Killing bed bugs with heat

[sparr0.livejournal.com]

Since moving to MA I've heard a lot about the scariness of bed bugs and why people don't often take used mattresses or cushion-y furniture. I heard and read a few unsupported claims that you could kill bed bugs with heat. I contemplated how I would heat an entire mattress up to extreme (non-inflammatory) temperatures. However, I recently found http://www.epa.gov/bedbugs/, which seems like a relatively trustworthy place to get such information, and apparently all it takes is 113F (45C) for 1 hour!? This is mind boggling. I can seal a mattress inside a plastic bag and slide it into the sealed bed of my truck on a sunny day to easily accomplish that.

Why isn't this a more commonly known/implemented solution?

Comments

[aedifica]

From what I've read it sounds like they don't always stay in just the mattress, so you'd probably want to heat up the whole room. A friend of mine did that by sealing up his apartment on a sunny day (this was in mid-summer) and running a space heater.

[user-deleted.livejournal.com]

this is both amazing and kind of scary. I'd worried that the space heater would explode.

[sparr0.livejournal.com]

The required temperature is lower than the normal surface (let alone interior) temperature of a running radiant heater. It wouldn't even notice the change in environment.