Bedbugs! Aaargh! Eeeeww! Yeech!

Ok, step 1: Don't panic. Bedbugs are annoying, can easily spread, however they don't carry diseases and there are now pesticides that can get them. Even the fanciest hotels can give you bedbugs and you can carry them home in your luggage. They cause annoying and itchy bites, stain bedding with feces and blood spots, but unlike many other biting insects are not known to carry disease. But nobody wants them around.

Below I show links to products from DIYpestcontrol.com. I have no affiliation witht his store and these products are available from other sources. I find this to be a trustworthy source of professional grade pest control products and info.

We are going to hit these nasty pests with a 1-2-3 punch: Heat treatment and vacuuming to kill them outright, an insecticidal dust to prevent them from coming back, and a spray insecticide with a quick kill and a long-acting ingredient. Anything that can't be heat treated or sprayed gets wrapped in a tight garbage bag with a pest control strip that emits killing vapors over a three day period.

We'll take the bed, bedframe, matress and box spring completely apart and heat treat them in a way that allows heat to get to all parts.

We'll treat clutter that is around the bed - radios, chargers, nightstands, clothes, by either heat treating or spraying or putting it in a plastic bag with a pest strip for three days.

We'll treat the rest of the room - cracks, trim, wall hangings, curtains, etc. and any adjacent rooms as well with either dusts or spray insecticide or both.

95% of bedbugs will be found within 5 feet of the bed. Eggs as well. They like food, and their food is YOU. Bedbugs are mostly active at night, or when they are disturbed. Bedbugs love to hide in cracks and crevaces, they don't like light, and the seams, cracks, joints and spaces between matresses are ideal places for them to hide and breed.

Signs of bedbugs include the bugs themselves, which are often faintly red from a blood meal, dark brown dots from their feces on mattresses, and small blod spots where the pests have been squashed and have stained bedding. If you get up from bed with spots that look like mosquito bites, you may be a victim of bedbugs.

120 degrees fahrenheit for 90 minutes will kill 100% of bedbugs and their eggs according to several reliable scientific papers on the subject. Shorter time (45 minutes) and lower temperatures (115F) are only 50% effective. To be extra sure, bake for longer and/or hotter, it costs nothing to go to 4 hours and 150F if you have the time. 60 minutes in a dryer on high heat will kill bedbugs and their eggs on bedding. clothes, curtains etc.

DON'T use a broad-spectrum bug bomb. These don't kill bedbugs,(they barely even kill roaches) but will drive them to go to the next room or next apartment. Bedbugs are tough and have developed resistance to standard pyrethroid insecticides. That's why they are on the rise.

DON'T get your bedbug insecticides at a big box retail store. Use the professional grade products.

DON'T use a fuel-fired or residential grade space heater to try to heat up bedding. Fuel fired construction heaters can and will set your room on fire. Our local rental company no longer allows them to be sent out for this purpose after customers set their houses on fire. Bedbugs will die in a fire, but really, we don't need to take it that far, folks. Residential grade heaters will shut off automatically long before you have achieved 120F killing temperature and are not safe for that service. It is difficult to achieve 120F in an entire room without expensive commercial grade equipment that you probably can't afford. It is easy to bake a bed and box frame with DIY gear.

DO treat your own clothing with Permethrin (available in many camping sections of big box retail and hardware stores) to discourage them from latching onto your clothing. Sawyer's is a common brand. Don't buy the permethrin labeled for veterinary or horse use - it is too strong and you should not use pesticides off-label.

DO take off your clothes outside or in the garage when you get home, bag them up, place them directly in the dryer on high heat for 60 minutes, and take a thorough shower immediately. Assume your clothes are contaminated, don't bring them into your house. If you are treating your own house, then you have my sympathy and condolences. Good luck.

DO treat any garbage bag that has contained active bedbug-contaminated bedding or clothing as contaminated - take this bag directly outside and dispose of it in an outside garbage can with a plastic liner.

DO dispose of any vacuum cleaner bags immediately on completion of the treatment, wrapped in a plastic garbage bag and sealed tight.

Supplies

Tools and materials you'll need:

Powerful shop vac with an internal bag

Zap Bugg brand heaters (at least two) available cheap on Ebay (You dont need the whole elaborate kit they sell for baking beds just the heaters)

Remote thermometer. A thermocouple probe that can measure up to 200F and has a one meter long probe is ideal, and two or three are better. You can buy a good digital thermometer with a long probe in the retail grilling department if this isn't something you have.

