Are Bed Bugs Attracted to a Dirty House?

You’ve justfound out you have bed bugs, or someone you know has them, and you’re wondering how it happened.  Their house is full of tons of stuff, and they don’t clean very often.  Surely that’s the reason they have bed bugs, right?  And since you keep your house clean, you won’t have them, right?  I wish I could tell you that’s the case, but it’s not.  Bed bugs aren’t attracted to dirty areas, any more than mosquitos are attracted to a messy backyard full of junk.  Bed bugs, as well as mosquitos, are attracted to only one thing:  us.  Our blood, to be exact.  It’s what they require to live.  

Must Read: Can Bed Bugs Give You a Disease?

How!?

When someone finds they have bed bugs, usually the first question they ask is, “How did this happen?”.  Many times they will never find out.  But the most common way to get bed bugs is from being at someone’s house who has them, or having that person come to your house.  And that person is usually family, or a close friend, someone you hang out with the most.  So, it’s not clutter that causes bed bugs, it’s your grandpa, or aunt, or friend, who brings the bed bugs to you. And many times they don’t even know they have them. 

How Do Bed Bugs Get Into Your Home?Is It My Clutter?

So, do bed bugs come from clutter?  No, but clutter does make it tougher to remove them.  The less clutter you have, the easier it will be to get rid of them.  It’s a misconception that bed bugs live only on beds.  They will live anywhere.  And I mean anywhere.  We see them in closets, drawers, on books, on the floor, and even on the walls and ceiling.  Once they are brought into your home, they set up shop in many different areas.  What’s clutter got to do with it?  Well, since they live anywhere, they will use the clutter to create a nice apartment close to the food: you.  They will pack into boxes, along the edge of cardboard, under a pile of blankets. That makes it much harder to get rid of the bugs quickly.  

How Do You Kill Them?

So how do you get rid of bed bugs?  The two main methods are applying chemicals and using heat.  Both have limitations, but we prefer to use heat whenever possible.  Heating the area with bed bugs is normally a one time treatment that happens in a few hours.  Chemical treatments will take several weeks to work, and that means you’ll be sleeping with the bed bugs for a few more weeks before they are gone.  Not fun, but sometimes it’s the only way, if there are difficulties to using heat in that space. 

How Do Keep Bed Bugs Far Away?

How do you avoid getting bed bugs? Honestly, it’s pretty much impossible to reduce your risk to zero.  Bed bugs can live anywhere, and will live in any area where people spend time.  Work, schools, churches, homes, cars, buses, planes, all are fair game for bed bugs.  But vigilance is the best policy.  Lower your risk by not bringing used furniture into your house, paying attention to strange bites at a friends’ house, and by never putting your luggage on a bed in a hotel.  

However, if you do get bed bugs, the best thing to do is

to your home who specialize in bed bugs.  Let them do the work for you, and you’ll save money in the end, before you throw stuff away or use ineffective cheap chemicals.  

Hopefully you never get bed bugs, but if you do, Call Rock Pest Control.

Making Bed Bugs Homeless since 2019.