Unless a guest brought bed bugs into your home, we’re afraid it was most likely you who attracted them and brought them into your bedroom after you visited a hotel. Today, we’re going to look at what bed bugs are attracted to so that you can take a few steps to avoid them.

Bed Bugs Love Your Smell

We’ve often told you how bed bugs are attracted to the carbon dioxide you exhale and the warmth of your body (more on that below). Now, you can add another thing to worry about: your smell.

Scientists at the University of Sheffield have been studying ways to avoid bringing bed bugs home. They found that bed bugs are very attracted to the smell of humans and verified this by putting laundry in a room. One time, they used the clean laundry and let the bed bugs loose; the second time, they used dirty laundry in the room. They found that bed bugs congregated in both piles of laundry, but there were twice as many in the dirty pile of laundry. It seems that, when given a choice, bed bugs will head toward the pile of dirty laundry because they’re attracted to the smell of humans. This could give some credence as to why one person in a bed is bitten by bed bugs more frequently than someone sleeping beside them. Different people produce different scents, though scientists are not yet sure which chemicals are causing such an attraction.

What can be done about it? The study would suggest that you’re more likely to attract bed bugs at the end of your trip than at the beginning. So, take a garbage bag along and tie it up tight so that the bed bugs can’t get in and ride home with you. When you get home, ensure laundry is the first thing you do, washing and drying your clothing on the hot cycle. You can also use a travel bed bug spray and spray your luggage periodically, then give it a good final spray when you get home.

Bed Bugs Love To Hide

Humans make life pretty easy on bed bugs. We give them year-round shelter that also keeps out their natural predators. We provide them with food at night in the form of human blood. We also give them a nice soft place with multiple hiding places: a bed.

Luggage is another place bed bugs love to hide because it has so many crevices (and the human scent we mentioned above helps to attract them to it). There are the seams, the pockets, the spaces around the handles, and, of course, the interior. To make matters worse, the bed bug mating process is so traumatic for the females that they are trying to find a hiding place to escape all other bed bugs. A suitcase is a perfect place to find refuge, and then you take her home, where she can lay over 500 eggs.

How can you avoid taking bed bugs home in your suitcase? First, don’t put your suitcase on the bed, because bed bugs will find it and crawl inside. The better option is to use the luggage rack in the hotel room, preferably with metal legs or the bathroom. (Bed bugs have trouble crawling up metal and tile.) If you want to protect your luggage rack and suitcase, put some bed bug traps under each foot of the rack. This will trap any bed bugs trying to crawl up and show that you have bed bugs so that you can change rooms as soon as possible.

Second, use bed bug luggage covers. These covers go over your luggage and zip up, preventing the bed bugs from gaining access. There’s even a tab that goes over the zipper to ensure that the bed bugs, which are only 5 mm long or smaller, can’t get in. Trust us, they’re looking for a way to get into your luggage and get at that sweet, sweet, dirty laundry.

Bed Bugs Love Your Exhalations

As we mentioned before, bed bugs are attracted to your breathing. When you exhale, your body releases carbon dioxide (CO2) as waste. Bed bugs are attracted to this not because they love carbon dioxide so much but because they know this is a signal of where their meal—you—is.

During the day, you often move about and exhale all over the house, and your movement also distributes the CO2 around. But when you’re sleeping, you’re remaining in one place, creating a cloud of CO2 around you. To make matters even worse, your lack of movement means you’re not creating any drafts that would disperse it. That big invisible cloud of CO2 acts like a big sign that says “24-Hour Diner” to the bed bugs.

Is there anything that can be done about it? There’s some evidence that turning on a ceiling fan could help distribute the CO2 and the odors we mentioned above around the room. Unfortunately, bed bugs live in your bed, and just wandering around gives them more than enough opportunity to find you.

Bed Bugs Like Your Warmth

Bed bugs are attracted to your warmth, and you can’t do much about it. Even if you like sleeping in a cold room with lots of air conditioning, your body will still be around 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, which is a huge difference from the room temperature of 60-70 degrees. Bed bugs will be able to find you without a problem. 

What Attracts Bed Bugs?