- 1 week ago
Homemade bed bug trap that really works for finding the truth, using a bottle, a bowl, yeast, sugar, warm water, tape, and a little powder. The trap is built to draw bed bugs with carbon dioxide from fermenting yeast, then keep them from climbing back out so you can see whether they are there and where they are hiding.
The method is simple and cheap: fill a bottle partway with lukewarm water, sugar, and active yeast, set it in the center of a shallow bowl, wrap the outside with rough tape so bugs can climb up, and dust the inside with talc, baby powder, or cornstarch so they slip back down. Placed beside or under the bed at night, it can help monitor bed bugs, confirm an infestation, and show if treatment is working.
The warning is just as important as the trap itself. This homemade bed bug trap can help you detect and watch bed bugs, but it will not clear a real infestation on its own. Hot washing, hot drying, clutter removal, and professional pest control are still needed when the problem is serious.
SEO: Homemade bed bug trap, DIY bed bug trap, bed bug detection, bed bug monitor, pest control at home, simple bed bug test, yeast and sugar trap, bed bug prevention, and home remedies for bed bugs. Useful for anyone searching for bed bug removal tips, how to know if you have bed bugs, and practical household pest control help.
The method is simple and cheap: fill a bottle partway with lukewarm water, sugar, and active yeast, set it in the center of a shallow bowl, wrap the outside with rough tape so bugs can climb up, and dust the inside with talc, baby powder, or cornstarch so they slip back down. Placed beside or under the bed at night, it can help monitor bed bugs, confirm an infestation, and show if treatment is working.
The warning is just as important as the trap itself. This homemade bed bug trap can help you detect and watch bed bugs, but it will not clear a real infestation on its own. Hot washing, hot drying, clutter removal, and professional pest control are still needed when the problem is serious.
SEO: Homemade bed bug trap, DIY bed bug trap, bed bug detection, bed bug monitor, pest control at home, simple bed bug test, yeast and sugar trap, bed bug prevention, and home remedies for bed bugs. Useful for anyone searching for bed bug removal tips, how to know if you have bed bugs, and practical household pest control help.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00There are few things that rob a body of peace, like the fear of bedbugs, lying awake wondering
00:06if that itch is a bite, if there is something creeping in your bed while you sleep, and
00:12not even knowing for certain whether you have them or not, for they are masters of hiding
00:17and you rarely see the things themselves.
00:19So today I am going to show you a clever homemade trap, made from a bottle and a bowl and
00:25a
00:25few things from your kitchen that will draw the bedbugs out of their hiding and catch
00:30them so you can know for certain whether you have them and keep watch on them.
00:34It costs almost nothing, and it truly works for what it does.
00:38But I am going to be honest with you, as I always am, about the one thing this trap cannot
00:43do so that you use it rightly and are not left worse off.
00:47Let me show you.
00:49Here is the thing to understand first, for it is the whole clever secret of why this trap
00:54works, and it is a genuine bit of nature.
00:57How does a bedbug find you in the dark to bite you?
01:00It cannot see you.
01:01It finds you by two things your sleeping body gives off, your warmth, and the breath you
01:07exhale, which is carbon dioxide, that invisible gas we breathe out.
01:12The bedbug smells that carbon dioxide and feels that warmth and follows them to you.
01:17So here is the cleverness of the trap.
01:19We make a thing that gives off carbon dioxide, too, that fools the bedbug into thinking a
01:25sleeping body is there, and draws it toward the trap instead of toward you.
01:29And how do we make carbon dioxide cheaply in a bottle?
01:33With yeast and sugar and water, the very same yeast that raises your bread.
01:37For when yeast feeds on sugar in warm water, it ferments and gives off carbon dioxide for
01:43hours.
01:43So the trap breeds like a person, and the bedbugs come to it.
01:48That is the whole idea, and it is honest science.
01:51Now let me give you the making of it, and then the honest word on what it can and cannot
01:56do.
01:57Quick word before we go further.
01:59My name is Esther Yoder, and the old household ways handed down to me, the kind I am sharing
02:04today, and a great many more besides, are far more than I could ever fit into one video.
02:10I have gathered the whole of them into a book, and you will find it at EliasYoder.com.
02:16If today's tips serve you, that is where the rest of what my mother and grandmother taught
02:21me lives, all in the one place.
02:24Now, to the trap.
02:25My grandmother had a saying that fits this exactly, that you cannot fight what you cannot
02:30see, and the first work against any hidden trouble is to bring it into the light where
02:35you can know it.
02:36She meant that so much of dealing with a hidden trouble, a pest or a rot or a leak, is
02:42first
02:42finding out the truth of it, how bad it is and where it is, before you can rightly deal
02:47with it.
02:48And bedbugs are the very picture of a hidden trouble, for they hide so well that folk often
02:54do not even know for sure they have them, and cannot tell if a treatment worked.
02:58So this trap is a way of bringing the hidden thing into the light, of knowing.
03:03Here is how you make it.
03:04You will need a few plain things.
