“Good night. Sleep tight. Don’t let the bedbugs bite.” It’s a common saying used by parents as they tuck their children into bed. However, no homeowner wants this cute rhyme to be a legitimate warning to overnight guests or children. Bed bugs represent a serious infestation in New York City, and many pesticide companies are turning to a bed bug heat treatment as the only sure way to eliminate the problem.

 

The real problem with bedbugs is their incredible resilience and resistance to common pesticide chemicals. For years, bedbug infestations were treatable and containable with common market pesticides: the same pesticides used to eliminate spiders, silverfish, fleas, ticks, flies, ants, and cockroaches. However, in recent years, bedbugs have developed a resistance to common pesticides. This makes extermination much more difficult.

 

Pesticides present another problem to homeowners and business owners. The chemicals used to eliminate bedbugs can be harmful to humans. If prolonged contact is made with pesticides, residents or employees can become sick. For many professional exterminators, bed bug heat treatment is considered the safest, and the surest, way to eliminate a bedbug problem.

 

Heat treatment is a relatively new procedure used in the bed bug extermination process. Bedbugs, like all living creatures, have a threshold for temperatures at which they can survive. By exposing bedbugs to high temperatures for a long period of time, the bedbugs can be killed and the infestation eradicated. However, heat treatments must be performed by professionals. 

 

Bedbugs can only be killed if exposed to a certain temperature for a certain amount of time. The thermal death point for a bedbug is ninety minutes of exposure to 113 degree temperatures. The duration shortens to twenty minutes, however, when the temperature is increased to 118 degrees Fahrenheit. The higher the temperature, the shorter the duration of exposure required to eliminate the bugs.

 

Heat treatment is successful because it destroys all life stages of the bed bug. Bed bug eggs cannot survive extreme temperatures, so when heat is used in a home or office, the entire life cycle of the bed bug is destroyed. Assured Environments uses a low humidity, high temperature heat treatment that meets all NPMA guidelines. Customers who want to guarantee the complete eradication of a bed bug infestation without risking the health of pets, children, or family members due to pesticide exposure should consider heat treatments.