If you’re dealing with bed bugs, the last thing you want to do is “sleep tight.” Bed bugs (Cimex lectularis) are one of the worst pests you can have in your home, period. While some pests feed on wood, plants, or food, bed bugs feed on you.
These blood-suckers hide in the same cracks and crevices in your home that similar bugs live in, such as dust mites and fleas. The difference between bed bugs and other common pests is that they sneak out at night to bite you. A single specimen is enough to propagate a full-blown bed bug infestation on its own, and they are very difficult to get rid of.
Working for one of the biggest pest control companies in the U.S., I learned there are several steps you can take to get rid of bed bugs. One of the fastest and most cost-effective ways to quickly reduce the number of bed bugs in your home is with a vacuum. Whether the infestation is light or severe, using a vacuum with strong suction and a detachable wand is a necessary step in serving these pests a permanent eviction notice.
Read on to learn everything you need to know about how vacuuming can help get rid of bed bugs.
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Just looking for the best vacuum for bed bugs? Here’s our pick:
How to Vacuum for Bed Bugs
Vacuuming is not usually enough to get rid of bed bugs entirely. However, it’s still an important first step in any bed bug extermination strategy. Vacuuming can help grab bed bugs that are crawling around your home and also help keep things sanitary by picking up any dead bugs that pesticides may have killed.
Unfortunately, vacuuming is not as effective at getting rid of bed bug eggs because they are covered in natural cement that adheres to surfaces.
Vacuuming also does not instantly kill bed bugs. It’s simply a way to remove them from your home and trap them inside the vacuum cleaner. That’s why all of the best vacuum cleaners for bed bugs have bags inside them — to keep the bed bugs trapped.
While this is a little more work to replace them after vacuuming, it’s really easy for a bed bug to escape a canister vacuum as you’re trying to empty it.
The best time to vacuum for bed bugs is during the day. Bed bugs often gather into groupings referred to by pest control professionals as “clumps” while they are resting.
Disgusting? Yes. However, the good news is that these clumps are easy to attack with a vacuum. Once you disturb the clumps, it gets a lot more difficult to chase the individuals down.
Where to Vacuum for Bed Bugs
Knowing where to vacuum for bed bugs makes a massive difference in the outcome of your DIY bed bug pest control efforts. Bed bugs are notorious for hiding, finding even the smallest fluctuation in a surface as shelter. For example, the seams of your pillow case, comforter, or mattress are their most preferred nesting areas.
These pesky blood suckers also hide in dark corners out of sight, such as under nightstands, in boxspring mattresses, even inbetween flooring material and the wall or subfloor.
The most significant places to vacuum for bed bugs include:
- Your mattress
- Your bed frame
- Around all the floorboards and edges of your rooms
- Drapes/curtains
- Any other furniture in your bedroom
- Carpets/rugs
Bed bug vacuuming excursions involve a lot of peering into cracks, crevices, and dark places. That’s why the best vacuums for bed bugs have different attachment tools that work on much more than just the floor. Even more, I recommend using a UV light to look for signs of these pests.
What to Look For in the Best Bed Bug Vacuums
There are so many vacuums out there, that it’s important to know what to look for when doing pest control.
Besides a price that fits your budget, and a decent warranty if possible, there are several must-have features for bed bug vacuum cleaners.
Vacuums with the below attributes will be excellent for bed bugs, cockroaches, ants, and any other household pests you could pick up:
High Suction Power
It’s pretty obvious that the higher the suction, the more effective your vacuum will be against bed bugs. Bed bugs often hide deep within carpets. Their eggs are also very sticky, which makes them hard to suck up.
Just because a vacuum sucks up dirt on the surface does not mean it’s getting all of the bed bugs beneath. High suction power means more bed bugs are removed, which means you get to end your infestation faster.
Must Use a Bag
A bag is an essential part of a bed bug vacuum. Avoid using a bagless vacuum as your chosen bug sucker. While it’s possible to use a canister-only vacuum for bed bugs, it’s a lot harder to make sure you’ve gotten rid of the bugs after vacuuming.
Once you’re done vacuuming, take the entire vacuum outside the house at least 25 feet away before opening it up to remove the bag.
After removing the bag from your vacuum, spray a little pesticide in it and seal it shut with tape. This helps to make sure your captured bed bugs die.
You could also try to spray the pesticide directly into the intake of the vacuum while it’s running before removing the bag. It’s possible this will spread the pesticide around the bag better.
Either way, once you have the bag sealed, you may want to place it in another sealed plastic bag (if possible), and place it directly into an outdoor trashcan away from the home.
