What do you think of this plan to get rid of bedbugs?

[mm]

I wanted to get your reaction to this plan.

I don't have bedbugs.

It's only an academic question for me, but someone sent this to me, and I'm interested in your reaction!

We had a small infestation but was getting worse, I was starting to get a lot of bites. First we thought fleas (even dematologist thought this) but then we found a BB. Then we started looking carefully w/ a flashlight along baseboards, inside nightstands, boxspring seam etc. and found more.

People w/ apartments can't do this but I have a single family home and we heated the house up like a sauna as follows:

1) Waited for a hot (95 degree) summer day 2) Bypassed our thermostat and cranked the heat. We have a gas furnace. I opened the thermostat and I joined the red, white and green wires going into the thermostat. Red gives power to green (blower) and white (furnace). Do not try this without looking up your specific thermostat. The wires are different for many (very different if you have a heat pump). Also this probably voids your warranty on your HVAC equipment. 3) Lit our gas fireplace and closed the flue. Our gas FP is ventless (i.e., 100% clean burning, no carbon monoxide). 4) Put our electric clothes dryer on a 90-minute high-heat cycle, disconnected the exhaust hose, and turned around the dryer to blow into the room. We have upstairs laundry BTW. 5) Cranked up the electric baseboard heaters in our 4-season sunroom. 6) Moved the kitchen oven/range into the middle of the room and put it on the cleaning cycle. 7) Put two thermostat-less electric radiators on either side of our bed near the nighstands and dressers. Put on high heat. Had to use a high-amp extension cord for #2 to run on a different circuit. Also put a space heater in our master bath on high. [8)] Turn on all lights in house. Every lightbulb adds a bit more heat. Also left a few fans running in various places for convection effect. 9) We removed all computers, pictures, candles, aerosol cans, and meltable food (chocolate, etc.) from the house. Took a chance leaving up our 42" flat panel tv. It survived. We missed a few items that liquefied (solid deodorant, gummy vitamins, etc.) 10) Separated all mattresses from box springs to get maxium heat exposure to both. Also tried to de-pile all clothes etc. 10) Left oven thermometers on each level for temp verification. 11) Let everything run all day. Came back once or twice to check on things, reset the oven cleaning cycle and dryer. Wow, everything was hot to the touch, doorknobs, cabinet knobs. etc.

The house got up to 130 upstairs, 125 on ground level and 120 in the basement. Stayed out of the house.

It took a LONG time for our house to cool down. We bought a lot of $12 fans from walmart/target and put one in each window. House was back down to 72 degrees sometime the next morning.

Haven't seen a living bedbug since. Nevertheless, I have some food grade DE on order and will treat the house to prevent any survivors from breeding.

[Harry K]

Them things are a real problem to get rid of. Takes heroic methods to do so. Your solution should work but I wonder about damage to the building.

Our infestation way back when finally required tenting the house and fumigating.

Harry K

[mm]

For latecomers to the thread: It's not really MY solution, just one I read about.

Wow. I"m glad that worked. I read about someone who tried fudiating.

[SBH]

Seems like a big waste of time and money along with the potential of hidden damage from the heat.

I have no idea what the cost of fumigating is but I'm willing to bet his time and cost was more.

[krw]

Seems like heat is one of the preferred solutions to bedbug infestation. I don't see how that temperature can damage anything seriously (unplug electrical devices).

Search for "bedbugs + heat" (without the quotes) to see many others using heat.

I doubt it. Bedbugs can be a real PITA to get rid of. They hide from most threats. They can't hide from heat.

[mm]

I don't think the pros fumigate for bedbugs. From what I understand, the effective cure is to heat the house. They bring in big heaters and charge a lotttt of money. Even counting electricity, he saved a thousand or two.

Not that you said it but I don't see how anyone can imagine it will set fire to anything if the temperature rises to 130. If I recall correctly, the ignition temp of paper is 451 and I don' think it's that much lower for other things.

"9) We removed all computers, pictures, candles, aerosol cans, and meltable food (chocolate, etc.) from the house. Took a chance leaving up our 42" flat panel tv. It survived. We missed a few items that liquefied (solid deodorant, gummy vitamins, etc.)"

[TimR]

Seems like quite a reasonable experiment.

