Bedbugs lured by dirty duds

IF YOU air your dirty laundry, people might see your bedbugs.

The creepy-crawly critters prefer soiled clothing to clean, researchers at Britain’s University of Sheffield found in a study.

It’s known the pests spread by latching onto clothes, but the experiment revealed they prefer dirty to clean. The scientists put four totes of apparel, two soiled, two clean, in two identical rooms with bed bugs. Carbon dioxide was pumped into one room to simulate the CO2 humans exhale.

The bugs in the room without the CO2 were twice as likely to hang out in the soiled bags than the clean ones. In the room with the carbon dioxide, the bugs went looking for a human snack.

“Our study suggests that keeping dirty laundry in a sealed bag, particularly when staying in a hotel, could reduce the chances of people taking bedbugs home . . . which may reduce the spread of infestations,” lead author William Hentley said.