Alana Korol

August 21, 2017

Despite the negativity we often aim at bed bugs (we hate them and want them all to die), we think of ourselves as fairly positive here at the Bed Bug Store. We love giving advice on how to get rid of them and are sure you can take care of your bed bug problem without resorting to an exterminator. 

In fact, we’re so positive that you’ll be able to eradicate the bed bugs from your life that we offer a 90-day 100% Money-Back Guarantee. If you have any questions about how to use our products, all you have to do is contact us at 1-866-371-2499 and speak to a friendly person who can offer you positive visions of your bed bug-free future!

Unfortunately, when you have bed bugs and haven’t started treatment yet, it’s hard to be positive when there are so many aspects of bed bug culture that you simply can’t change.

Today, we’re going to look at a few things you can’t do anything about, as well as the solutions that might sound like a good idea but don’t really help in the end.

1. Your Breathing

One of the first things that many people learn about bed bugs is that they find you by following the largest concentration of carbon dioxide in the room, which is true. When you inhale, you breathe in air, process the oxygen, and breathe out carbon dioxide and water vapor. Because you don’t move much when you sleep, the cloud of carbon dioxide just stays over your bed, tipping the bloodsuckers off as to where you’re sleeping. It’s like a big flashing arrow over your body saying, “Free Food Here.”

Try sleeping with a ceiling fan, which evenly distributes the carbon dioxide throughout the room. That might work well if it were their only way of detecting you, but unfortunately, they can also locate you via...

2. Your Body Temperature

Here’s something you probably don’t think about often: you’re the warmest thing in a bedroom (especially if you’ve given up incandescent light bulbs and switched to LEDs). The water in the pipes cools off after a shower, while all the furniture is at room temperature, usually between 68 and 85 degrees, as determined by the temperature outside your home’s ventilation system.

So you’re lying in bed with a toasty core temperature of 98.6 degrees and a skin temperature of about 91. Bed bugs are attracted to this warmth and will seek you out.

3. Your Sheets

As it turns out, bed bugs prefer to walk on black or red bed sheets than other colors. The theory goes that black sheets are preferable because they mimic the darkness that bed bugs are accustomed to. They like red ones not because they are attracted to blood but because they like the color of other adult bed bugs, which are red after a blood meal. (It also helps in camouflaging).

What colors don't bed bugs like? Green, yellow, and white, which researchers believe make the bed bugs feel a little too out in the open (they're opportunistic night vampires that prefer to hide in the shadows, after all).

Problem solved, right? Put some different color sheets on, and you're good to go? It takes a lot of work. While the bed bugs prefer darker sheets, it won't prevent them from going across them in search of food. 

For instance, if your only source of food was a restaurant across a busy street, there's no doubt that you'd prefer a bridge to get to it. But when you're hungry, you'll take your chances by crossing the busy street anyway. If you're dealing with a bed bug infestation, taking proactive measures is essential. Using bed bug spray for mattresses can be a practical part of your strategy to combat these pests.

4. Your Hair

Bed bugs aren’t big fans of hair. Sure, they’re opportunistic and will bite you just about anywhere. Still, they have difficulty navigating hair such as arm or leg hair (that’s why they tend to leave pets alone). Does that mean women who shave their legs are bitten more than men who don’t? Sorry, but that means men are likelier to be bitten elsewhere. A bed bug will just crawl up to the torso and start biting if they find the legs unpalatable. Oh, to be the Wolf Man during a bed bug infestation!

5. Your Clothing

Okay, so having more hair doesn’t prevent them from biting. So maybe you should cover up your skin with long-sleeve pajamas and sleep in socks? It seems like a good idea, but it just funnels the problem to a different part of your body.

Bed bugs don’t like crawling beneath clothes, much for the same reason burglars will avoid basements: it makes escape harder. They’re good at crawling, so they’ll head up to an uncovered spot, such as your neck or face, concentrating the bites in one place. 

The thought makes most people long for the days they were ”only” biting their legs. If bed bug bites on your face don’t convince you it’s time to look for an all-natural spray, we don’t know what will!

6. Your Skin

First of all, bed bugs are like an easy meal. They won’t be gnawing through the thick skin on your heel if they can head a few inches up and get through the skin on your calf. The callous on your thumb is safe, but that juicy part on your forearm is in danger. Most of us are interested in softer skin, so toughening up your skin to prevent bed bug bites isn’t viable.