They've been using heat as a cockroach treatment for decades. Sufficient heat for a sufficient length of time kills all stages from eggs through larva to adults. That gives you a long time before the population starts growing again.

I have a heat pump, no way to get that kind of temperature in my house.

I worked at a hospital once that had bugs in the OR. The heat was computer controlled and it was easy to command it full on with no outside air and cook them all.

The trouble is getting the heat to all the spaces, including under cupboards, inside hollow walls, etc.

[Fake ID]

130 isn't too bad. Basically in the range for domestic hot water. And would have killed more bugs than just bed.

I wonder how the canned goods handled it. I have enough trouble with room temp cans springing leaks.

And where were the fridge and/or freezer?

m

[Ed Pawlowski]

? "Fake ID" wrote

Really? Never had a can spring a leak in all my years. Inside a trailer in shipment they would see those temperatures in the summer and should not be bothered.

Fridge was working hard.

[gpsman]

Sounds practical, but the missing factor is how the bugs got there in the first place. What is their origin? Were they transported in the family car?

This is some of the benefit one -may- get from a Integrated Pest Management (IPM) strategy from a licensed and experienced Pest Control Operator (PCO).

I'll go 100 bucks on a re-infestation. -----

- gpsman

[mm]

And putting out heat of its own.

[Evan]

Yeah, a hospital also has an industrial grade power plant for its heating, cooling and emergency power production called a Trigen system where the steam produced by its boilers is used all three ways at the same time...

Super-heating a few rooms doesn't take all that much effort, the stationary engineer in charge of the power plant on-duty when the order comes in to do something like that overrides the DDC building automation controls and commands the proper valves, fans and dampers to remain on/closed past their alarm cut-off points...

You would NOT be able to do that with your home heat pump it is not capable of producing that much of a temperature difference and it has safety devices in place to prevent it from running too hot... You would definitely need to bring in alternative sources of heat and utilize other heat producing appliances to get your home up to a maintained 120 degrees...

~~ Evan

[Steve Barker]

heat pump, maybe not. but gas furnace no problem.

[Ed Pawlowski]

? "Steve Barker" wrote

My boiler can keep the house at 70 even if it drops to -20 outside, a 90 degree differential. At 70 or 80 outside, I'd probably get the 120 inside. Faster tough, would be to add in a couple of propane powered garage heaters.

[The Daring Dufas]

With a gas furnace you may have to bypass the high limit safety in the airstream passed the combustion chamber to keep the furnace from shutting down. Of course the safety is there to shut the unit down if too many registers are closed but the high air temperature may do it too. Some brands are more sensitive to it than others.

TDD

[Fake ID]

Mandarin oranges must be particularly hard on the can lining. Once it breaks down the can puffs up. Other cans have leaked, slowly, through the seam. Beets, I think, and something else. The best were a couple cans of apple juice--put them outside and with the daily temp cycle they emptied without ever being opened.

As long as it could keep up.

m

[mm]

That's interesting. I think I keep a lot of canned food four years or more, and I've never had a leak iirc. I don't have any canned oranges though. Corn, spinach, peas, potatoes, sweet potatoes, yams, soup, beans, peaches, pears, fruit cocktail, pineapple. spaghetti sauce. mushrooms,

[trader4]

You might have to bypass a safety on a gas or oil furnace, but it would not do the job without resorting to screwing around with dryer vents, moving stoves to the center of the house, turning on electric lights, etc. A furnace can maintain 70 when it's 10 outside. So it would have no problem supplying all the heat one needs to reach 130 when it's 95 outside.

This whole story sounds like a crock to me. The above, plus they bought "a bunch of $12 fans" to put in windows to cool the house back down... Geez, just open all the windows, doors with screens, etc. With that big of a heat differential, air is going to move and cool it down before too long.

[chaniarts]

i would just have to open the window on a summer day.

regards, charlie phx, az

[The Daring Dufas]

The mother of a late friend of mine had medical problems and was very frail so she kept her thermostat set to 85°F or higher because she was cold. Her Carrier package gas unit kept tripping the high limit when the outside temperature was 50-60°F. She had shut the register in her late son's room and that contributed to the problem. There are some furnaces that may not heat a house up to a level that would be dangerous to people because of built in safeties.

TDD