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Peepers said:
The thermostat could be easily rigged so that the solenoid valve stays wide open.
Click to expand...

The average July high temperature in Baghdad, Iraq gets to 44° (in the shade if you can find it), so we humans could tolerate it for the hour it would take to kill bedbugs. I don't know if our furnaces and boilers here in Canada could safely reach that high of a temperature.
 
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Good point about air conditioners but I'm not sure that this is really a factor in dealing with bed bugs. Truth be told though, when I was a kid, practically no one I knew had air conditioning. You just had to sweat it out.
 
That's what I get from the media. The bugs have mostly become immune to the chemicals used and people say evolution doesn't exist. Tsk..........
 
Maybe bedbugs like recessions? Notice how they've been increasing since the 2006 US real estate market peak? All those folks getting booted out of their homes results in plenty of used furniture floating around America...and Canada!
 
Turning up temperatures in buildings would just cause the bed bugs to scurry over to a neighbouring one; and if you do that in your unit, you will just cause them to move into your neighbours' place.

DDT kills them-- it's a shame they can't use it on a small level in pest control treatments-- as far as I know banning DDT was an overreaction to its overt misuse. Used in small quantities perhaps it wouldn't harm residents.

I've had a second treatment on my place (not sure what chemicals they use) and the problem seems to be gone. Meanwhile, yesterday my boyfriend was going home on the subway and saw a bedbug on his shorts. We went out for drinks and then he was on the subway-- so it seems the subway had bedbugs in it. Or the bar, but that's less likely given the timeline of the evening.
 
SP!RE:

DDT is bioaccumulative and concentration travels up the food chain - so it will eventually accumulate those at the top (predators, humans, etc).

AoD
 
AoD: Thanks... that's what I had thought and my boyfriend was saying that I was incorrect. I guess even a simple Google search was in order but laziness won. Thanks again.
 
The best defence against bedbugs is supposedly that powder that contains silica or glass or something, so when they walk over it, it scratches their body and they die from it. Can't evolve a resistance to being cut open, I guess. The heat necessary to kill bedbugs (50+ degrees C) can't be achieved using interior heating. An episode of Verminators showed how they do it. First they seal and caulk the entire room, then they bring in these gigantic (man-size) space-heaters and crank them up. That show dealt with some unmentionably nasty bedbug infestations. I'm talking hundreds in one apartment.
 
Therion said:
The best defence against bedbugs is supposedly that powder that contains silica or glass or something, so when they walk over it, it scratches their body and they die from it. Can't evolve a resistance to being cut open, I guess. The heat necessary to kill bedbugs (50+ degrees C) can't be achieved using interior heating. An episode of Verminators showed how they do it. First they seal and caulk the entire room, then they bring in these gigantic (man-size) space-heaters and crank them up. That show dealt with some unmentionably nasty bedbug infestations. I'm talking hundreds in one apartment.
Click to expand...

In a multi-unit complex the entire suite has to be caulked (along floorboards, random cracks, cable/telephone/electrical outlets/light switches/ceiling lights etc.) in order to greatly increase the success rate of the eliminating these critters before spraying and to help prevent them from spreading. It took me nearly two months but I did my place a year ago spring - sealed the whole damn place in hopes of keeping them out should they show up in a nearby unit. I paid particular attention to the bedroom areas where bedbugs most commonly find their way to these rooms via carbon dioxide (your breath) while you sleep.

We're all going to learn a lot more about bed bugs in the next couple of years as they continue to spread at alarming rates. The Toronto Star does a weekly piece on them and today CNN had a 10 minute story on them in NYC given the recent finds of bed bugs in retail outlets, movie theatres, on public transit & even the Empire State Building. The speed at which they are spreading through NYC's apartments is an indication of things to come here.
 
A bed bug summit is being held at Queens Park on September 28th. The summit is looking for recommendations on how to tackle the growing problem and is open to Pest Control Companies, Toronto Public Health, Toronto Community Housing, Tenant Associations, Landlords and the like.
 
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