Look for a Vacuum That Has an HEPA Filter
The term HEPA filter is short for high-efficiency particulate air filters. An HEPA filtration system filters out very small particles from the air that passes through it. You want one of these filters in a bed bug vacuum cleaner because bed bugs can release a lot of allergens.
If you’ve been putting down diatomaceous earth or CimeXa Dust to kill bed bugs, an HEPA filter also ensures these particles don’t go airborne and become an irritant. Using an HEPA filter also helps make sure that any bugs and eggs that make it inside of the vacuum aren’t able to escape (as they may, out of a bagless machine or one with a cheap filter).
Great Attachments for Tight Areas
Even the best of vacuums can’t get into every little nook and cranny of your home — especially if they lack a decent array of attachments. A crevice attachment is the best tool for corners and large clumps of bugs. Its small size maximizes suction power. Further, held at an angle, it crushes bed bugs and their eggs before sucking them up.
Top 5 Best Vacuums for Bed Bugs
Now that you know what to look for in a vacuum to weaponize against bed bugs, let’s have a look at my top five choices and recommendations, below:
Best Value Bed Bug Vacuum
The first item on my list is a great compromise vacuum that combines some of the best features of all the vacuums on this list. Even more, it’s affordable at under $200. It has similar suction power to some of the bigger, industrial vacuums (120 volts, and a cubic feet per minute rating of 106 CFM).
This unit is also a great multi-purpose tool because it converts to a blower as well. Even more, it’s a backpack model, so it is easy to wear and bring into a variety of spaces. The bags have an 8-quart capacity.
Another place this vacuum shines is in the included attachments. It has more than any other on this list. The unit includes standard crevice and brush attachments for any vacuum, but also has several thin attachments that are meant as blower nozzles. These are useful for bed bugs as well, since part of vacuuming bed bugs is maximizing suction by using narrow attachments.
Since it’s got everything you need at a very attractive price, we’re naming this the best vacuum for bed bugs for most do-it-yourselfers. Not impressed? Keep reading on, because I have four more suggestions that you may fit your needs better.
Best Professional Grade Bed Bug Vacuum
This vacuum is certainly the priciest on our list at over $300, but you get a lot of utility and power for your money. It’s a backpack vacuum, and weighs just over 9 pounds. This unit gives you a lot more flexibility than a standard “housework” vacuum that’s difficult to lug around and hard to navigate into smaller spaces where bed bugs hide.
Don’t be fooled by its tiny size, though. This unit has a strong airflow, 899.7 gallons/minute, and a dust capacity of roughly 6.4 quarts. This means it takes in a ton of dirt and bed bugs very quickly and keeps doing so for a long time.
The vacuum also comes with a wide array of useful attachments, including a crevice attachment, a turbo floor tool, a dusting brush, and an upholstery tool.
This vacuum is a great choice for someone that does a lot of professional cleaning jobs, whether in pest control or otherwise. If you’re a homeowner looking for one vacuum to “own for life” this could be a great choice as well.
Best Cheap Vacuum for Bed Bugs
This unit is the most affordable option on my list, at just over $100. It’s a wheeled vacuum, not backpack-style, so it’s pushed/wheeled around the home rather than carried. The unit only weighs about 11 pounds and is small (18” x 12” x 8.5”), so it’s relatively easy to maneuver around a home.
That said, this smaller-size machine comes with a smaller bag size as well at 6 quarts. This particular vacuum packs 120 volts (1400 watts) of power and has adjustments for different levels of suction power as well.
Just remember, you always want to use the highest level of suction for bed bugs, but the other settings come in handy for other uses around the home. It’s marketed as a general-use vacuum, so it comes with a standard arsenal of attachments including an extension handle, brushes, and a crevice attachment.
Best Handheld Option
Handheld vacuums come with some pros and cons. One of the benefits is that it’s easy to carry around so you can get into hard-to-reach places more easily than something bulkier.
However, you lose a bit of suction power in such a small unit. This vacuum is better suited for getting bed bugs out of your car than your whole carpeted house.
It comes with a 20ft cord, a 5ft hose, and an extension wand to make it even more portable. This one also comes with the usual home-use attachments including a large floor tool, an upholstery tool, and a crevice tool.
Best Professional Pest Control Vacuum
Atrix produces industrial vacuums for a variety of purposes. Omega Green is an integrated pest management (IPM) solution and that’s why it’s on my list of recommended bed bug vacuums.
Operating this unit is easy (no professional pest control experience required). You simply wear it with a strap over the shoulder. The unit also includes a stretchable hose and numerous attachments, including crevice attachments for different small spaces and a stiff ground brush.
The vacuum has 120 volts of power, which is the same strength as the Hoover backpack. The major difference is that the form factor and attachments for this Atrix vacuum are more suited for multifaceted pest control applications.
