The worst has happened: you've got bed bugs. There are good methods (though expensive!) to control bed bugs in and on furniture and luggage, and you can wash clothing and bedding. But what about all your STUFF?

Toys, photos, your iPhone, and your favorite bedside lamp? Anything with small nooks and crannies can harbor a bed bug, including keyboards, computers, books, and CD cases. If you bag up your books and personal keepsakes, treat for bed bugs, and then put your stuff back without any additional treatment, you can re-infest your living space. Adult bed bugs can live for over a year without feeding. That's a really long time to keep all the random detritus of your house in bags.

The only treatment for bagged bug-infested stuff is to put no-pest strips in the bag, and leave the bags sealed for at least 2 weeks. However, dichlorvos, the main ingredient, is toxic enough that the CDC recently issued a safety advisory. Dichlorvos also smells terrible, and makes many people nauseous.

Bug Wars: A New Hope

Last week I got a press release about a new product that might solve the problem of treating your potentially-contaminated stuff – including electronics. It's called "Proof™" and derived from the neem tree (Azadirachta indica), an evergreen that produces smelly compounds that deter insect feeding. Neem oil is sold as a topical spray to kill bed bugs (trade name Cirkil™). The new procedure is called "Rag in A Bag"; you spray 40 milliliters (3 tbsp) of the neem oil solution onto a washcloth, and then toss that in a plastic bag containing the items to be fumigated. Wait a week, and the bugs are all dead.

Sounds awesome, but is it legit?

Bed bug control products are a HUGE market, and there is a lot of bogus stuff for sale that won't kill anything but your wallet. Two years ago, several bed bug spray manufacturers were cited by the Federal Trade Commission for making fraudulent claims about the effectiveness of their herbal products. Bed Bug Foggers are known to be ineffective against bed bugs, but you can still find them on store shelves everywhere.

I'm normally quite skeptical about new products claiming to control bed bugs, but the PR email I got contained the name of an entomologist I recognized – Dr. Dini Miller, author of many useful publications on bed bugs, and well-known urban entomologist. I called up Miller to get the scoop on how she tested the new protocol. Her lab has bed bugs in culture, so she was able to test bed bugs known to be highly resistant to conventional pesticides. (Disclosure: Miller did not receive salary or stipend compensation from the pesticide manufacturer, but did get reimbursed for equipment expenses.)

Miller put groups of 10 nymphs (immatures), 10 adults, and over 90 bed bug eggs in with common household items: electronics, stuffed toys, picture frames, shoes, purses, and books. When I asked how she tested the computer items, Dr. Miller said, and this is a direct quote: "We wrapped up bed bugs in pantyhose and put them in a disk drive."

How to put bed bugs in your computer, the scientific way. Image: © Shannon Lentz

Don't worry, that's normal. Pantyhose is a critical tool in the entomological research armamentarium. It's cheap, it's flexible, it's resistant to puncture, and most insects are too big to crawl through the pores of the fabric. It's perfect for making cages to hold small bugs.

The results of Miller's tests were spectacular; 100% mortality for eggs, nymphs, and adults after 7 days in bags containing shoes, purses, electronics, toys, and paperback books. The only exception to that perfect control record was hard-cover books. Bindings of books apparently provided a good enough hiding space that only 70% of bed bug adults were killed after one week. That's still pretty good, and additional tests are being done to see if leaving hard-cover books in the bag for an additional week can finish off the stragglers.

This is how you contain bed bugs on a hard cover book: Pantyhose. Infinitely useful for science. Image: © Shannon Lentz

What's the catch? Proof™ smells. It smells a LOT, and a little strange. It was described as "cherry corn tortillas" by Dr. Miller. I suspect that those sensitive to strong smells might find the scent overpowering; several one-star reviews at Amazon mention the "florid" smell. The manufacturer clearly knows the smell could be an issue, and has branded the product with the tag line: "Its strong botanical smell lets you know it's working."

I spoke to two pest control operators that routinely work with bed bugs, neither of which were willing to speak on the record about this product. Both of them did have fairly strong opinions about it, though: this stuff stinks. The same chemical is available as a topical spray for bed bugs, and "the stench of fruity corn chips" is a deal-breaker for some clients. The smell does linger for a while, so the recommendation of one exterminator was to only bag and treat items that you are sure actually have bed bugs on them.

There also is very little information on just how Proof™ is killing the bugs. The compound itself is mostly harmless to humans on skin contact and inhalation, and doesn't have a high vapor pressure. All known mechanisms for neem to kill insects to date are topical (i.e, you have to get it on the insect, or they come in contact with it.) Are the bed bugs just perfumed to death? Do they O.D. on the smell of raspberry Fritos®? That information is not available.

Overall, I am cautiously optimistic. This seems like a promising, if highly odiferous, new development in the battle against bed bugs. Proof™ is now on sale to the public, and hopefully additional studies will refine control techniques and the mechanisms of control further.

Edited 6/8/2014 to fix small typo