If you have an infestation of bed bugs in your home or commercial space, eradicating these pests has likely become your top priority.
Bed bugs are more than just unsanitary house guests — their bites can be extremely itchy and irritating, and they leave their feces on your mattress and bed sheets. They can also damage your furniture items over time.
And if you run commercial sleeping spaces with high turnover, such as a hotel, shelter, or hostel, a bed bug infestation can mean serious trouble for your business.
As you’ve been researching bed bug eradication methods, you may have come across a chemical called permethrin. If your first question is, “Does permethrin kill bed bugs?” it’s time to learn more about this chemical and its effects.
What Is Permethrin and How Does It Work?
Permethrin is a type of pesticide that can also be referred to as a broad-spectrum insecticide. Therefore, this chemical can be used to eliminate a huge variety of bugs. Permethrin is usually applied by spraying it directly onto the affected area, but it can also be purchased in cream form to apply to your skin and prevent bed bug bites.
Permethrin is considered to be a part of the pyrethroid family, which is a class of chemical compounds that are toxic to bugs. Pyrethroids are naturally produced by chrysanthemum flowers, and their toxic effects on insects are recreated in products like permethrin.
Permethrin vs. Prallethrin: What’s the Difference?
If you’ve been frantically typing “Does permethrin kill bed bugs?” into your search engine of choice, you may have encountered other insect-eliminating substances, such as prallethrin.
Both of these substances can be effective in treating a bed bug infestation, and both can be purchased in the form of a cream to apply directly to your skin. However, permethrin is generally the better chemical to use for large-scale infestations, as it can be applied to furniture items as well as your skin to eliminate these harmful insects.
Is Permethrin Effective for Killing Bed Bugs?
Permethrin can help to kill bed bugs in a variety of ways, and it all depends on how you use it as well as the specific strain of bed bugs that you’re up against.
If you spray bed bugs with a permethrin spray and are able to hit them directly, this chemical can be very effective at killing bed bugs on contact within minutes. However, bed bugs tend to be very skilled hiders, which means spraying them directly can be difficult, even for experienced exterminators.
Permethrin residue can still be effective for killing bed bugs, so even if you or your exterminator is unable to spray the insects directly, applying the chemical to the affected area could still work over time.
However, bed bugs tend to avoid substances that are toxic, which means you could still have live bed bugs living in your furniture despite plenty of permethrin residue present.
So, does permethrin kill bed bugs? Though permethrin isn’t a perfect treatment for bed bugs, it can be extremely effective if you’re able to find the bugs and spray them directly. Additionally, topical permethrin cream can be a great way to soothe bed bug bites as you’re working to eradicate your infestation.
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