Heat treatment kills bed bugs without chemicals

How does heat get rid of bed bugs?

Bed bugs cannot survive in temperatures above 113°F. Heat treatment warms up a structure’s interior to between 135°F and 150°F degrees for the relatively short time it takes to exterminate bed bugs, including those in tiny crevices.

Heat treatment will kill all of the growth stages of the bed bug, including the eggs. This is an important fact given that not all current pesticide control methodologies kill bed bug eggs. This means that oftentimes heat treatment can eradicate the entire bed bug population in a single treatment.

There is considerable documentation citing the temperature and time correlations necessary to kill bed bugs and their eggs. Several sources (Usinger 1966, Gulmahamad 2002, Quarles 2007) report that adults and nymphs die within 15 minutes at temperatures greater than 113ºF, and eggs die within 60 minutes. Raising room temperatures above the thermal death point and maintaining that temperature for several hours normally eliminates a bed bug infestation.

The temperature required to kill bed bugs and their eggs falls well within the temperature ranges achieved by Pest Solutions 365’s heat treatment. The low thermal death point of bed bugs allows our technicians to better adapt the process to the building and its contents while still achieving success.

Unlike many pesticides, heat treatment will penetrate into all of the cracks and crevices and kill bed bugs where they reside. Our process will force heat into beds, bedding, mattresses, furniture, electronics, wall cavities, etc., leaving no place for bed bugs to hide. This is important because adult bed bugs have been shown to live up to a year on a single blood meal, and may simply go to a small, dark space away from mattresses to live and reproduce.