About

The bed bug guide that doesn't sell you spray

Search "how to get rid of bed bugs" and you'll find a thousand articles written to sell you something, a spray, a fogger, a fake exterminator service. Most of those articles are technically wrong about the most important questions, and they're optimized to outrank actual research with clickbait. This site is the opposite of that.

What this site is

A clearly-cited reference for bed bug identification, treatment and prevention. Every concrete claim links back to a peer-reviewed study, a US government source (EPA, CDC), or a university extension service (Penn State, Rutgers, UMass). When the literature is uncertain, we say so. When something doesn't work, we say that too, even when telling you costs us an affiliate click.

Why this site exists

The team behind this site runs wanzenWEG.de, the German-language sibling site, since early 2026. That site rents out professional heat-treatment chambers for self-pickup in Berlin, and over the course of building it we ended up doing a multi-agent audit of every public bed bug claim against the academic literature.

That audit data was sitting in a folder. It would have been a waste to use it for German speakers only, bed bug problems are global, and the English-language internet is even more spammy than the German one. So we're publishing the same information here, translated and adapted, free.

How the site is funded

A small set of Amazon affiliate links for products that come up by name in the articles: mattress encasements, interceptors, food-grade diatomaceous earth, handheld steamers. They're marked with a * and a sponsored attribute. If you click and buy, a small commission helps cover hosting. If you don't, the content stays the same.

That's the only revenue source. No display ads, no email-list resale, no "natural miracle" placements. The point of the site is to inform. The affiliate links are for the handful of items that actually pull weight against bed bugs: interceptors, encasements, a steamer. Practical equipment, nothing exotic, no upsell.

Our editorial rules

  • Every concrete claim links back to a primary source.
  • When two sources disagree, we say so and pick the methodologically stronger one.
  • When the literature is silent, we say "we don't know". not "experts say".
  • When a product is overhyped or counterproductive, we say so, even if it's an affiliate-available product.
  • When something genuinely works (heat, food-grade DE, encasements), we recommend it concretely, not as a hedged-everything "you should consult a professional".
  • We update content when new data lands. Articles are dated and have a last-modified field.

Want to flag an error?

If you spot something wrong, a misread of a study, a number that doesn't match current data, an outdated source link, tell us. Write to feedback@bedbugmanual.org. You help every later reader by flagging it. For genuinely substantive finds we'll add you to the source list with credit, if you want.