Bed Bugs And HVAC: Recipe for Disaster

Your home’s heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system are meant to make your indoor living more comfortable. Unfortunately, bed bugs can take advantage of its presence to wreak havoc on your life.

If you have a bed bug infestation and you are trying to deal with it via some home remedies, it’s important that you pay attention to air vents and ducts as they can spell the difference between reaping success and failing.

Bed bugs can hide in air vents and travel from room to room via air ducts. Cleaning air vents and ducts can cause bed bugs to spread faster due to being displaced. Because bed bugs can infest the entire home in different ways, it’s a must to put the infestation under control before it worsens.

There is no point in breathing in clean air or sleeping in a bedroom whose temperature is conducive to sleep if there are bed bugs around.

No matter how favorable the conditions are inside your home, a bed bug infestation can easily leave your everyday life in a mess. Keep on reading to know how you can keep those pesky bed bugs from using the HVAC system to spread to different rooms in your home.

Bed Bugs Can Get in Through Different Ways

Those tiny blood-sucking creatures don’t just appear out of thin air. If you are experiencing a bed bug infestation, it’s for certain that it all started with the introduction of a few bed bugs into your bedroom.

Since bed bugs are excellent hitchhikers, it is by clinging to clothes or hiding in suitcases that they can get from one place to the other.

Especially if you are fond of traveling, it is possible for a bed bug infestation to appear a few weeks after returning from a trip — it’s likely that you brought home some bed bugs from the hotel that you stayed in.

Although bed bugs cannot jump or fly, they can still crawl. And this is exactly why a neighbor’s bed bugs may wind up in your home. They can get in through doors, windows, and cracks on the wall.

However, according to experts, having bed bugs coming through vents is one of the leading causes of an infestation in your home!

As a matter of fact, other tiny bugs coming from vent openings is the usual reason why other forms of an infestation can take place inside the home. This is when the importance of using air duct screens and making sure that they are in excellent shape all the time comes in.

The problem that can stem from bed bugs getting in the air vents and, ultimately, air ducts, does not end with winding up with a bed bug infestation.

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It can also have an unfavorable effect on the indoor air quality because the fecal matter and molten skin of bed bugs can be spread to different areas of the home. It’s also possible for the entire home to end up smelling of bed bugs, which some people compare to rotten berries.

Reasons Why Bed Bugs Spread to Other Rooms

If you feel that there are bed bugs hiding in air vents and potentially air ducts, too, there is something that you should refrain from doing at all costs. It’s none other than sleeping in a different bedroom.

That’s because it will cause the bed bugs in your room to look for a host, which means that they will crawl out of it until they are able to locate a bed where someone sleeps in nightly — bed bugs can do this by detecting warmth and carbon dioxide.

Bed bugs can use the air ducts as avenues to check out different rooms or areas of your home.

Other than looking for food, bed bugs can also spread to other rooms via the air vents and ducts when attempting to flee to threats, such as rubbing alcohol, lavender essential oil, and other DIY bed bug remedies.

Due to this, you should make sure that any openings and cracks that bed bugs can squeeze or crawl through are sealed before you attempt to deal with a bed bug infestation.

Otherwise, you are risking having a more serious problem, leaving you with no other choice but to leave the job to professional exterminators.

So, do bugs hate air conditioning and the rest of the HVAC system?

No, they love them because they enable them to hide and mate without being disturbed. They also allow bed bugs to spread to other rooms trouble-free.

Disinfesting Air Vents and Air Ducts Properly

Perhaps you have already read about some of the natural enemies to bed bugs and how some of them could help put a bed bug infestation to an end, albeit causing an infestation themselves.

Well, it can be tempting to release the likes of spiders, cockroaches, and centipedes in air ducts to eliminate bed bugs hiding in them.

But, apparently, this could cause another problem to strike, and it could be worse than a bed bug infestation! Although home remedies can be used for ridding the HVAC system of bed bugs, unfortunately, they can only help eliminate those that are within your easy reach.

Even if bed bugs are hiding in the air vents only and not in the ducts, trying to get rid of them using some DIY solutions may cause them to panic and escape the scene via the air ducts, causing them to wind up in other rooms.

Placing pieces of cheesecloth over air vents may keep bed bugs from getting out of the air ducts alright. However, it’s important to note that bed bugs can live for up to a year without a blood meal.

If you remove air vent coverings, there is a possibility for some of the trapped bed bugs to be still alive, ready to have a taste of your blood.

If the bed bug infestation involves your HVAC system, it is a good idea for you to get in touch with professional bed bug exterminators. They have the tools necessary for disinfesting the various HVAC system components.

Covering Air Vents to Keep Bed Bugs From Spreading

Your home’s HVAC system won’t be able to tell that you have covered its air vents. It will keep on pushing air out of the vents, thereby causing a buildup of air pressure.

This can cause damage to the HVAC system, which often requires expensive repairs and replacements. Besides, covering air vents can keep the HVAC system from carrying out its job of providing you with a comfortable indoor living.

Using Insecticide To Kill Bed Bugs in Air Vents and Ducts

Spraying air vents and ducts with insecticides can kill bed bugs. However, it may also kill you, your family members, and pets, especially if you use a product containing toxic chemicals.

That’s because the fumes will be spread throughout your home the minute that you switch on the air conditioning, thereby causing every living creature inside the home to breathe in toxin-filled air.

Just Before You Attempt to Clean Your HVAC

So, can bed bugs travel through air vents and ducts? They certainly can!

It’s because of this why having an HVAC system can complicate a bed bug infestation — it offers bed bugs additional hiding places as well as provides them easy access to the rest of your home, thereby resulting in a massive bed bug infestation.

The HVAC system can make your indoor living comfortable, but it can also make it easy for bed bugs to wreak havoc on your life.

Bed bugs will do anything and everything to stay alive and keep their numbers up, even if it means using your home’s HVAC system to get from one room to the other.

This is why you should carefully weigh the pros and cons of exterminating them via some home remedies or by contacting the pros.

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