Bed bugs won’t kill you, but if you don’t particularly care for the idea of them biting you at night and feeding on your blood for three to ten minutes, you may want to rid your household of them.
Because after they’ve engorged themselves on blood, you’ll be left with a welt on your skin that is very itchy for a while, and there may be other unpleasant reminders of their visit, such as excrement, egg shells, and skins that have been shed, and even bloodstains on your bed, pillowcases, and sheets.
The Bed Bug Heat Method
While many different methods of bed bug extermination have been used in the past with varying levels of success, the clear-cut champion is the heat method. The reason this method is so effective is that it completely bypasses the need to locate hiding places of bed bugs and deal with them locally – it actually heats the entire home up to a level bed bugs cannot tolerate, and they are killed wherever they may be hiding.
Steps in the Process
Before considering the heat method for bed bug extermination, you’ll want to make sure that your home is a good candidate for this kind of treatment. If your home has a great number of escape routes via cracks, holes and poor seals around windows and doors, this may not be the most effective way of dealing with the problem, unless all of those can be sealed up prior to the treatment.
Assuming your home can be made reasonably air-tight, here is how the heat method would be implemented:
Alternative Methods
As mentioned above, there are other methods of extermination available to the homeowner in cases where the heat method is not a good fit. Ironically, another effective method is the exact opposite of the heat method – freezing. This however, takes days instead of hours and the house is kept at 32 degrees Fahrenheit or cooler.
Powders, sprays, traps, vacuuming, and steam cleaners can all be somewhat effective in killing visible bed bugs, but the survivors (and any eggs) will live to reproduce and re-infest the home – and this is why the heat method is the best choice to exterminate bed bugs.
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