Can hand sanitizer kill bed bugs
If hand sanitizer has an isopropyl alcohol concentration of greater than 60%, it may be effective, but it’s no guarantee. Between 70% and 91% concentrations are the most lethal for bedbugs, but this is more commonly found in rubbing alcohol than in hand sanitizer. Plus, you’ll have to pour or spray it right on the bug for it to do anything – it’s not going to have much residual effect after a few minutes if you are just putting it on a surface and hoping it will keep the bed bugs away.
The facts about using hand sanitizer to kill bedbugs
- Although hand sanitizer will kill a bedbug if you spray it directly or drop it in, you have no chance of applying it to all of their hiding places throughout the home (such as inside walls, electrical outlets, and switches, in between cracks and joints of walls and furniture, inside fabrics, and so on.
- Hand sanitizer is not recommended for treating rooms, furniture, clothing or other objects as it causes an unpleasant smell and puts you at an increased risk for accidental fire.
- Rubbing your body down with sanitizer before bed will not stop bedbugs from biting you throughout the night. Most of it is going to rub off on the sheets or simply evaporate, at which point the bedbugs will happily feed.
- There are many better ways to kill bedbugs
Conclusion:
If directly applied to the bedbugs, hand sanitizer will kill them. But, you are going to spend a long time walking around your house with a pump bottle, and you still won’t get them all. Even if you have a spray bottle of hand sanitizer, you are going to miss hundreds of bedbugs that could be hiding out of sight. Once the hand sanitizer has dried up, it is no longer going to be effective against bedbugs, and they will again come out of hiding to bite. Furthermore, hand sanitizer is going to leave an unpleasant smell all around your house or apartment, and could end up being a major fire hazard. So overall, we do not recommend hand sanitizer as a bed bug remediation strategy.
If you are looking for a better way to kill bedbugs without an exterminator, check out our DIY guide to killing bedbugs
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