In this blog, we examine whether heat treatment is the most effective bed bug treatment.
The History of Bed Bugs
Bed bugs have existed for millions of years and have evolved to survive in harsh environments. They have outlived the dinosaurs, survived the ice age and still continue to evolve even to this day.
Bed bugs are attracted to densely populated areas where there is a constant supply of food, and they can thrive. Bed bugs live on a diet of blood, mainly from humans but also our pets and animals as small as mice. They need to drink of blood regularly to be able to survive, develop into adults and reproduce.
How to Identify Bed Bugs
Bed bugs are so small, around 5-6mm long so can be hard to see with the naked eye, especially as they tend to move around at night-time. The chances of you spotting one are slim, unless you use a torch on your bed at night.
You are more likely to spot the signs of bed bugs rather then the bugs themselves. These include blood spots on your bedding, this can be from where the bug has fed or it could also be where you have rolled over and squashed a bed bug while it is trying to feed from you. Read our guide on how to identify bed bugs here.
How to Kill Bed Bugs
As we’ve covered above, bed bugs are resilient which is why they have survived for millions of years. Unfortunately, this can make them difficult to kill. Bed bugs breed quickly, laying up to 6 eggs per day meaning killing the bed bugs themselves is not enough to stop re-infestation.
Bed bugs nest in hard-to-reach places and not always your bed. They like to hide in cracks in skirting boards, inside bed frames and even behind picture frames. This makes chemical spraying more difficult.
How does Heat Treatment for Bed Bugs work?
Heat treatment for bed bugs is the most advanced and newest method of bed bug treatment. It does tend to be more expensive than traditional methods as it is time consuming and uses expensive equipment.
By heating a room to 141 degrees and maintaining the temperature for approximately 4-6 hours, we can kill bed bugs and their eggs due to dehydration.
We also use high tech thermal imaging cameras to check the room for cold spots. This is vital as the bed bugs will run and try to hide in colder areas to survive the treatment.
Heat treatment is said to be 100% effective because it also kills the nymphs and eggs.
How does Chemical Treatment for Bed Bugs Work?
Chemical treatment for bed bugs is the traditional and probably still the most commonly used method of treatment.
Chemical treatment is cheap and over many years it has been used with a good success rate. Due to evolution, bed bugs have become resistant to many of the active ingredients in the chemical sprays.
Chemical treatments also have limitations, we can only spray what we can see, so if bed bugs are nesting behind picture frames or inside bed frames then there is the potential that the chemicals won’t reach their intended target.
The Chemical are also thought to be less effective against the eggs and larvae therefore making it more difficult to break the life cycle of the bed bugs.
What is the Most Effective Treatment for Bed Bugs?
Overall, we believe the most effective treatment for bed bugs is heat treatment.
We do however, offer a combined service using heat treatment to treat the bed bugs then using a chemical treatment to treat areas or items which cannot be treated with heat.
We find using this method gives us the best results and kills bed bug infestations with a single visit to a property.
We believe that heat treatment is 100% effective at killing bed bugs and therefore the best solution. We have provided pest control services for many years and have developed our bed bug treatment using our knowledge and experience which is why we are confident to offer a complete guarantee with our bed bug heat treatments.
We offer a free, no obligation quote and can often identify and quote for a treatment using your description and some photos.
Please contact us if you think you require treatment for bed bugs. We have over 10 years of pest control experience and cover all areas of London, Hertfordshire, Essex, and Kent.
We are 5 star reviewed on Google reviews and offer a six month guarantee on all of our heat treatments.
Watch our videos on heat treatments for bed bugs here.
