Fighting bedbugs with lavender oil or patchouli oil?

Blueskiesgirl

Hi

Has anyone had personal success avoiding bedbug bites by sprinkling lavender oil or patchouli oil on the mattress / silk sleepsheet?

I have read that it can help as bedbugs hate the smell and scarper.

I hope I don't find too many beds with the tell tale bedbug signs described in previous posts but would like to know if it is worth packing a small bottle of essential oil.

I know lavender oil helps with soothing sleep so is it like a lullaby for the bedbugs too?...........sending them into dreamland so that they don't bite?!!

Hope no one has nightmares thinking about bedbugs from this.

Sleep tight and sweet dreams.

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Life is brief and fragile - do what makes you happy

Nick-H

I'm having nightmares about the smell after sprinkling the stuff!

And should think the hotel people would have about the next residents!

camelgirl

Somehow I doubt it. I have stayed in some seriously horrible places and never had bedbugs in India. I mean really, really dirty & scuzzy where I slept with my clothes on and covered the pillow with something. Maybe I was just lucky-bedbug-wise!

The only thing that probably would work would be to take off the sheets and spray the mattress (they live in the mattress, not on the sheets) with Permethrin, the same stuff you can spray on your clothes to make them mosquito proof. Let it dry. It has no smell and there are no fumes once it's dry. But I am really not sure it's even a problem.

Nick-H

Apparently the effective natural way of getting rid of them is to put the mattress in the sun all day.

So I've heard... ... ...

freenote

last winter we stayed in 50 hotels ,and never saw a single bug!!!!!!!!!! The hotels covered about the full range and no bugs. Shared our room with lizerds (they ate the mozzies) The odd roach ,noticable by there absence,a few frogs, a few spiders ,a scorpean and the odd monkey .

camelgirl

Just out of curiosity I did a google search and apparently they are really hard to get rid of. The only good news is they don't spread any kind of diseases!

Apart from heavy duty chemicals, Nick is on to something with the sun idea. One site suggested wrapping things in black plastic and putting it out in the sun to "cook/kill" them. But that wouldn't be a big mattress, more like clothes. It did say high heat could also kill them and India does have some high heat! Then again, how do you drag a mattress out of a hotel and where would you put it?

Let's hope no one actually needs to deal with this problem

freenote

I have heard ,i think it was on this forum ,about as soon as you are in the viscinity of a deep freeze stick all bedding /clothing in and the cold kill's them.Extreme heat / Extreme cold . works!

Nick-H

<imagines trying to get a mattress into a freezer ---or, worse, one of those little hotel-room fridges!>

<imagines trying to get it out again> !

wonderwomanusa

I had bedbugs in two hotels (out of perhaps 15) when I was last in India. Not fun, but they don't do any permanent damage.

katyrafi

Hi

I've used the putting mattresses out in the sun trick with great success - I'm not sure if the heat kills them or they just walk off to find somewhere else to live!

I also use a few drops of Citronella Oil in water and spray that about the place - it seems to kill ants, deter mosies and doesn't smell too bad - something someone told me about in Mysore. But then I quite like the smell of lavender. Never heard of using patchouli.

freenote

This will do it!!!!!!

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camelgirl

Is there a thread about the fantastic signs in India? This reminded me of our small but interesting collection of photos of signs. One of my favorites, which I only have a regular photo of says: Low Paid Workers Union......(I think they need a different union, that one isn't working )

kiranlal

try lemen grass oil or Eucaliptus oil
itis cheap than your options

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A big world and small people

msmacka

If anyone *does* happen to come across bedbugs while out there ...make sure that whatever you do, you thoroughly wash at a really high temp or dry clean ALL (as in absolutely everything) in your bag - and also the bag itself - when you get home (and leave stuff outside if you can't clean it all at once)

We somehow ended up with bedbugs in a house I lived in a few years ago here in London and it took the exterminators about 4 weeks (and cost us hundreds of £££) to get rid of them. We tried all sorts of remedies before calling in the profressionals and nothing worked! It only takes one tiny bedbug to move from your bag to your bed/couch and the whole place becomes infested!

freenote

Or, as soon as you get home ,put everthing in the freezer. Freeze the little burgers out !!!!!!!!