedbug ___ http://julesnoise.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/bedbug-life-cycle.jpg

      ⦁ The growth of an infestation ___ http://julesnoise.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/bedbug-infestation-graph-1664×2200-copie.jpg

      That is possible only if bedbugs can feed. Bedbugs feed exclusively on blood. Without blood, bedbugs cannot molt and grow and without blood bedbugs cannot lay eggs. Most importantly, without blood bedbugs simply cannot survive.

      It is all about our blood, whether they can get it or not. We have bedbugs because they can feed, stop feeding bedbugs and they will die of starvation. And that’s what the trap is all about, defeat bedbugs where it will hurt them the most, their hunger. Take our blood away from bedbugs and let them starve to death.

      All of that makes sense and it has been proven to work times and times again, I’m responsible for the death of millions of bedbugs. But the question remains, how do we do it?

      First we must find out we have bedbugs and that’s what you did. We can have bedbugs for a long time without being aware of it. That bedbug was not supposed to be in plain sight as it did. It was red and round, full of blood and could not find its way back to the harborage. Bedbugs easily hide in small cracks and crevices but when they are filled with blood they do not fit in those interstices anymore, so they look for another place to hide. You saw a lost half-blind well-fed bedbug doing exactly that.

      And it gave us all the information we need to defeat them. It was a single bedbug and you could find only one possible bite on a finger. There were no other traces of bedbugs, no shells, no fecal matter, no visible harborage, nothing to suspect bedbug presence. But that bedbug was real and if there is one blood-filled bedbug, you can be sure there are many other ones that you could not see. You are lucky to have found that one that will give you the means to get rid of all of them before it gets worse.

      That bedbug was in the place where you usually sleep. Bedbugs tend to stay close to their “host”, hiding and safe in the couch, ready for their next meal and the meal of the other new hatchling bedbugs. Since there are no other signs of bedbugs, the harborage is where you sleep, bedbugs are still in the couch. If you could catch all those bedbugs in a single swoop, it would kill and eliminate 99% of all your bedbugs. All that would be left is to make sure that no other bedbug could come back and re-infest the couch.

      There are many ways to kill bedbugs in a couch.

      ⦁ You could first vacuum them out and kill any remaining bedbug with 91% rubbing alcohol that kills bedbugs and eggs on contact. Wax seals any crack and crevices and bedbugs become entombed in their hiding places. It is a lot of work and we can easily miss some bedbugs.

      ⦁ You could use heat and kill bedbugs when the temperature reaches 120°F (50°C) and is maintained for one hour. It is difficult to heat up a couch inside a home and might become a fire hazard if not done properly.

      ⦁ You could use cold and kill bedbugs when the temperature reaches -20°F (-30°C) and is maintained for twenty-four hours. We need special equipment to lower and maintain the temperature low enough to kill bedbugs.

      ⦁ You could make your life easier by using dry ice to kill bedbugs. Dry ice is the solid form of CO2 and when it turns into gas inside a plastic bag, it replaces all the oxygen inside the bag and asphyxiates anything living inside. It is the silent killer, insects, eggs, nothing survives pure CO2 from dry ice.

      Killing bedbugs with dry ice is relatively simple to do. We need a large plastic sheet, the kind of plastic used by painters. A 4m x 5m sheet of painter’s plastic will cover an average couch. That sheet of plastic must be large enough to enclose the whole couch and wrap it like a bag with its sides brought up together and tied up above the couch. Set the sheet of plastic on the floor and then lift and place the couch in the middle of the plastic sheet. Lift all the sides of the plastic around the couch, using clear wrapping tape to hold it in place. Gather all the ends together and attach them loosely together. You should have a plastic bag all around the couch.

      Now comes the fun part. Get 4kg (10 pounds) of dry ice from a local supplier and place it on the couch inside the plastic bag. Wear gloves to handle extreme cold dry ice. Solid dry ice will start to sublimate into a whitish cloud slowly filling and accumulating at the bottom of the bag. This will slowly push all the air out of the bag from the small opening left in the plastic sides tied up together. The white cloud will dissipate and all the dry ice will turn in invisible CO2 gas. Bedbugs will start to die within hours of suffocation no matter where they are in the couch. I suggest to leave the bag on for 24 hours and all and any bedbugs or eggs will be dead the next day.

      Open the bag and all the CO2 flows out and mixes with the air. CO2 loses its lethal property in the open air. It is only when it is concentrated inside a plastic bag that CO2 is pure enough to kill bedbugs. The dry ice procedure is totally harmless, except for bedbugs. The only thing left to do is to sweep away bedbug residues and the couch is free of bedbugs, and since dry ice does not become liquid, the couch is in the same condition as it was before a lone single bedbug got there and started feeding and laying eggs.

      To prevent any other bedbugs from re-infesting the couch again, use bedbug barriers. Bedbugs are climbers and to keep bedbugs from being able to climb, all we need are vertical surfaces that are too slick and too slippery for bedbugs to get a grip into. It is the perfect defense against bedbugs, bedbugs can only bite what they can reach, and bedbug barriers stops them completely.

      Bedbug barriers are made with common inexpensive scotch tape or wrapping tape. The shiny surface of that kind of tape is the most frustrating thing bedbugs could ever try to climb on. It makes them slip and slide, lose their grip and fall down to the floor where the traps are. No bedbug can cross a barrier made of clear shiny tape. See it for yourself at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5sFz9jC-nQ

      Bedbug barriers on the legs of the couch will keep bedbugs from being able to climb up into it, bedbugs are simply unable to reach you anymore. With bedbug barriers, you control where bedbugs can go or not, and barriers will keep them from being able to climb anywhere.

      Keep bedbugs down and catch them with traps on the floor. One trap at each end of the couch will catch bedbugs that go towards the couch at night but are stopped by the barriers. The CO2 given by the sugar and yeast mixture lures bedbugs into small pitfalls from which bedbugs cannot get out. Again the CO2 inside the small glass pitfalls suffocates bedbugs that felt in the trap. And they all fall down, CO2 bedbug traps clear the whole room out of bedbugs.
      Here are bedbugs traps and the recipe to make CO2:

      ⦁ A simple bedbug trap ___ http://julesnoise.com/2014/10/27/a-simple-bedbug-trap/

      ⦁ Easiest and Fastest Bedbug Trap ever ___ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlpsDjat1KI

      ⦁ Making a CO2 Bedbug Trap with Plastic Containers ___ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWd5dBdyqVc

      ⦁ The Recipe ___ http://julesnoise.com/2014/02/11/30/

      This will completely clear you out of bedbugs and you will never be bothered by bedbugs again.

      You could use the same barriers on your bed and get the same protection as on the couch. I’m not an expert, but back problems can be made more tolerable with a firm mattress that will not sag in the middle. Some people sleep with the mattress on the floor to get that firm support but you can get the same result by placing a piece of plywood directly between the mattress and the box spring. It could help you to be able to use your bed again.

      There is more information about bedbugs and about the bedbug trap at: http://julesnoise.com/

      If you need more details, you can also contact me again and find out what you need to know.

      JulesNoise

25. It’s hard to find well-informed people on this topic, but you
    sound like you know what you’re talking about!
    Thanks

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