Bed Bugs

[ChetMC]

A friend and her boyfriend live with us. They're away on a trip this week, and they caught bedbugs where they're staying. The place moved them to a different room, steamed their backpacks, and paid for them to wash their clothes in the shared laundry facilities. Is this enough to kill the bugs and the eggs? We absolutely cannot have them bringing bedbugs back to our house.

[moondiapers]

nope

They can seal their stuff up though.....you'd have to find out how long is long enough to bag and seal. They'll also want to go straight to the shower when the come in the door, bag up their clothes and scrub themselves immediately afterward. They don't lay eggs on you or anything, but the newborn bedbugs are too small to see so you wouldn't know that one was on your body. Clothing can be washed and dried.....but anything that can't go through the dryer needs to be bagged, like luggage, backpacks, purses etc.

[Raene]

Yeah, no...it's not enough.

My friend lived in an apt in NJ and the bedbugs that one person's apartment had came through the walls and everyone had them. They had to exterminate several times over with really toxic chemicals and even then they kept coming back. My friend ended up honestly having to leave all of her non-washable stuff (Waldorf toys, silks, etc) and leaving them, cleaning off her family and car, washing clothes in hot, and basically abandoning all of her stuff.

[MissMommyNiceNice]

Listen to this podcast of This American Life and you'll never want them anywhere near your house again.

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radi...px?episode=361

The woman in the bedbug story kept a few in an airtight tupperware container for multiple weeks w/o food and they were happily breeding & living just fine.

[ChetMC]

What I've Found So Far

It doesn't seem that sealing stuff is a viable option. I've read that bed bugs can live over a year without eating, and we've heard from somebody in the hotel industry that they leave a room unused for 18 months if they need to starve the bugs out.

It looks like freezing takes two weeks... also not viable.

What I can't find is exactly how long heating takes to kill them. I've read that 120 degrees Fahrenheit is hot enough, but I've seen everything from twenty minutes in the dryer to several hours. Our dryer works mostly on airflow though. It won't get hot enough.

[moondiapers]

well hopefully they didn't pack anything precious or irreplacable for their trip.

[proudmamanow]

we are dealing with bedbugs right now....a total nightmare! I would recommend checking out local laundromats, our local laundromat has these crazy high power dryers that reach a high enough temp in 15 minutes of drying. It is saving us right now as we can pop a bunch of dryer loads. If you have any questions check out www.bedbugger.com or you can PM me. good luck!

[Vancouver Mommy]

I would not under any circumstances let them return to your house. My friend recently had an infestation and it ended up taking several months and costing several thousands of dollars (they ended up replacing all their beds, some furniture and ripped out their carpet). They had to have the house fumigated (with extremely toxic chemicals) four times before they got a clean inspection. One bug can produce thousands of offspring in a short period of time.