What is the best way? We don’t have a lot, but they are a problem.
There’s a ton of threads on this topic.
https://boards.straightdope.com/search?context=topic&context_id=917599&q=Bedbugs&skip_context=true
Thanks!
What do you think about this: We had a guy set up to come over today. But he never quoted us a price. He calls an hour before the exterminator gets here, and says he’s gonna try to get us his best “senior citizen” price, even though we aren’t. Starts out at $1,700. When I balk, he says he has a $900 option, where we have to empty our closets. The he mentions a $300 option, and starts to explain what that is, but I cut him off and politely told him I want to compare with other companies…
Y’all got a twenny-two?
Think you misspelled “flamethrower” there, homes.
I had them, what worked in the end was some fungus powder, I forget what it’s called but it comes as a powder which you add water and spray around their path (your bed). Bites became weaker and eventually gone.
Correction: You do have a lot of them. There is no such thing as a small infestation of bedbugs. You know how people say that about roaches? Bedbugs are at least ten times worse.
The best option is to evacuate the house for at least three days, and use heaters to heat the whole house to ungodly temperatures-- I think it needs to be at least 120 Fahrenheit? Anything short of that, you’re looking at months or years to fix the problem.
That was how I dealt with them years ago.
Not sure how I got them, but I worked in hotels at the time, so I assume that was the vector. Discovering them is still one of the more disturbing memories I have.
Tried a few things that weren’t really working, then saw that the temperature for the next week was going to be over 100. Turned on the furnace through the day for a couple days. Camped out in the back yard.
They die at 114 Fahrenheit, but you need higher temperatures to really penetrate into bedding and walls and such. Had temps in the mid 120’s in most of my house for several hours both days.
Haven’t had a problem since.
What worked for us was airtight mattress covers. Bedbugs trapped within eventually die out and new bedbugs can’t get inside your mattress. Regularly laundering your bedding takes care of the rest. You might still have some hiding 8n the floorboards, but it’s not like they can leap from there to your bkanjets
The mattress isn’t the only place they can hide in a bed. Look for anywhere that has small crevasses or cracks, like cracks in a wood frame, separating laminate, or the gap between slats and the bedframe.
And they can’t leap from the floor to the bed, but they can climb up the legs of the bed, or anything else touching the floor. Put the feet of the bed inside small containers of diatomaceous earth, and make sure not to leave any “ladders” of blankets or anything else hanging down to the floor. Even then, they could get into the bed by climbing to the ceiling above and falling, but I don’t think they do that non-accidentally.
I’ve never had them, but aside from that I’ve heard you also need to move your mattress away from the walls, and put the legs of the beds in bowls of water so the bugs have no way to climb onto your bed. If they try to climb up onto the bed they drown in the water.
Some people even go so far as to put double sided tape on the walls around the bed so that if the bugs try to climb up the walls to get to you they get stuck on the tape.
Interesting. What about guitars and vinyl records, etc. Do you know if these should be moved first?
And a general question to the board: have you tried heat treatment for bedbugs, and if so, what was the result?
120’s a bit hot, bt it shouldn’t melt anything.
To be safe, though, anything you really want to make sure is safe you should probably remove.
And to your next post, seemed to work pretty well. You do need to be pretty thorough though.
Thanks!
I also recall reading about some treatment to get rid of pesky insects (bedbugs? Cockroaches?) They put a giant plastic bag over the house - actually, wrap it in plastic and seal - and use industrial heaters. I vaguely recall something about around 135F for two or three days being a good temperature to cook the uncooperative critters. That’s about the same temperature as your typical hot water tank, so if something doesn’t melt in a sink of hot tap water, it won’t melt in the treatment.
I actually had a small outbreak of bedbugs.
Pretty sure I picked them up on mass transit (I have reasons to think this but no need to relate it here). Not really sure though.
So, I don’ think I carried many home. Of course they breed but they also decided to have snacks on me without waiting to infest the place. I immediately began efforts to rid myself of them.
Honestly it was a fucking nightmare. It took me three months to be rid of them. I’d kill some and get a few days of relief and then get bitten again. You can’t sleep. It is awful in a way hard to describe.
In the end I was almost preternaturally aware of them. By that I mean I would leap awake at the slightest twitch or tickle or…anything. I’d leap awake and turn on a flash light and hunt for them. Tossing my bed sheets, lifting the mattress…Usually I wouldn’t find them but then I would strip my bed of all sheets and put them in the clothes drier on high for 45 minutes and try to sleep on my unmade bed. If I felt another anything I would leap awake and start the hunt again.
Is that a good way to do it? Absolutely not. No way, no how. It sucked beyond belief getting no good sleep for weeks. For trying to go to bed when you know you will be attacked by the little bastards in the night. For jumping awake at the slightest thing (something that lasted well beyond this).
In all that time I maybe got a dozen of them that I noticed. I didn’t keep count but it wasn’t hundreds.
Note that I went through all of this for a handful of these devil spawn. They are a nightmare to deal with. Get professional help ASAP if you find even one (I learned my lesson).
The last apartment I lived in included several pages on my obligations if I found even one bed bug which mostly said alert management ASAP or I was on the hook for all mitigation costs if I didn’t tell them (this was long after the story above). Point being they are a super serious threat to be taken seriously. You will regret it if you don’t.
Seek professional help. You won’t want to spend the money but spend the money. Really.
I hear ya, and I feel ya. But might I say one thing, to others who have to deal with this, especially those who don’t find a whole lot of them? Yes, getting bitten is annoying, and the bites can itch. But they are just bedbug bites. They are otherwise harmless. They won’t infect you with any diseases (IAMAD), but that’s what I’ve read. So, don’t make yourself crazy (easier said than done, I know!) just take action to get them early. This is advice I was given, not from me directly, and it helped…
I knew they wouldn’t kill me and that the bites were not much more than annoying.
It doesn’t help. If you can sleep knowing bugs will crawl on you EVERY night and bite you (usually multiple times) and leave you with itchy marks that are very annoying then we are different people.
I cannot sleep well in such conditions.