2 - 25 foot by 48" rolls of Reflectix foil coated bubble wrap insulation available at any big box hardware store

One big roll of cheap duct tape

(Handy) one big roll of 4-1/2" super wide duct tape (Gorilla is the only brand I know that makes this, it's optional but recommended)

Nuvan pest strips https://store.doyourownpestcontrol.com/nuvan-pro-s...

Cimexa insecticide dust (100% amorphous silica gel dust) https://store.doyourownpestcontrol.com/cimexa-inse...

Dust puffer https://store.doyourownpestcontrol.com/bellow-dust...

, turkey baster, or small plastic squeeze bottle (empty ketchup bottle) that can be used to puff dust.

CrossFire bedbug insecticide containing Clothianidin - 4% Metofluthrin - 0.1% Piperonyl Butoxide - 10% https://store.doyourownpestcontrol.com/cross-fire-...

Small sprayer or hand pump quart spray bottle (like you would use to spray household cleaner or window cleaner)

Small paintbrush or cosmetic brush for dusting in cracks and crevaces

1/3 cup measure for measuring liquid insecticide

Pesticide-rated respirator

Screwdriver for removing outlet covers

Box cutter

Roll of big garbage bags with ties

Some scrap lumber, scrap foam insulation boards, or other material to provide air space between matresses, box springs, and other items you will bake.

Step 1: Step 1: Protect Yourself, Prepare Your Tools and Equipment

Apply Permethrin insecticide to your clothing. Tuck in your pants into your socks, treat your shoes. Permethrin won't kill bedbugs reliably, but it does drive them away. Bonus, you won't get ticks and chiggers if you go int he woods.

Assemble your tools and equipment near the bedroom where you will be working.

Strip all bedding and put it into a dryer on high heat for 60 minutes.

Step 2: Step 2: Vacuum Thoroughly

Learn to identify bedbugs and their signs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bed_bug

https://www.doyourownpestcontrol.com/bed-bugs.htm#...

Vacuum the mattress, concentrating on cracks, seams, crevices. Flip the matress and vacuum the other side. Move it to the other side of the room, and vacuum the box spring and/or any mattress pads. Flip it over and vacuum the other side and all edges. If it has a cloth bottom, remove the cloth bottom and throw it away - bedbugs are hiding under there.

Slurp up any active bedbugs you see. There are more that you can't see.

Vacuum the metal bedframe and set it aside.

Step 3: Step 3 - Make an Insulated Bag That Can Contain the Bed

Start 4 feet from any wall (you will be treating the walls while you wait for the bed to bake) and use two sections of 48" wide Reflectix, or two sheets of 48" wide 1" thick polystyrene insulation board, and duct tape to make a bag or box that can contain your bed. Use duct tape to temporarily tape it together.

Set the metal bedframe on tip of this insulated bottom.

Next set the box spring, sideways so it does not fit down into the bedframe, on top of the frame. Stack it so there will be airflow all around it.

Place some 2" thick poles, pipes, boards, pieces of polystyrene insulation board, etc on top of the box spring to make an air space.

Place the matress on top of these spacers.

Place any pillows or matress pads on tip, also with air spacers to allow air under and over.

Assemble your bag/box using more insulation, cut reflectix as little as possible to save time, just wrap it around everything and tape up any seams or holes with duct tape.

Extra wide duct tape is useful here but more expensive than the cheap stuff. You'll need most of a roll. Make the bag or box as airtight as possible.

Step 4: Step 4: Install Heaters and Vent

Zapp Bugg heaters are especially designed for this purpose. Two of them will bake a bed safely and effectively. They have safety controls that will turn them off if they tip over or don't have sufficient airflow. If you are using something else, then please be extra careful about the potential of fire or the risk it won't get hot enough to work.

Cut a hole in your bag near the floor roughly the size of a Zapp Bugg heater and use duct tape to seal it in place. On the opposite side of the bag, install the second heater.

Pick a point as far from the heaters as possible, and cut a 2" X 2" hole in the bag near the floor. Pick another point far from the heaters and cut a second hole, also near the floor. The heaters will automatically shut off if there isn't enough airflow.

Plug the heaters into two separate heavy circuits. Kitchens have heavy circuits separate from the rest of the house, plug one heater into a kitchen circuit with a heavy extension cord and plug the other heater into a circuit in the bedroom.

Poke a small hole in the bag and place a temperature sensor about 3" off the floor, as deep inside the bag as you can reach. Two temperature sensors are better, spaced widely apart.

Step 5: Step 5: Heat Cycle

Start the heaters and set the timers on the heaters, minimum 1 hour but ideally 4 hours.

