Mattress Covers to Prevent Bed Bugs and Their Nasty Bites

Bed bugs are tough little insects. They're difficult to kill with pesticides, they can go a very long time without feasting on your blood and they tend to stay the nooks and crannies where they are least likely to be seen. Given all that, it's no wonder people look towards just avoiding them rather than fighting them.

So can mattress covers prevent bed bugs? Yes and no. It depends on what you mean by prevent. Mattress covers, the right mattress covers, are certainly good for preventing some things about these bugs.

If you go to a hotel and you're looking to sleep and not become a midnight snack, then a mattress cover is definitely going to be a useful tool. If you bring a fresh mattress cover with you and put it on the bed, and it's the right kind of mattress cover, then you can prevent the bites.

What you're basically doing is sealing all the bed bugs underneath a cover that they can't bite through. As a layer of defense against bedbugs, this is pretty effective. But keep in mind that choosing the right kind of mattress cover is absolutely essential to them doing what you want them to do.

Their jaws are designed to bite through and hold onto flesh, so for their size, they are enormously strong. This means that if you get a mattress cover made of silk or another very light fabric, they will simply bite though it to get to you. So to get the protection you want, you're going to want to pick a heavy, tightly woven fabric. This will stop them from getting anywhere near your skin, so you don't wake up itching like a fiend.

On the other hand, if you're looking at mattress covers as a way to prevent bed bugs from setting up house in your home, then you're going to have a lot less luck. These disgusting insects don't care what's on the bed. If you have a mattress cover over the bed all the time, they're simply going to crawl on top of it to get to you.

Bed bugs, despite the name, don't just live in the bed. Most of them will stay where the large warm buffet meal is, but some will be else where. Now in a hotel situation, where you are only there for a night, the mattress cover will contain them. Unfortunately, at home, this just won't work.

If these bugs do get into your home, you're going to need more than a mattress to contain them. These covers are only a temporary measure, and you should only use them for that. But assuming correct use, then yes, you can use mattress covers to prevent bed bugs.