Recent research shows that widespread use of pesticides like DDT may have caused us to ignore or forget benign methods of pest control. Because the chemicals were so effective, infestations were reduced and there was little interest in non-toxic methods. But bugs evolve quickly and can become immune to pesticides. That’s true of bedbugs, the now ubiquitous critters that are showing up around the world in homes, hotels, schools, movie theatres — even libraries.

But a method used long ago provides an effective and non-toxic weapon against the pests, according to a U.S. study in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface. The authors looked into the once-common Eastern European practice of spreading bean leaves around a bed to control bedbugs. What the scientists from the University of California, Irvine and University of Kentucky found was fascinating:

During the night, bed bugs walking on the floor would accumulate on these bean leaves, which were collected and burned the following morning to exterminate the bed bugs. The entrapment of bed bugs by the bean leaves was attributed to the action of microscopic plant hairs (trichomes) on the leaf surfaces that would entangle the legs of the bed bugs,”

They discovered that after bugs get caught up in the hooked plant hairs, they struggle to escape and, in the process, vulnerable parts of their feet are pierced by the hooks — permanently trapping them. The research focuses on a way to replicate this.

http://www.independentaustralia.net/2013/life/health/david-suzuki-bean-leaves-bedbugs-and-biomimicry/