Keep the bugs out of your home to begin with, but if they're in your home already, get rid of bedbugs with common sense rather than chemicals.

Don't let fear of bedbugs lead you to take rash action.

RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PA—There are some shady dealings going down in the bug world. As more and more cities are coping with outbreaks of blood-sucking insects that come out at night and leave you covered in itchy bumps, more and more companies are promising sometimes ineffective, and even unsafe, treatments to get rid of bedbugs. Yesterday, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a consumer warning advising people not to jump on promises for treatment that sound too good to be true.

THE DETAILS: The alert from EPA comes after hundreds of enterprising entrepreneurs have released products with dubious, and often untested, efficacy, including essential-oil-based sprays, mattress covers and pillow covers treated with the harmful pesticide permethrin, and dusts and sprays intended for other insects. The problem has spread to pest-control companies that aren't always educated or trained in effective bedbug management. "Using the wrong pesticide, or using it incorrectly to treat for bedbugs, can make you, your family, and your pets sick," the EPA warns. "It can also make your home unsafe to live in—and may not solve the bedbug problem." The agency goes on to say that the safest and most effective ways of preventing these hardy insects is without using chemicals at all. "Pesticides are only one tool to use in getting rid of bedbugs," their warning advises. "A comprehensive approach that includes prevention and nonchemical treatment of infestations is the best way to avoid or eliminate a bedbug problem."

WHAT IT MEANS: Finding out that your home has become infested may drive you to the Internet searching for illicit sources of DDT, the banned pesticide that seems to be the only effective chemical against the little buggers. But taking drastic measures could endanger your health while doing nothing to get rid of nighttime creepy-crawlers. Pesticides, for instance, mostly work when they come into direct contact with bedbugs, but they have very little residual effect; bedbugs will crawl right over surfaces you've sprayed, no matter how potent the poison. And studies suggest that bedbugs are becoming resistant to some of the insecticides exterminators are using.