When I first began working in the pest industry, the very first job I went to was a bed bug infestation. I remember asking the technician that was training me what the plan of attack was and she said, “we are going to spray and pray”! While it was a funny response at the time, as I started learning more about insects it started becoming less comical. I am going to summarize what I mean below:
Bedbugs are not like any other insect that we treat for in the pest industry. They are one of a kind. While they have similarities to others, they are the only insect that survives ONLY off of human blood. Not only do they need human blood, but they are fantastic at finding it too. Similar to mosquitoes, bedbugs are attracted to the carbon dioxide that is put off while you are breathing as well as your body heat. Once they find a host they will stay nearby for frequent feeding opportunities, tucking into any tight crack or crevice they can find. This is often your mattress, head board and box spring. The bad part about that, you cannot spray chemicals inside your mattress and box spring! In addition, bedbugs can hide under your carpet, in your rugs or in your clothing as well. These are places that are not recommended to treat with chemicals on most labels.
So how to chemical treatments work?
Well, they usually don’t. But if they do, it is over a course of approximately 3-4 weeks. They will perform an initial treatment that will kill any bedbugs that they can see and treat directly. They will also recommend you throw out your mattress and box spring as they are infested. They will apply a boric acid type dust along your baseboard and in your walls (if your lucky) and return in another week. Then they will do it all over again. Why? Because they can only kill what they can see, with bedbugs being nocturnal and moving only at night, they have to hope the bedbugs walk across where they have treated in order to be killed. Not to mention, now you have to pay for a new mattress and box spring.
With heat remediation we do not have to spray any harsh chemicals and the treatment is effective in 1 day! In addition, you get to keep all of your furniture because we are able to get the heat inside the mattresses and box springs and eliminate any bedbugs inside of them! I have gone over the details of how our heat treatment works in the blog linked here —–> https://bedbugsolutionpros.com/what-is-the-heat-remediation-process/
If you are looking at the cost between a heat vs. chemical treatment, in many cases it also makes much more since to go with heat. Follow me here:
1 bedroom chemical treatment = $500 + $400 (mattress + box spring) + 4 weeks of living with bedbugs = $900 + 4 weeks of living with bedbugs.
1 bedroom heat treatment = $600 + (you keep your furniture) + 1 day treatment = $600
It simply makes since.
In conclusion, any concern that I ever had with performing a bedbug treatment with a chemical product was fixed by using heat. We do not believe in performing a service that we cannot place a 100% guarantee on. We also believe in saving our customers as much money as possible, which is why we choose heat over chemicals.