Comments on: Behavior of bed bugs in response to heat

By: Bryan Guderjohn

Bryan Guderjohn — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 02:22:08 +0000

I have been using the thermal remediation system from Temp Air for 13-months. I have performed 143 heat treatments. Everything from apartments to 8000 square foot homes. We have had 100% success with no re-treatments. We offer a one year warranty with a deductible and bed bug insurance after that. I have studied many other options and found that this was by far the safest and most effective. We maintain lethal temps for 6-hours. We use the wireless sensors but also use a Fluke thermal imager to ensure we find all cool spots. I once found 3-bed bugs under a coaster under a couch with the thermal imager. It’s pricey but doesn’t lie.I have been able to solve many peoples bed bug issues and that makes it worth wild. we currently charge about $2/sf. It’s a lot of work. No short cuts with this treatment. Long days but you can’t argue with the results. I hope everyone adjusts as much to heat as the bed bugs have to chemical treatments.

By: Getting Rid of Bed Bugs

Getting Rid of Bed Bugs — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 01:26:18 +0000

[...] Behavior of bed bugs in response to heat — New York vs Bed Bugs [...]

By: Keith Gordon

Keith Gordon — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 22:35:51 +0000

I tried the dry ice thing and it worked OK but, it just doesn’t last. Need a big chunk. I also happen to be a home brewer. I experimented with sugar water and yeast. I used a light for heat. I find that the heat is far more important than CO2 or karimones. I use the nightwatch because it looks professional and it works better than any of the home made jobs I have concocted. Let me know if you have any ideas how I can create CO2 for 30 days in a compact size. You find that and you will never have to work again. I get about 10 days out of my mini-batch off beer. Wine yeast ferments longer than beer yeast.

By: Keith Gordon

Keith Gordon — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 22:28:49 +0000

Forgot to mention the couches and chairs. You have to treat inside of them. Make sure to get in all the cracks in the wood frame and between the cloth and wood. When you remove the dust covers it is important to unscrew the legs and remove ALL the little bits and pieces of the dust cover. Most of the time the dust covers are half falling off but, the corners are hard to get off sometimes. If you remove the legs and use a pair of pliers, you can get every last bit of it off. I find that when the heat guys and others fail, this is the spot they miss. Lots of material folded up in the corners of the dust covers and a big plastic or wood leg screwed over top of all that gives them a safe haven from anything. It’s the small things that count. That is why so manyfolks fail. Unfortunately they blame it on the insecticides and that is just not the case. If you hit them with Phantom or the others I mentioned, it will kill them. If they walk through it they will still die, it just takes longer.

By: Keith Gordon

Keith Gordon — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 22:18:19 +0000

I’m really not trying to argue with you. I just think it is important that people know that insecticides can be very safe and I have had no problem with killing them with the residual. At least it has one and, it’s about 45 days. I can assure you 100% that if you use Phantom (or Temprid), Phantom Aerosol, Alpine Dust and a few other things, you will get rid of them every time but, you must do all of the following. You must remove the dust covers from the box springs and couches. Then treat the inside (and outside crevices) of the box springs (making sure to insert a crack and crevice tool (Phantom Aerosol) under all the staples and folds and in all the cracks in the wood frame of the box spring) treat the tufts on the mattress, all the cracks in the frame and headboard, inject Phantom Aerosol under and behind the baseboards (just the ones that are behind the beds and couches/chairs), spray all of the base boards in every room with Phantom or Temprid, spray the carpet under every bed, couch and chair (and you MUST treat the carpet out about one foot from the legs of the bed), dust all electrical outlets with Alpine D (I never remove the covers. If a bug can come out of a crack, I can put dust in the crack.) Then if you spot treat any other furniture where you find BB’s, you will stop the problem. All of the insecticides that I mentioned will for a fact kill them if they walk across it. (It takes about 7-10 days but, they will die) As I said, I have done over 3000 treatments this way and I have never failed. In addition, Chlorfenipyr is a Meti-Active product that does not become active until it is ingested by the bed bug. This makes it very safe. The LD50 for this product (Phantom) is over the top. Alpine Dust is even higher. Very, very safe stuff. However, the truth of the matter is, most of the jobs I do get 100% results in one day because, most of the time I am able to find the bed bugs and spray them directly. Direct contact kills them in a couple of hours max. so, I don’t have to rely on them walking through the product. I’m telling you, it works every time.

