Table of Contents
- Killing bed bugs is a challenge. So if you’re dealing with the infestation of bed bugs in your household, listen carefully—we’ve discovered ways to kill pests and let you enjoy your favorite mattress without worries.
- There is diatomaceous earth, rubbing alcohol, heat treatments, and many other ways that kills bed bugs or repel them. But are they effective?
- If you’re found bed bugs in your mattress, you’ll do all that it takes to kill bed bug eggs and adult insects. This article focuses mainly on one question: Can we treat infested areas with Lysol to set our bed room mattress free from bed bug activity?
Bed bug problem
Bed bugs in your house can become a nightmare pretty fast. They are tough to find in the room—bedding, mattress, or bed frames—and even harder to get rid of.
However, on the bright side, adult bugs don’t reproduce quickly. Each bed bug adult female produces only about one egg per day. Entomologists have estimated that a bed bug female on average lays 250–500 eggs in her lifetime.
Considering that a common housefly lays 500 eggs over three to four days, it’s not much.
Then, bed bug eggs take some time to hatch (about ten days) and even longer to develop into adults (five to six weeks).
Finding an effective way to get rid of bed bugs is necessary to keep you safe from these little bloodsuckers.
Bed bug treatment
As we mentioned, there are ways to deal with the issue.
On House Rituals, you’ll find many of them that we’ve already described:
- What scent keeps bed bugs away?
- Does lavender repel bed bugs?
- Does rubbing alcohol kill bed bugs?
- Does baking soda kill bed bugs?
- Does boric acid kill bed bugs?
And what about popular diatomaceous earth, bed bug pesticides, heat treatments, hydrogen peroxide, putting dirty clothes into a vacuum bag, and so on?
There are as many methods to combat bed bug problems as people that have to deal with them!
Lysol spray against bed bugs
Just as we were previously focused on ways to deter bed bug infestations, in this article, we’ll look at a Lysol cleaning agent and its potential to get rid of bed bugs.
Is Lysol an effective bed bug pesticide?
Some homeowners use products like Lysol or Bleach—primarily specifically designed for sanitizing surfaces in the kitchens or bathrooms—to kill bed bugs.
Is it a good idea?
As for today, the main ways that kill bed bugs are pesticides and heat (for example, steamers).
Of these two, extreme heat (130 or 140 degrees Fahrenheit) is probably the most effective.
The reason is that bed bugs can’t develop resistance to heat treatments.
Pesticides are chemicals specifically designed to kill pests, with the primary ingredients such as
- pyrethrins (derived from chrysanthemums – the classic holiday flower),
- pyrethroids (the synthetic counterpart of pyrethrins), and
- desiccants;
When bed bugs encounter these substances, their nervous system starts to misfire and fail—eventually, pesticides kill bed bugs. The third element, desiccants, destroy the waxy exoskeleton that protects a bed bug. Without this outer layer, bed bugs gradually dehydrate and die.
Using Lysol to kill bed bugs
Can Lysol kill bed bugs? The short answer is yes. But the longer one isn’t so optimistic.
Lysol is registered as a cleaning product, so many of its active ingredients are public knowledge.
Important: Remember that different Lysol products—such as sprays or wipes—use varying ingredients.
The core elements of Lysol include:
- ethanol,
- isopropyl alcohol,
- lactic acid,
- hydrogen peroxide;
Many of these ingredients are disinfectants and sanitizing agents.
The thing about disinfectants and sanitizing agents is that while they are effective against bacteria and germs, they aren’t efficacious at attracting and killing insects, in our case, bed bugs.
Yet, Lysol is toxic when ingested. If bed bugs ingest Lysol, they die instantly.
However, bed bugs would never eat it—Lysol has nothing to do with human blood, so why should bed bugs be enticed to try it?
Therefore, this method is ineffective.
As a disinfectant spray, Lysol is intended to sanitize and clean—it has the potential to kill bed bugs when it comes to its chemical substances, but it doesn’t work well as a killing agent.
Similarly, looking from the other way around, pyrethroids (included in bed bug pesticides) don’t work as cleaners; their primary purpose is to eliminate bed bugs, and this is what they do.
So Lysol will only be effective against bed bugs if you smother these microscopic organisms in the cleaning product.
So go on and spray bugs directly with Lysol—but we can ensure you there’s nothing more complicated than coming across an active bed bug around. They avoid humans as much as they can.
Final thoughts on Lysol are: instead of using Lysol, get in touch with an exterminator to get a robust pest removal program going.
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