Set a stopwatch, phone timer or check a clock. Start timing when both of your temperature sensors reach 120F near the floor. This will take 15 minutes or more. If you made a bag, it should inflate slightly.

You can easily achieve 150F with this setup. Remember 120F and 90 minutes is the minumum to kill bedbugs and eggs. More is better, to make sure the heat reaches the middle of areas that may not get good airflow.

Step 6: Step 6 - Vacuum the Room

Make sure there is a disposable bag in your powerful shop vac. Don't use a wimpy residential vacuum, use an industrial machine. Any good shop vac will do.

While you are waiting on the baking cycle, start vacuuming the room thoroughly, concentrating on edges, trim, cracks, nitestands, furniture, wall ahngings, pictures. Pull out drawers and inspect/vacuum inside. Flip over chairs and couches to inspect the bottom and back. vacuum rugs and flip them over, vacuum again. Spend half an hour vacuuming a typical bedroom, more if there is carpet.

Step 7: Step 7: Launder And/or Bag It Up

You already laundered the bedding. Any clothes in a drawer near the bed, in a nightstand or a chest of drawers, is probably contaminated. Bag up all clothes in garbage bags and seal them up for transport to a dryer or a commercial laundry. Dry them on the highest heat setting and 60 minutes or more. Don't overload the machine, make sure the clothes will be thoroughly agitated.

If it can't be laundered, bag it up with a pest strip. Nuvan pest strips are made to fill an entire garbage bag with vapors that kill bedbugs. Handle a Nuvan strip with nitrile gloves. Place drawers or items like clock radios, chargers, speakers, knickknacks into a bag with a strip. Use duct tape to label it as NOT TRASH and write a date that the bag can be emptied three days hence.

Step 8: Step 8: Dust

Wear a good pesticide respirator.

Use Cimexa dust (silica gel dust) and/or diatomaceous earth dust and/or boric acid dust. Take off electrical outlet covers and puff dust into them. Puff dust into cracks and crevices around trim, behind headboards, pictures, and other clutter. Most of these things should already be baking or in a Nuvan Strip bag.

You can use a dust puffer, an empty ketchup bottle (buy these new at your local grilling department) or a turkey baster to puff dust into cracks. For God's sake keep these things separate from cooking equipment or kitchens. Label them with a skull and crossbones if you must, store them with your pesticides and away from any food or cooking gear.

Puff dust liberally on the floor areound the bed area if you have a hardwoom floor, it will get into cracks and crevaces where bugs hide. You can sweep it up later.

Step 9: Step 9: Spray

Wear a good pesticide respirator. Wear nitrile or other barrier gloves.

Using a two or three-ingredient pesticide labeled for use against bedbugs, and SPECIFICALLY labeled for use on bedding, start spraying items and areas. Spray around cracks, turn over nightstands and chests of drawers, with the drawers removed and spray them thoroughly inside and out. Treat the whole room, conentrating on edges and furniture, and treat adjacent rooms as far as you find signs of bedbugs. Most bedbugs will be with in 5 feet of the bed, but the longer they infest the wider they will occur. Crossfire is a brand name spcifically listed for use on bedding and containing more than one ingredient to prevent resistance.

Closets full of clothes are a particular problem. They may have no signs of bedbug infestation, but if any signs are found, plan on laundering ALL the clothing, and spraying or dusting everything near the floor.

Step 10: Step 10: Remove the Bed From the Heater

When the time is up (minimum 90 minutes at 120F but ideally hotter/longer) turn off the heaters, and disassemble the bag.

Marvel at all the dead bedbugs you find underneath and around all of it while you vacuum them up.

Remove all of the Reflectix. You can roll it up for re-use, all the bugs inside are thoroughly dead.

Start reassembling the bed. As you do, spray cracks and crevices, metal frame where it contacts the box spring, edges and seams with a product like Crossfire that is specifically labeled for use on bedding.

Ideally bag up the matress with a commercial zippered matress barrier bag (you can order these special but also buy them at big box retailers) and treat the matress cover with insecticides if it is not factory treated.

Clean up, finish laundering any clothes, throwing away any contaminated garbage bags. Rest easy knowing there are no more bed bugs in your bedding.

Step 11: Step 11: After Ten Days

You aren't done! Bedbugs hatch out of their eggs after ten days. Monitor for bedbugs using visual inspection or sticky traps made for the purpose. If you see more evidence of bedbugs after ten days, REPEAT THE WHOLE BLOOMIN PROCESS. What a hassle. But yeah, do it.