Bed Bug Heater Treatment. From low-income housing agencies to five-star hotels, bed bugs have become a prevalent issue that organizations struggle with.
It is critical that bed bug infestations are handled quickly and using the correct tools to effectively eliminate an infestation, not only physically but also psychologically.
What are bed bugs?
Before feeding (roughly the size and form of a tiny apple seed), bed bugs are tiny, flat wingless creatures that are reddish-brown in color.
They sleep in cracks and crevices of walls, floors, and furniture during the day on beds (mattress seams, box springs, bed frames). At night, they emerge.
They can crawl quickly rather than fly or jump.
Where Bed Bugs Hide
luggage, clothing, used beds and sofas, and other items can all bring bedbugs into your home undetected. They can squeeze into tiny areas about the width of a credit card because to their flattened bodies.
Bedbugs are not ants or bees, but prefer to group in hiding places. Mattresses, box springs, bed frames, and headboards are common places for them to hide during the night since they have easy access to humans.
They may, however, disperse throughout the bedroom and seek out any corner or secure spot. They may migrate to other rooms or flats around them.
Bedbugs aren’t filthy because they live solely on blood; rather, it’s a sign of hygiene. They may be found in clean homes and hotel rooms as well as filthy ones.
What are the signs and symptoms of bed bugs?
Bed bug signs include:
Bed bugs on your mattress, bed frame, and other furniture are regularly waking you up with bites.
Bed bug faeces (brown spotting) or blood stains on your mattress
With severe infestations, there is a musty, sweet odor.
Red, itchy lesions on the legs, arms, and shoulders are common symptoms of bed bug bites. Infections can occur on some bites. Some individuals may not react for up to 9 days after being bitten, while others may.
Some people with numerous bite injuries have become anaemic due to the blood loss. Bed bugs are suspected of causing allergies and asthma, according to some physicians.
How does bed bug heater treatment work?
After being exposed to high temperatures for a long time, bed bugs die. Heat treatment for bed bugs is a very successful strategy when it’s done correctly.
The temperature in your home may climb as high as 145°F during a full-room heat treatment performed by bed bug control experts. Terminix experts employ focused heat in the form of steam in contaminated regions, as well as other methods to eliminate bed bugs, rather than heating the whole house.
To guarantee that all bed bugs are killed during a bed bug heat treatment, huge electric heaters are employed.
It takes roughly 6–9 hours to finish the procedure. In certain cases, bed bugs may seek refuge from the heat by seeking out cold areas on the floor.
HEAT VS. PESTICIDES
In comparison to using chemical treatments, heat treatment is a more effective way to exterminate a bed bug problem.
Chemicals may not be able to kill all life stages of bed bugs post-treatment due to their increased resistance to insecticides. Bed bugs, on the other hand, can’t tolerate heat and are therefore better suited for pesticides.
Furthermore, unlike chemicals, only one heat treatment is required to eliminate an infestation.
Will bed bug heater treatment damage my home?
The temperature isn’t high enough to cause long-term damage to the building of your home, so whole room heat treatments might take hours.
It’s critical that all people, animals, plants, and heat-sensitive items be removed from the treated region for many hours after heat treatment has been completed by a expert and under the proper conditions.
When it is safe to return to your home, as well as when it is safe to return items that were removed before heat treatment, your bed bug control specialist will advise you.
The temperature of a bed bug heat treatment should probably be able to handle the majority of items in your home. Some elements, such as: must be deleted.
Houseplants and pets,
Alcohol, fresh ingredients, and melting ingredients (e.g., chocolate)
All medications,
Any materials that might melt are made of wax or plastic.
Anything that is pressurized (soda bottles, aerosol cans, and propane bottles)
Firearms and flammable materials
Wooden musical instruments,
Oil paintings,
Electronic devices such as smartphones, tablets, and laptops.
Before starting the heat treatment process, contact your bed bug exterminator to determine what items will stay put throughout. During the course of the therapy, vulnerable items may be stored in storage bins and left outside your home.
These items may need to be inspected and treated separately to avoid reintroducing bed bugs into your home, so let your bed bug control professional know about them.
To help protect objects from bed bug heat treatment, there are a few other steps you can take:
Remove all electrical devices before turning off and unplugging them.
Using clean blankets to cover computer and TV screens.
Turning off all fans and air conditioners.