Even more, this vacuum has a special disposable cartridge design instead of a typical vacuum bag. The cartridge is already sealed as soon as you power the unit down, so there’s no need to tape any holes or anything of the sort. This is the most sure-fire way to make sure you’re capturing all the bugs you’re vacuuming up, and this style of vacuum is a staple of pest control professionals.
For homeowners just looking to do a job at their house, this is likely overkill, but it’s still one to consider if you foresee more jobs in your future.
Other Tips for Getting Rid of Bed Bugs
Except for the rare few cases where you catch a small infestation fast enough, vacuuming should not be your only bed bug control strategy. The bottom line is that vacuuming, by itself, helps tremendously with bed bug issues — but it doesn’t often solve them.
Here are some of the best tips for successfully ridding your home of bed bugs:
- Vacuuming is best for reducing the overall number of bed bugs to increase the chances of other strategies working (and working faster). Vacuum often to keep things clean as bed bugs die and snatch up any bugs out for a stroll.
- Avoid using bagless vacuums and units with washable bags. Opt for vacuum cleaners that require bags, which are sealable, if possible. Further, remove bags from the vacuum outside and place them in a sealed garbage bag or container and directly into the trash can. I recommend an HEPA backpack vacuum or a mattress vacuum cleaner.
- Another effective way to kill bed bugs is with heat treatment. For severe infestations, it’s often a whole-home ordeal. For smaller infestations, you can heat-treat different areas of your bedroom where bed bugs are likely to be hiding with a steam cleaner. Steam treatment involves spraying high-heat, high-pressure steam on surfaces in your home. The steam penetrates these surfaces and kills bed bugs hiding within them.
- Vacuuming pairs well with steam treatment. Vacuum before steam-treating to get rid of the most bed bugs possible. After you reduce the overall number of bed bugs in your home (by vacuuming and steaming), vacuum thoroughly, once more, and clean up the remaining bed bug carnage.
Also consider using a bed bug bomb, pest-specific insecticide spray, and/or pesticide dust around your home to help treat for bed bugs.
Bed bug traps around your bed offer instant relief from getting bit at night if your bed bugs aren’t living on your mattress or bed frame.
Final Thoughts
Choosing the best bed bug vacuum for your situation is crucial. All five of the recommendations mentioned on my list are great for getting rid of bed bugs, in general. However, one of them ought to fit your unique issue better than the others — and only you can decide which one that is.
Just remember that vacuuming isn’t typically a single-handed solution to bed bug problems. Even more importantly, in the case of severe infestations, it’s almost always best to consult a professional bed bug exterminator or pest control company.
4.6
Over 90 years of experience
Nationwide service area
Free retreatments if pests return
4.7
Treats 20 types of pests
Offers instant online quotes
30-day money-back guarantee
FAQs About the Best Bed Bug Vacuums
Can I use these vacuums on other pests?
Totally! Vacuuming is a great strategy for pest control and prevention for many types of insects. Regular vacuuming eliminates food particles that attract ants, cockroaches, and flies. There are also other pests that live in carpet besides bed bugs. Carpet beetles, fleas, and even some moth larvae can be found hiding in carpet. However, like for bed bugs, if you have a major infestation, you’ll probably have to use several different methods to get rid of them entirely.
How long after bed bug spray treatment should I vacuum?
You can vacuum for bed bugs before a spray treatment and after, but you should at the very least wait for the spray to fully dry before vacuuming. Most sprays take at least 24-48 hours to work, so if you’re going to be vacuuming shortly after spraying don’t expect to see a bunch of dead bugs. You may be able to catch live bugs out and about, though.
Can I vacuum after heat treatment?
With heat treatment, all of the insect-killing action happens during the treatment, and there are no residual effects to wait for. You can vacuum right away once you get back into your home to try to clean out dead bugs and eggs.
How do I empty my vacuum safely?
Take your vacuum cleaner outside away from the home before opening it. Remove the bag and tape the entire vacuum bag shut, then put that inside of a sealable plastic bag. Double layers will prevent any chance of escape. Then just throw away the bag but take the trash out right away so it’s no longer in your home. Even if the bed bugs aren’t dead at this point, if they are trapped in a vacuum bag inside of another bag inside of a trash can, they stand no chance of finding their way back into your house.
Do I really need to use a bag and HEPA filter?
You can try without them, but I would not suggest it. A bag and HEPA filter are the best and safest way to vacuum up bed bugs. People can have strong allergic reactions to the debris left behind by bed bugs, and bed bugs are tiny enough to hide inside of vacuum canisters and be left behind if there is no bag. A single female bed bug can produce hundreds of new ones pretty quickly. So it’s really better safe than sorry.
