Does bitter wormwood help to get rid of bedbugs?

Wormwood has been used against insects for a long time. Many people remember that in rural houses grandparents often had this heavy grassy smell, well associated with green summer meadows. It smelled like bunches of bitter wormwood, which many villagers use to protect homes from various insects.

Wormwood from bedbugs was used even earlier than the opportunity to document this use began to appear on paper.

In the people it is believed that the constant presence of fresh-cut wormwood in the house can completely expel the bugs from it. And only the absence of this herb in winter forces the villagers to use turpentine, denatured alcohol, and other means for removing bloodsucking parasites.

But when stopping the use of wormwood, the bugs return to the house - this is a fact that has been repeatedly proven in practice.So, she either does not kill them, or does not kill their eggs.

So, how does wormwood work on bedbugs and is it worth taking it into service when fighting these insects?

 

How effective is wormwood from bedbugs?

It is unequivocally established and confirmed by scientific studies that bugs are afraid of wormwood. Even not so much her, as her rich grassy smell. If a bunch of fresh bitter wormwood is placed near the cluster of bedbugs, the parasites will try to move as far as possible from it.

Thanks to a very thin smell of bedbugs, one bundle of wormwood in the large room is already irritating to them. However, only until the insects get hungry. Severe hunger will force both adults and larvae to neglect their disgust for smell and return to the room in which people rest. Even if fresh fragrant grass is laid out directly under the bed.

The sense of smell in bedbugs is much more acute than in humans. It is by the smell of blood in the veins that insects find a sleeping person. It is characteristic that this is why parasites more often attack women and children, whose skin is thinner than men, and the smell of blood is felt more distinctly by bedbugs.

But to destroy the wormwood bedbugs can not. It is not an insecticide that can lead to the death of insects, does not violate their reproductive functions and does not affect the eggs of bedbugs. Bedbugs and wormwood may well exist in the same room, and if the bedbugs have no other choice, they will remain where people are present, even if there is wormwood next to them.

Definitely it can be argued that bitter wormwood is not save the room from bedbugs. But she will give a certain indulgence for the people living in this room. In addition, it is this grass that can be used to protect the housing from the penetration of bedbugs from its neighbors.

As I remember myself small, my grandmother, Lidia Nikolayevna, began every day by driving two cows to a herd, and on the way back she tore five or six branches of wormwood. At home, she gently laid them out under the beds in order to protect our brother and my children from sleeping fleas and bedbugs. When mosquitoes ever flew into the house, it was normal for us in the morning to begin with scratching itchy bites. The bugs were mosquitoes or other insects, I don’t know, but it is with the wormwood from bedbugs that my most vivid memories of a vacation in the village are associated.

Valery Timofeev, Kostroma

 

Why bugs so badly tolerate this plant?

The most famous property of wormwood is the abundance of bitterness in its composition. Various glycosides, saponins and phytoncides contained in its leaves and thin stems provide a bitter taste, appreciated by lovers of absinthe, and no less bitter, tart smell. It is the phytoncides in the composition of wormwood that protect a person from bacterial infections when taking a tincture of wormwood. And their smell is very unpleasant for bedbugs.

See what bitter wormwood looks like in the photo:

 

It is important that the strong distinct aroma of wormwood is not only repels bedbugsbut also in a certain way disguises a sleeping person. If a bunch of wormwood will be under the bed, then its scent will suppress the smell of the body of a sleeping person, and the bug will simply not be able to find its victim. And in addition to this, and will try to bypass the bed side.

Various preparations based on wormwood are widely used in gardening and ornamental plant growing to protect plants from various insect pests: caterpillars, aphids, and various sawflies. The bugs here are far from being the only insects badly carrying the smell of this plant.However, among the butterflies there are those whose caterpillars feed exclusively on wormwood

Of course, if you put the wormwood on the floor under the bed, and the bugs themselves will be in the bed itself under the mattress, this prevention will not help. Therefore, before get rid of bedbugs With the help of wormwood, you must carefully examine your bed for the settlement of the parasites in it. For fidelity, tufts of grass can be laid between the mattress and the crate.

The disadvantage of wormwood as a means of insect parasites is the rapid loss of its properties during drying. In just three to four days, the bundle of the plant ceases to smell as much as the groin immediately after cutting. Of course, at the same time, its deterrent properties are weakening, and already a week later the bugs can completely ignore its presence in the room. In order to be able to apply wormwood at any time of the year, it is necessary to prepare special products on its basis.

 

Wormwood bedbug remedies

The main recipes for the preparation of drugs, in which wormwood against bugs manifests itself quite brightly, are tincture and decoction of wormwood.They prepare simply, but the effectiveness of both is different.

Tincture of wormwood from bedbugs is used quite rarely. There are several reasons for this:

1. Tincture is expensive to prepare. To get a liter of tincture you need to use the same amount of alcohol. This volume is enough to process one sofa to protect against bedbugs for about a week. This approach is extremely irrational.
2. Tincture is prepared for a long time. To obtain a good extract, you need to defend all the tincture for at least a month.
3. The smell of alcohol in the room reduces the comfort of living in it.

Perhaps the only option in which the use of tincture of wormwood from bedbugs is justified - it is a point treatment of insects on the mattress or in upholstered furniture. After such an impact, all bugs that have not been mechanically destroyed run away from the accumulation site and do not return to it for a long time.

Broth same wormwood can be used for regular processing of premises, furniture and individual items of interior. Even when boiling dry raw materials, the final product acquires a strong, distinct smell, only slightly weaker than the aroma of fresh grass.It is convenient for them to spray different objects in the room, to process the baseboards and the body of the beds, ventilation ducts to protect against the penetration of insects through them.

 

Brief instructions for use

Wormwood from bedbugs effectively manifests itself in two cases:

1. If necessary, a temporary weakening of the activity of bedbugs in the room. For example, when waiting for one or two days arrival of the disinsection service.
2. To protect the premises from the penetration of bugs.

In the first case, it is necessary to stack bunches of fresh grass directly in and under the bed, replacing them with fresh grass every one or two days. Broth wormwood furniture must be processed with the same frequency. So the bugs will not leave the apartment, but at least for a few days they will no longer crawl onto the bed at night.

As a preventive measure, wormwood is laid out in all places through which insects can enter the room: near windows, doors, in air vents, near sockets. Here, too, it needs to be changed frequently, and when using a decoction, it should be constantly lubricated with its window and door boxes. In any case, such measures will reduce the risk of bedbugs entering the house.

 

How to choose an effective remedy for bedbugs

 

Interesting video about the destruction of bedbugs