Have you heard or read that cinnamon kills bed bugs?

Or that lavender oil, patchouli, red pepper or cloves will kill bed bugs or at least prevent them from biting you? Cinnamon, lavender, salt, etc., do not harm bed bugs in any way and trying these ineffective methods will only give bed bugs more time to reproduce increasing your infestation every day. You will still get bites and all of your effort and investment in methods that don’t work will only mean your infestation continues to grow instead of shrink.
This article from Wired Magazine, October 2014 explains how and why they don’t work from a scientific examination.



New research put 11 over-the-counter bed bug sprays to the test to see if essential oils can do more than make your bedroom smell nice. The results were… underwhelming.

It’s important to understand that a few household items do kill bed bugs on contact, such as rubbing alcohol 91% or higher, cedar based oil products like murphy’s oil soap. However in this study,

Most of the products failed a very simple test: if you sprayed the stuff directly on live bed bugs in a petri dish, would they die? Researchers measured bug deaths after 1, 3, 5, 7, and 10 days to make sure they captured any lingering effects. Two conventional pesticides were included for comparison purposes in the tests: Temprid SC and Demand CS.  There also were control bed bugs that got spritzed with water as a mock spray treatment.

Seven of the natural products tested did not manage to kill even ½ (50%) of the bed bugs sprayed, measured by dead bugs 10 days later.

This article published in the Journal of Economic Entomology concurs that bed bug sprays made from primarily natural ingredients such as clove oil, soap and cinnamon may kill bed bugs on contact, but are far less effective than FDA approved pesticides to kill bed bugs. Unfortunately, with bed bugs you don’t want to be “pretty sure” you killed them all.

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