By: sam bryks

sam bryks — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 18:47:30 +0000

Keith, In defence of the customer who paid that money, they did shop around and they picked one of the PREMIUM firms who do this work. The original price was not $5000, but far less, but when things did not work out, they still trusted this firm and having spent a fair amount, they got in even deeper. This is not uncommon.. it is like someone getting their car repaired at a dealership that they think is reputable and getting hooked. I cannot state what company as this is a confidential issue but I speak to the generality of this, and this is what can happen when a firm does not stand up for its reputation and lets the customer take the bite.
with respect to treating a unit that is heavily cluttered, I have not heard of any product that works that well by bed bugs walking on the treated surface.
if that were the case, we would see a sharp decline in the infestations within a few months.
Heat treatment is expensive.. no question about that. and of course like any method, if there are limiting factors it can fail. I used to be involved in fumigations with methyl bromide or phostoxin for stored product insects in food plants and if there was flour in the bottom of an flour “elevator” beyond a certain depth, then insects could survive. Good preparation and monitoring is the key in heat treatment. I heard that there are new studies talking aobut bed bug behaviour in response to heat treatment, so we’ll need to see what they found. But the reality is that if the preparation is done appropriately and the treatment is monitored carefully with sensors, it can work.
Is it practical for individual apartments?, — probably not but i have seen a treatment of an 11 storey apartment buidling and it works well in that case. The cost per unit was about $275 – $300.. Not bad for an elimination without use of any pesticides.
A less expensive monitoring device is use of dry ice in an Igloo thermos place on a dog dish with talc powder. works very well.. even better than the night watch, and studies have shown that the best monitor for the money are the clim bups..
meticulous treatment is the key of course.
if you are using a product that is that potent and works so well if the bugs cross it once,.. do tell what it is.. we should be out of the bed bug business ina few years if that is the case.

By: Keith Gordon

Keith Gordon — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 00:59:48 +0000

If you pay $5000 for a treatment with no warranty, you need to look in the mirror and, you will see someone that didn’t shop around. Very few companies charge that much except the ones that use heat and, I don’t know of any that don’t warranty their work. Even the crummy companies offer a warranty. Those guys were real crooks. I feel sorry for the folks in Canada. Besides, the warranty is useless if the technicians are incompetent. I treated an apartment that was heat treated 3 times for $1600 each time and it still didn’t work. The customer was furious. I went in for $475 and and the problem was solved on the first try. We now do their general pest control and they are very happy that they no longer have to worry about bed bugs.

By: Keith Gordon

Keith Gordon — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 00:47:12 +0000

I forgot to mention that if you treat a vacant house you gotta put Night Watch monitors in it. Keeps the bugs moving around. Works every time it’s tried and, it can be done for about $400 because there is no furniture to treat.

By: Keith Gordon

Keith Gordon — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 00:42:08 +0000