What about covering the skin in something that they don’t like? Some oils work pretty well, but they have two big problems. First of all, you’re not dealing with the problem itself, which is the bed bugs. They can live for more than a year without feeding, so unless you want to put that oil on every inch of your skin daily, it won’t work. There’s going to be that point where they get starving and don’t care if you have peppermint, eucalyptus, or lemongrass oil on them.

Second, some people are susceptible to essential oils. Suppose they choose between getting a rash from oil or bed bugs. In that case, there’s only one option: choose the third option of using a natural remedy for bed bugs like our bed bug spray and get rid of them completely.

7. Your Blood Type

This one is a bit iffy, but we thought we’d bring it up. While most experiments have been done with mosquitoes, there’s some evidence that hematophagous are more attracted to some blood types than others. That’s because people with different blood types can give off different scents.

Of course, this is more helpful for knowing about mosquitoes. When you’re in a big group of people, those with type O blood should take more precautions than those with other blood types because mosquitoes seem to prefer it. But while those with type O blood can draw more mosquitoes to them and save everyone a few bites, that does not make any difference in a bedroom. There are seldom more than two people in a bed at a time, and it’s not like the bed bugs will say “no thanks” just because they bump into one person sooner than the other.

When could this make a difference? Places with lots of single beds, such as camps, military barracks, and developing world hospitals where bed bugs wouldn’t have to travel very far to get to the next victim.

8. Your Surroundings

Don’t get us wrong, you can change your surroundings. Clothes and extra sheets on the floor give the bed bugs a place to hide, so picking them off and giving them a good wash before putting them away is good. After all, if you see a bed bug, you can just go ahead and kill it with a good bed bug spray.

You might even think, “I’m going to change all my furniture completely.” Perhaps the red and brown fecal stains are too much to take, and you decide to replace the mattress. Or maybe you go so far as to wrap up your dresser and send it to the curb.

But while you might change the individual parts of the surroundings, the basics stay the same. Your new mattress will still have many places for bed bugs to hide. The dresser will provide them with dark places to reproduce. Unless you completely change the way you sleep, including sleeping in a hammock and nailing your dresser three feet off the floor, your bedroom will always work against you in the battle with bed bugs.

9. You’re Alive

 What does all of this come together to tell us? This article from Science Daily sums it up pretty well with the title “Alive? You Are A Bed Bug Magnet.” Living and breathing and going about your daily routines, like sleeping, means you will be susceptible to bed bugs. Stay alive so that you can make those bed bugs dead!

10. So Why Are Some People Bitten More?

 After noting all of these aspects that attract bed bugs you can’t do anything about, it might still seem that some people aren’t suffering nearly as much as others. One person in the bed might get bitten a lot, while the person beside them might not be bothered. One person wakes up with welts all over their body (or develops them over 24 hours), while another person gets off scot-free. What gives?

11. One Person Might Be More Restless

It's unlikely that biting bed bugs will wake you up. They inject you with a painkiller first so that you don't even notice they're on you.

What do bed bugs absolutely love? A quiet meal. They hate being interrupted, and a meal takes around 10 minutes. If they choose between a perfectly still person and one who tosses and turns a bit more, they will most likely choose the one who isn't moving in their sleep (it's also possible that the restless person scared them toward the still person!) They also hate to be trapped, so they might fear someone who moves about too much from side to side.

12. There Might Be No Difference At All

So one person wakes up and says, “This is horrible,” and the person beside them says, “What?” There are some people out there who don’t even know that they have bed bugs because different people react differently to the bites. One person will have welts all over their body, and the other person appears unaffected. Both people might have been bitten equally, but one showed the sign more.

13. So What Can You Do?

As it turns out, find a natural bed bug killer and eradicate it with extreme prejudice. But apart from that, are there any other steps you can take? Check back the next blog to find out!

Let us at  Bed Bug Store assist you. All our products come with a 90-day 100% satisfaction guarantee. We have been relieving customers of their bed bugs since 2003. Our products are also 100% natural, chemical, and pesticide-free. The smell you notice when using our solution is the fresh scent of peppermint. 

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