I purchased these in combination with NUMEROUS efforts to alleviate a bedbug infestation that found its way into my boy's room. Initially we mistook it for allergies since none of the bites were in a row, or on any fatty parts of their bodies, only on the arms, ears...weird places. One night I was up watching the security camera I put in their room and saw something crawling towards my youngest (we hadn't installed these yet) and went in there to investigate, and found 5 bed bugs on the chaise lounge that he liked to use as a bed from time to time. My wife and I immediately took the chaise lounge out of their room, and then over the course of the next three days THOROUGHLY inspected every piece of furniture in our homes, along the baseboards, etc.
We went out and bought a steamer, a new vacuum with a triple filtration system and minimal "tubing" between the canister and brush head to ensure as few as possible made their escape during vaccuming, some diatomaceous earth, bed bug spray, glue traps to place along the floors, EcoPest Traps, egg killer spray, and vacuum seal bags. We then proceeded to throw away anything that was "just being held onto" for no purpose, like old medical books, receivers, speakers, etc. that they could hide in, bagged up EVERY non-essential article of clothing, pictures, posters, etc. after washing and drying the clothing, and steaming anything we could. We took down all the pictures, posters, clocks, etc, and steamed all the beds, frames, box springs, platforms, shelves, cabinets, pantry, etc., vacuumed, and steam cleaned and scheduled exterminators out to do a 2-week/2-Treatment extermination.
We steamed along the walls, the furniture, cabinets, etc. and vacuumed every day, and steam cleaned every 3 days for a month. Curtains and blinds were taken down (Blinds soaked in Mr. Clean Mop solution for a day, along with kids' toys that could be) and curtains were washed, dried, and bagged.
Our beds / boxsprings got covered with protectors, and any bedbug we found in gluetraps was crushed (because they're attracted to the pheromones released when they're squished) and any one that was found in the interceptors was immediately dunked in 90% isopropyl alcohol (kills them on contact.) Our boys slept covered under towels, and their bed/frame got thrown away and a new one was purchased. All said we spent around $2,000 not counting the new couch for the living room, and what I'll eventually spend to replace our surround systems in our bedroom / living room, but given the fact that some people fight these things for YEARS I'd say it's a worthwhile tradeoff.
We did NOT use anything that was meant to "deter" them. We wanted them to come to their usual feeding places. We wanted to attract them. We just wanted to make sure they had as few a place to hide as possible, and couldn't get onto our boys' new bed EASILY to feast on them.
Now, we live in an apartment, so you need to understand just HOW difficult it is to get rid of an infestation like this in an apartment. It's nearly impossible to do it and we got INSANELY lucky, but these, along with all our other efforts combined actually got rid of our bedbug problem within 4 weeks. MOSTLY after day 3 once we'd evicted most of their hiding places from our home, and cleaned everything. After the initial 3 days we saw the occasional, and I think, in total (nymph, and adult) we saw MAYBE 12 over the course of the next couple of weeks in traps or interceptors. it wasn't easy, we basically moved in three days, but at the end of the day it did EXACTLY what we needed it to. it got rid of one of the worst pest issues you'll EVER see in your life in a (quite possibly) RECORD breaking time-frame. Our infestation was likely "mild" compared to some others, but all our couch pieces (3-piece sectional) were infested with adult females, and I'm quite sure there were more in other places, but those little buggers are gone now.
I'd say the psychological trauma was the worst. I couldn't sleep for nearly a month. We're now on month 3 being bedbug free, and I still freak out the moment a leg hair happens to touch me in a weird way. It's something I don't think I'll ever get over. I'm not scared of them, I just am paranoid they'll be back feasting on my youngest son again and watching that poor sweet boy itch to no avail was driving me crazy.
You need to make sure that you clean these DAILY, check and dust them to make sure that they're functioning as intended, but I promise you that if you use them PROPERLY (not upside down like some of the reviews I've seen which is funny considering the manual AND box SHOW you how to place them; as well as the writing on them...I mean, c'mon, honestly, how stupid can people BE...) in combination with multiple other proper efforts you WILL see results and you may (like me) turn out to (HOPEFULLY) never actually NEED them.