There are a few things I left out that are important to know. My method requires very little preparation. In fact, if the resident forgets to do it, I just do it for them. No biggie. All I need them to do is strip the bed and clear a 2 foot path around the beds and furniture. If I find bugs on the bedding, I bag it up and leave a note for them to wash it. In addition, we charge about $400 – $600 on average (add a $150 if you want us to monitor it after the treatment) and it takes 2 technicians about 1 – 2 hrs. to do the treatment. Clutter is not a factor because, we spot treat under and around the bed. The bugs can’t get to the bed without walking through the product. Plus, 93% of bed bugs live on the bed (or whatever they sleep on) and, we contact them directly with the spray. They are dead within the day. I am convinced that I could solve about 75% of the jobs I do by spot treating just the infested areas. (Many times they have just one tiny harborage that would take 10 seconds to treat. I did this once for a friend about a year ago. He has not had a problem since.) We do way more than we need to but, the customer insists on it. (My goal is to change that.) As for heavy infestations, it is no different than a mild infestation. We still treat it the same way. We may have to treat a dresser or night stand but, that is rare. I see no diff. between adult insects and nymphs. The neo-nics that we use have not shown any signs of resistance and if they ever do, we will just use something else. I just spoke with a chemist from BASF and he said they have see no signs of this either and, he told me they have tons of things on the way. We have dealt with resistance in roaches for years. It’s no big deal. Sure, pyrethroids are starting to fail. Don’t use pyrethroids. As for heat, it will never be cheaper as long as you have to pay a ton of cash for propane and pay someone to babysit with it for 6-8 hrs. That cost will always be there and it will always go up. The chemical treatments will continue to go down in cost because, we are getting away with doing less and less all the time and the customers are letting us do less (and it is working) and, we are getting better and better at finding them. I also want to add that we do make follow-up visits. We use (Night Watch, Climb-up & BDS) monitoring equipment after the treatment (we make it optional) but, it is seldom necessary to do additional applications. The other problem with heat is, clutter is a big factor. I don’t care what anyone tells you. I have a buddy that works for a company that does heat remediation. He tells me that the heat does not always penetrate. You are supposed to pull up the carpet edges but, they never do. The rep from RX-Heat told me that a clothes dryer is not effective if a blanket gets wadded up yet he wants us to believe that a wadded up blanket can’t insulate a BB from heat remediation. When I questioned him about it he tried to back out of his claim. He looked lost. He didn’t know how to answer. Trust me. the prep work for a heat treatment is WAY more involved and, with no residual, you gotta kill every last bug or your going back. My buddy said it takes an average of 2-3 trips. As for heat being a faster way to treat. My buddy uses electric so they can only do one unit a day. He is backed up for 3 weeks and his customers are calling us. I can do 10 jobs a day with 2 guys. If you need more done, I got a lot of guys. I’m not saying you are wrong, I just don’t see how heat will ever stay as popular as it is right now. I also wanted to point out that the University of Kentucky is going to be publishing a report soon about how heat is repelling bed bugs into other units along with roaches, mice and other pests. It causes damage to all kinds of stuff you would never think of like the candle that was left in a dresser and it melted all over the wedding dress. Glad that wasn’t me. Heat is overkill and I see it going the way of termite bait systems. Remember how big that was? After all the law suits, no one uses them unless they just like charging way too much for a product that doesn’t work.

By: Sam Bryks

Sam Bryks — Tue, 18 May 2010 01:56:53 +0000

Good post.. but let’s not blame the technicians… that is a bit too simplistic. good treatment is, of course, critical, and many of the best known experts speak of treatments taking many hours to do properly, sometimes to the extent that one has to look at what is a reasonable expectation of time for a thorough treatment. However, early detection and preparation are key factors – a home that has been infested for many many months without service will require a lot of very intensive service compared to an early discovered infestation and excellent preparation.
there is a hope that the freshly emerged nymphal bed bug will be killed by the current products, but i would suggest not “holding your breath”, though i agree if a good job is done, in most cases with good preparation, control will be achieved, and in the last few years the studies on detection tools have shown that reasonable follow-up can be arranged to ensure control. We are certainly still not out of the woods on this.. As you note, better quality is needed and the client needs to be educated on what to expect so they are not hooked by the charlatans who take the money and run. There are lots of those in many trades.
As for heat treatment, i would not dismiss it so easily. Currently very expensive due to set up costs, but it has many advantages and monitoring technology is of a very high calibre and enables checking to ensure that the kill temperature is reached and sustained. the biggest limitation is affordability. I saw a total building heat treatment in Winnipeg in which a 10 or 11 storey building with about 121 units was treated over a period of about 10 days, floor by floor at a total cost of about $375 per unit. Considering that total control was achieved, that is a pretty reasonable price. Treating single units is a lot more costly, but this may be a very affordable treatment in the hospitality industry in which absolute control is needed quickly.
And if you were owner of a single family dwelling and preparation was very difficult in some aspects, then heat treatment may be worth it to avoid the hassle of major disruptions. I| heard of a case in wihch a homeowner paid a firm $5000 to treat a house they has purchased that was infested for a long time unbeknownst to them. The sellers had it treated when it was empty and obviously it failed, and the new owners – a young family – hired a well known firm, but at end it cost hem a lot of money and no warranty was offered. It was eventualy brought under control through hiring another firm that did offer a warranty and did a thorough job. Still, the homeowner was out a lot of money.. Heat treatment would have been well worth spending even $2000 to get it done in ONE DAY..
This will become a real estate issue in future, and heat treatment will be seen as the safest, most effective method… Not always practical, but it sure does have a lot of benefits when it can be done economically, and the cost is bound to go down as more firms get better equipment and more jobs..
that is my prediction.
Sam