Are the Bedbug's Days Finally Numbered?

Jan. 7, 2015 — Even if you've never had bedbugs, you know how difficult they are to eradicate. Never mind the stigma of having rats in a building, having bedbugs is downright mortifying. Even if you successfully get rid of them, the horrible little bloodsuckers haunt you — if not for life, then certainly for a long, long time. After all, the experts all caution you that they can lie dormant for up to a year, that they can survive even in something as inhospitable as a printer or an air conditioner… What if, when you were told to pack all your things to protect them from fumigation, you inadvertently packed away a survivor? Itching yet? Well, there's hope in the horizon, thanks to Simon Fraser University biologist Regine Gries, who endured 18,000 bedbug bites in five years for science. According to an article on Business Insider, Gries and her husband, Gerhard, teamed up with chemist Robert Britton, also of Simon Fraser to try to find the secret to trapping them. "Like humans and other animals, bedbugs produce and detect distinct smells… [and] use these odors to communicate." Recreate the scent, and GOTCHA! Business Insider reports that the key ingredient in this bedbug perfume, if you will, is histamine, "which could freeze the bedbugs in their tracks … the same chemical produced by our white blood cells as part of our immune response." The trio is still working on their solution, so we have to wait a little more yet. But isn't that something? Science: It works.