How to prepare for bed bug heat treatment
When a typical chemical treatment fails to eliminate the initial bed bug infestation, resulting in pesticide resistance, a bed bug heat treatment is the optimum strategy.
A complete heat treatment offers additional advantages, including the ability to kill all stages of life development in one efficient sweep. As a consequence, the property can be reopened without further delay, and tenants will not be bitten as much.
Preventing Heat Damage
Heating an whole room above 56°C, on the other hand, has downsides. To be on the safe side, fine electronics would have to be removed from the room in question since they are famously sensitive to heat damage.
Plants and aquariums would also be severely affected. Since this is the case, we recommend that heat-sensitive things be taken into the bathroom or kitchen where they will not be heated using space heating units, which might damage white goods and home equipment.
The materials used in the rooms are the next point of concern. wallpaper may peel or become unglued from the walls.
The furniture it covers may peel off laminate. Plastic fittings may soften and distort, and this can happen with certain types.
We protect heat-sensitive goods from the heat by draping them with sheets and foil in certain situations when susceptible goods cannot be removed from the space.
In other instances, we must use the professional pest control cimex eradicator steamer, which is a more time-consuming, labor-intensive method of carrying out the heat treatment manually.
Removing certain items from rooms heated with space heaters:
Electronic processors are found in mobile phones, video game consoles, televisions, computers, alarm clocks, radios, and other devices. Candles, waxworks, oil paintings, artistic works, costly and precious items, medications, cosmetics in general. Anything alive, from plants to pets.
Any questions should be addressed to the heat treatment specialist.
Ottoman beds wallpaper, gilding, and antique furniture with wood or stone inlay are all examples of inexpensive laminated furniture from Argos or IKEA.
Why Choose Heat Treatment For Bed Bugs?
The hardest-to-kill bug today is bed bugs. They have developed very strong resistance to chemical insecticides, and they can hide in the thinnest of gaps only coming out at night to feed when you are asleep.
The proteins and enzymes required for the bug to live are denatured by heat treatment for bed bugs. Since bed bugs have no way of developing resistance to heat, which kills the bugs in all of their stages, including the eggs, treatment with heat is the best option.
Heat treatment is an environmentally friendly method of eliminating bed bugs. After treatment, rooms may be reopened immediately, and no furniture needs to be discarded.
Benefits of Treating Bed Bugs with Heat
The worst kind of bug is bed bugs. They are difficult to get rid of once they have established a home. These insects have an adaptive physiology that enables them to generate offspring resistant to insecticides, as well as behavioral patterns that assist them evade all of our attempts to exterminate them.
Heat treatments, on the other hand, interfere with these defenses. The most efficient bed bug pest control strategy is heat treatment, as well as a few extra features that may be expected.
Bed Bugs Can’t Hide From the Heat
Bed bugs can travel around quickly. They don’t have to think about it for long when they sense danger approaching. Deep inside wall voids or within a piece of furniture is where that concealment is usually found.
It is vital to understand that a heat treatment will get into those hiding places before you move and throw out your bed, couch, and other furniture. Heat is emitted in all directions. When the temperature in an entire home is raised to 48°C, those bugs have nowhere to hide.
Can a hot box kill bed bugs?
The usage of a hot box is another strategy that may be used to limit a bed bug issue. Bed bugs are eliminated on items like shoes, clothes, linens, and even bags thanks to a hot box.
This is not the best way to get rid of bed bugs, as it will just kill bed bugs on infested items. Instead, perform spot-treatments to kill bed bugs on infested items such as clothing and bedding by running them through a 30-minute cycle at maximum heat setting in a clothes dryer.
While it is a crucial component of a comprehensive bed bug management strategy, it cannot treat an bed bug problem on its own.
Clothing and linens are generally dried in a dryer, whereas non-dryable items are heated inside a heat chamber. Bed bugs can withstand temperatures of 118–122°F. Hot boxes can reach a temperature that is higher than this deadly range to help exterminate bed bugs throughout their life cycle.
It’s critical to follow the instructions to the letter when using a hot box, paying attention to every detail from heat sources to effective ventilation.
Failure to do so may cause fires or damage to your belongings. Before trying this strategy, make sure your clothes are dryer safe.
Is heat treatment effective for bed bugs?
Bed bug destruction is denatured by heating your dwelling to the eggs’ protein structure melting point (above 56°C), which also reduces the infestation.
Many people believe that in order to assist the heat treatment procedure, they must completely clean their home, rearrange furniture, and maybe do pest control. This is not the case, in reality.
