Keeping your home bug-free is near-impossible, but that doesn’t mean you can’t try your hardest to make it possible. Discovering an infestation of bugs is pretty disturbing, and one of the worst creatures of all is the notorious bed bug.
Bed bugs live in your home and have an annoying talent of being able to sense body heat emitting from humans and animals, and even the carbon dioxide you exhale. This means they’ll be able to detect you in a room, usually when you’re asleep, and take enjoyment from biting your skin all over.
Bed bugs survive by feasting on human blood, which is as disgusting as it is frustrating. Who gave them permission to take your blood and leave itchy bumps all over your skin? You certainly didn’t – so you’ll need to show them who’s boss and get rid of them as quickly as you can.
Luckily, you don’t have to resort to using toxic chemicals that could be harmful to your home and family to get rid of bed bugs. There are plenty of natural methods that prove just as effective, with one of the more popular of these methods using baking soda.What is Baking Soda?
Baking soda is an ingredient that must of us have in our cupboards fort those frequent cake baking emergencies. It’s known as sodium bicarbonate in full, and, as its name suggests, consists of sodium and bicarbonate ions.
Being completely natural, baking soda is one of the safest cleaning formulas you can use in your home. It’s safe to eat, for a start, and it also won’t irritate your skin when it comes into contact with it. Generally, baking soda is a better alternative to getting rid of bed bugs than most commercial products, which often contain chemical pesticides that are toxic to humans as well as pests.How Baking Soda Works
When you’re trying to control a pest, in this case, bed bugs, baking soda works in a number of different ways:
1. Digestion
First, while baking soda is perfectly safe for consumption by humans, it’s a different story for insects. When baking soda warms up, as it does when it is being digested, it changes composition and its chemical bonds break down.Â
This causes it to release carbon dioxide in gas form, which will burst the lining of a bed bug’s intestines, killing them.
2. Exoskeleton damage
We might not notice it ourselves, but the tiny grains of baking soda are actually pretty sharp. In many cases, these can be sharp enough to cut into the underside of a bed bug’s exoskeleton, which can cause enough damage to eventually kill the insect.
3. Dehydration
One of baking soda’s most useful properties is its ability to absorb odours and moisture. When you sprinkle baking soda over a bed bug area, it will suck the water out of any insects it comes into contact with, dehydrating the bed bugs to the point of death.Â
Bed bugs don’t need to ingest the baking soda for this to happen; simply contact with the powder will be enough.
How to Use Baking Soda on Bed Bugs
So how can you use soda properly to kill your bed bugs? There are three favourable ways of doing so:
1. Baking soda paste
To make a paste out of baking soda, mix the ingredient with water in a bowl until you achieve the consistency of honey. Then use a brush and paint the paste wherever bed bugs might hide, such as on mattresses, springs, couches, and armchairs.
Make sure to get inside holes, crevices and cracks. Every few days, vacuum up the dried paste and start again until your infestation is gone.
2. Baking soda sprinkle
Simply take a handful of baking soda as it is and sprinkle a layer around all furniture and inside cracks and small spaces. Vacuum up and repeat every three days.Â
Remember that a vacuum is important for removing bed bugs from your home instantly. By using it daily, you’ll catch the bugs that come out of hiding.
3. Baking soda piles
Bed bugs are incredibly sneaky – they can hide in places other than your bed and then crawl up the legs of your bed frame to get to you. You can prevent this issue by making piles of baking soda all around your bed’s legs, which the bugs would have to crawl through to reach you. Do the same thing with the couch, piling baking soda around its base.
Conclusion
Baking soda is one of the safest and most natural ways of removing bed bugs from your home – and this simple ingredient is proof that there’s no reason to resort to harmful chemicals to kill the insects.
Keep in mind that bed bug infestations are one of the hardest to fully eliminate. If you use it correctly and frequently, baking soda can kill bed bugs, although it won’t instantly.Â
You’ll need to stay on top of the application, but on the plus side, there won’t be any kind of dangerous chemicals sitting around your home.
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