03:07An empty plastic bottle, a soda or water bottle with its cap, a shallow plastic bowl or container
03:14wider than the bottle, some sugar, some yeast, and mind, it must be the active kind, the
03:20live baking yeast, for it is the living yeast that ferments and makes the gas.
03:25Dead or old yeast will not work.
03:27Some plain talc or baby powder or cornstarch will do, some tape, a rough masking tape best,
03:34and a bit of warm water.
03:36That is all, all cheap and most of it already in your house.
03:40First, the carbon dioxide maker, the heart of it.
03:43Take your bottle and pour in some lukewarm water, and mind this care.
03:47The water must be lukewarm, not hot and not cold, for too hot kills the living yeast,
03:53and too cold will not wake it.
03:55Just gently warm, as warm as a baby's bath is right.
03:58Fill the bottle only partway, no more than a third, for as the yeast ferments, it foams
04:05and rises, and if you filled it, it would froth up and out the top and ruin the trap, so
04:11leave
04:11it room to foam.
04:13Into that water, put a couple of good spoonfuls of sugar, and a spoonful or two of the active
04:19yeast.
04:20Then cap the bottle and swirl it gently, gently mind, for a hard shaking can harm the yeast.
04:28In a few minutes, you will see it churn and cloud and bubble, and that means it is working,
04:34making its carbon dioxide, beginning to breathe like a sleeping body.
04:39That breathing goes on for hours as the yeast feeds on the sugar.
04:45Now the catching part, for it is no good drawing the bedbugs out if they can just walk away
04:52again.
04:53We must catch and hold them.
04:56Take your shallow bowl or container and set the bubbling bottle down in the middle of it.
05:02Now here is the first clever bit.
05:06Bedbugs cannot fly, and they are poor climbers on a smooth surface.
05:11But they must climb up the outside of your bowl to reach the trap.
05:16So you wrap the outside of the bowl all the way around and up to the top in the rough
05:23masking
05:23tape, giving them a rough surface they can grip and climb, a little ramp up the outside
05:30to the rim.
05:31This is important, wrap it well, top to bottom, so they can climb up.
05:38And here is the second clever bit, the catching itself.
05:42You dust the inside of the bowl, the smooth inner walls, with the talc or the baby powder
05:49or the cornstarch, a good coating of it.
05:53For once the bedbug climbs up the rough outside, drawn by the breathing bottle, and tumbles down
06:00inside toward it, that smooth powdered inner wall is far too slick for it to climb back out.
06:08It is trapped down in the bottom of the bowl, unable to get purchase on the powdered slope,
06:14and there it stays.
06:17So the rough tape lets them climb in, and the slick powder keeps them from climbing out.
06:23Simple, and it truly works.
06:26Now you set your trap.
06:28You place it beside or under the bed, or wherever you fear the bedbugs are, at night, when they
06:35come out to feed, and when your trap's breathing is most like a sleeping person's in the dark.
06:42And in the morning you look in the bottom of the bowl, and if you have bedbugs, you will
06:48find some caught there, drawn out of their hiding by the false breath of the trap, and
06:54held fast by the slick walls.
06:57And you refresh the bottle with new warm water and sugar and yeast every day or two, as it's
07:04fermenting slows, to keep it breathing.
07:07Set it out night after night, and it keeps drawing and catching.
07:12Now here is what this trap is truly good for, and it is a genuinely valuable thing.
07:19So hear it well.
07:21First, it tells you the truth.
07:24If you have lain awake wondering whether you have bedbugs at all, this trap gives you your
07:31answer.
07:31For if they are there, it catches them and shows you.
07:35And if night after night it catches nothing, that is a comfort too.
07:41Second, it shows you where they are.
07:44For a trap by this bed catches, and that one by that bed does not.
07:50And so you learn where the trouble lives.
07:53And third, it thins their numbers a little, and lets you keep watch.
07:59So that if you are treating the trouble, the trap tells you whether it is working.
08:04To find out, to confirm, to locate, to monitor.
08:09For all of that, this trap is a real and honest and useful tool, and it costs you almost nothing.
08:18But now I must give you the honest word.
08:20The most important thing I will say today.
08:23And I will not soften it.
08:26For on this one, your peace and your home depend.
08:30This trap will not, on its own, rid your house of a real bedbug infestation.
08:37I will say it plainly, so you are not misled.
08:41It is a fine tool for finding and watching bedbugs, but it is not a cure for an infestation of
08:48them.
08:48And here is why.
08:51Bedbugs breed dreadfully fast, a few becoming many, and they hide deep and cunning, down in the seams of the
09:00mattress, in the frame of the bed, in the cracks of the walls and the baseboards and the furniture, far
09:08more of them tucked away than any trap by the bed will ever catch.
09:13So a trap may catch a steady few, while a hundred more breed on unseen.
09:18To trust this trap to clear an infestation is to bail a leaking boat with a cup while the water
09:25pours in, and all the while you would think yourself safe and the trouble would grow.
09:31So here is what I would truly have you do, and it is the same honest counsel I have given
09:37you before about bedbugs.
09:39Use this trap to find out and to watch, for that it does well.