A comprehensive bed bug heat treatment will eliminate any bed bug infestation from your home and belongings, which is the advantage of it.
The potential of reintroducing residual bed bug activity that may be in those items is increased by removing items while the treatment is being carried out. What belongs to a room must stay there in principle, as well as what belongs to a corner.
Commercial pesticides may activate bed bugs, so be careful when using DIY bed bug solutions. Yet, any heat-based remedy for eradicating bed bugs may be the finest non-professional effort at eliminating them without causing harm.
While a business steam cleaner isn’t particularly strong when it comes to bed bugs, it is very safe. If you have a gas cooker, do not ever try to treat bed bugs in your oven since this is a fire hazard.
Will steam kill bed bugs?
Yes, technically. Another kind of heat that may assist in the elimination of adult bed bugs, as well as their larvae and eggs, is steam.
Yet, since most individuals have limited access to (carpet cleaners and clothing steamers), it is necessary to seek the services of a bed bug controller.
Since they have access to professional-grade equipment that is more effective, a professional will implement the best ways to get rid of bed bugs.
Steam cleaner for Bed bugs: What to remove
As long as you expose every area of the material in excess of five to ten seconds to appropriately raise the temperature, you can steam bed bugs to death using a commercial carpet steamer.
For bed bugs that use superheated dry steam to flash burn bed bugs and fragment the eggshell protein structure, we utilize a professional pest control steam machine at Inoculand.
It will not harm inert material and only need to be exposed for a fraction of a second, even if the steam temperature is 180°C. The ultra-high-processing (UHT) process used in the dairy business, which does not heat the milk it is processing, is similar.
Over a long period of time, increasing the humidity level in a room by using a commercial steamer for bed bugs.
Furniture and items that will be heat treated immediately should not be affected by the steam. You should either remove or move the bed away from the wall if it affects photographs or sheets of paper hanging above it; otherwise, it may cause damage.
How To Pick a Good Heater?
A suitable bed bug heater that can eliminate bed bugs is one that reaches a temperature of 113°F.
It’s also necessary to choose a heater that is appropriate for your belongings and won’t drain the power grid of your home, in addition to these two criteria. Using these components together may help you pick whether a product is appropriate for you.
Size:
There are several kinds of portable bed bug heaters. Several others can only handle things that are 10 in. (3ft) long and wide, while others may hold objects up to 36 in. (3ft). It is possible to be less than completely accurate.
It’s vital to know which possessions will need to be treated before investing in a heater. If you can’t afford it, pick the cheapest one.
You’ll need to choose for a bigger gadget if you want to heat up couches and beds, but if all you want is to heat up clothes, a smaller gadget should suffice.
Pro Tip:
We suggest investing in a bigger heater if you want to save money. You can put bigger items (such as whole suitcases, furniture, beds, and so on) into the enclosed space even though larger heaters are more expensive.
If you ever experience a bed bug issue, this could save you thousands of dollars. Instead of tossing your belongings, you could stuff them all inside a heater.
Power Consumption and Temperature:
Reading the energy requirements for each product is essential. In a pre-World War II building, bigger heaters might need more power than the electrical outlets can provide.
Some bed bug heaters may be huge energy consumers or struggle to maintain the specified temperature. To kill bed bug adults, nymphs, and eggs, the heater must reach and maintain a temperature of at least 113-117 degrees Fahrenheit for two hours.
What kills bed bugs instantly?
Bed bug heat extermination is a remarkable procedure, and a one-minute exposure at 56°C suffices to kill bed bugs, nymphs, and eggs. A few bed bugs may, however, seek refuge deeper inside the wall if they are able to escape the heat.
So, after two weeks of bed bug fumigation, we usually return to Inoculand for a second round of bed bug heat treatment to confirm that no remnant activity exists.
Do-it-yourself Bed Bug Control
Can you get rid of bed bugs on your own?
Depending on the severity of the infestation, treating bed bugs may take weeks to months.
How many bed bugs you have, how much clutter you have to find places, whether your neighbors have bed bugs, and whether everyone in a building will participate are all factors that influence your likelihood of success.
Everyone in the household must work together to achieve success.
The following steps will help you begin:
Figure out what’s going on.
Make a plan.
Keep the problem from spreading.
It’s time to prepare for treatment.
Kill the bed bugs.
Whenever possible, evaluate and eliminate the problem.