Thu Feb 16 2012 12:19:26
Thu Feb 16 2012 13:03:36
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As with any other treatment (Vikane, chemical pesticides, mechanical killers like dusts, physical removal, using dry vapor steam to kill bugs and eggs, cryonite, etc.), heat treatment is only as effective as the PCO using it makes it and as the particular situation warrants.
As with any other suspected bed bug infestation, the first step is to confirm that you do in fact have bed bugs and only bed bugs. If you have bed bugs and carpet beetles, for example, and you get rid of the bed bugs but not carpet beetles, you may continue to think you have bed bugs, when really the bed bugs are gone and the carpet beetles are still there. Since treatments are different for different pests, a repeat of heat won't solve your carpet beetle problem.
In addition, the upside to heat is also one of its greatest weaknesses. Heat is a one-shot treatment. For people for whom the process of being bait is difficult if not impossible to tolerate, one shot treatments like heat or Vikane can be very appealing.
However, do keep in mind that such treatments are most effective in cases when the exposure to bed bugs can be clearly traced to one particular event. For example, I had heat treatment after I picked up bed bugs at a hotel. I am 99.5% sure I got bed bugs at one of two hotel stays in Feb or Mar 2008. I am 90% sure I know which exact hotel.
I knew that my workplaces were not infested. I knew that my neighbors were not infested. The adjacent units were all inspected.
Since heat treatment has no residual effect whatsoever, if there's any real chance that you're being re-exposed to bed bugs (you got them from work, from public transit, etc. and those infestations are not under control), heat may not be the best option--either from a pest control point of view or from the point of view of starting to ease the anxiety that many people feel when they are waiting to find out whether they are bed bug free.
In addition, I live in a small one bedroom apartment. I have heard about professionals treating just one room with heat from other people on the boards, but I don't personally understand how that works, do I can't comment on that.
People considering heat should also keep in mind that while quality PCOs do good work and try to minimize the damage, heat treatment is not easy on your home and your property. I forgot to unplug my DVRs and my microwave, both stopped working after treatment.
I have continued to have electronic devices that failed sooner than I would have expected fail years after treatment, and I'm not sure the electrical system in my apartment is in as strong a shape as it was before. (To be fair, I'm pretty sure my apartment was badly wired to start out with. Many of my plugs have the polarity reversed, for example.)
Heat treatment is expensive up front, and that expense goes up with the size of the structure being treated.
I do think that heat can be a useful tool--as can Vikane, or conventional pesticide treatment, or passive or active monitors.
However, how useful it is and to what extent the benefits outweigh the disadvantages really depends on a lot of details specific to any given situation. And most importantly, probably the single most important factor in the equation is how skilled the particular PCO you're considering using is.
goingcrazywithbb
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