09:44But if you find you truly have them, if the trap catches them night after night and the bites go
09:51on, then do not trust a homemade trap to save you.
09:55Act quickly and get a professional pest man in, one who knows bedbugs, for a real infestation is beyond any
10:04home remedy, and it wants proper treatment of the whole room, the mattress and the frame and the cracks and
10:11all, done right and thoroughly.
10:13And you must act fast, for they spread, from room to room and even house to house, and the longer
10:20you wait, the worse and dearer it gets.
10:23There is no shame in it, and it is not a failing of yours.
10:27Bedbugs are simply a trouble that has beaten far better than a soda bottle, and the honest, the loving thing
10:34to do for your own household is to get the real help promptly.
10:39The trap finds them, the professional clears them.
10:42Now, alongside that professional help, there are a few honest things you can do yourself that genuinely help, so let
10:50me give you those too.
10:52Wash your bedding and your clothes in hot water and dry them hot, in a hot dryer, for good heat
10:58truly kills bedbugs and their eggs, and this is a real weapon.
11:03Run your bedding through hot regular while you deal with the trouble.
11:06You may also set little cups or dishes under the very legs of your bed, smooth-sided ones, as interceptors,
11:14so that bedbugs trying to climb up into the bed from the floor fall into the cup and cannot get
11:20up the slick side,
11:21a passive trap that both catches them and keeps them off you while you sleep, and clear away the clutter
11:28around the bed and the room, the piles of things where they love to hide, for the less hiding there
11:34is, the fewer places for them and the easier the treating.
11:44Now think a moment about why we are so often left to lie awake in fear of a thing like
11:50this, not even knowing if we have it, ashamed to speak of it, when a bottle and a bowl and
11:56a spoon of yeast would tell us the truth for pennies.
11:59An honest counsel would tell us plainly what to do next. It is worse than a plot, for no one
12:06had to arrange it.
12:07There is money in our fear and our ignorance, in selling us this spray and that gadget that promises to
12:13solve a thing it cannot, and none at all in teaching us the plain truth.
12:18Here is a cheap way to know if you have them, and here is the honest word that a real
12:23infestation wants a professional.
12:25So the plain knowing and the plain honesty just stopped being handed down.
12:31My grandmother's rule was that you cannot fight what you cannot see, and somewhere between her day and ours, we
12:38were sold a hundred false cures and never given the simple truth.
12:43The mending of it is a cheap trap to find the truth and the honesty to act on it.
12:47You make your breathing trap of a bottle and yeast and sugar, wrap your bowl rough to let them climb,
12:54and dust it slick to hold them, and set it by the bed to learn whether you have bed bugs,
12:59and where and how many.
13:01And you use it to find and to watch, which it does well.
13:05But you do not trust it to cure an infestation, which it cannot.
13:10Instead, if you find you have them, you act fast and get a professional, and you help alongside with hot
13:16washing and interceptor cups and clearing the clutter.
13:20And you get your peace back the honest way, by knowing the truth and dealing with it rightly.
13:25That is how it comes home, one honest trap, one clear-eyed step at a time, the keeping of your
13:32own rest back in your own hands.
13:34So here is what I would ask of you.
13:36If bed bugs have been a worry to you, make this trap the way I showed you and set it
13:41by your bed.
13:42And then come back and tell me in the comments what you found, whether it caught anything and put your
13:47mind at rest one way or the other.
13:50For I do love to hear of a fear answered with the plain truth.
13:54And tell me too, while you are there, your county and the age of your house.
13:58For these troubles run so different from place to place, and I learn from every one of you how it
14:03goes where you live.
14:05And if your own mother or grandmother had a way of keeping a bed and a room free of such
14:09pests that I have not named here, tell me that most of all.
14:13For that is how this goes.
14:14We share what we were given.
14:16I read every comment, and I learn from you the way the old women learned from one another across the
14:21fence line, one household and one season at a time.
14:25Next time, I will show you the honest old ways of keeping a bed and a bedroom sweet and clean
14:31and uninviting to pests in the first place.
14:33The airing and the washing and the tending that make a room a poor home for such troubles.
14:39For the best pest is the one that never settles in.
14:42There is a right and an old way to keep a household's beds that runs on cleanliness and care and
14:47honest knowing rather than on fear and false cures.
14:50But this week, if the worry is on you, you start with the truth.
14:54You make your breathing trap and set it by the bed and learn for certain whether you have them and
14:59where.
14:59And if you find you do, you act fast and get the real help.
15:03And you help alongside with hot washing and interceptors and clearing the clutter.
15:08And you will understand, as my grandmother did, that you cannot fight what you cannot see.
15:13That a clever, cheap trap is a fine thing for bringing a hidden trouble into the light, but no cure
15:18for a deep infestation.
15:20And that the honest, loving thing for your own household is to know the truth plainly and act on it
15:26rightly.
15:26And never to trust a false cure while a real trouble grows.
15:30The household kept the plain old way is the one that remembers that you deal with a trouble by first
15:36knowing it truly and then meeting it honestly.
15:38And that is a thing we are only just starting to remember.
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