Entrepreneurs scramble to create best bed bug buster

[The Northerner]

(Reuters) - Some want to bake them. Others prefer to freeze them. Still others dehydrate them.

Inventors will try just about anything to kill bed bugs, those nasty, reddish-brown, blood-sucking parasites that are the worst nightmare of many hotel guests.

America's obsession with bed bugs has led to a rush of entrepreneurs seeking profit from exterminating them, and about 75 companies gathered this week in hopes of launching the perfect beg bug killer.

"I never figured I'd be in Chicago for a bed bug conference. I never thought that in my wildest dreams," Mike Bourdeau, operations manager at Flynn Pest Control in Massachusetts, said at the second annual Bed Bug University.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/29/us-bedbugs-business-idUSTRE78S30P20110929

[phantom power]

1. Saw some TV show where they heated a house to 150F

Evidently 120F is sufficient to kill all stages of the lifecycle.

[angstlessk]

2. Yes, the stigma attached is still VERY STRONG...only places like homeless shelters are supposed

to house such creatures...but let me tell you...it CAN HAPPEN TO YOU..it happened to me...I have my diatomaceous earth and tomorrow I will get my puffer and my mask...ready to go to war!

At first I thought I had an allergic reaction to my viscott (sic) mattress, but evidence has proven we have the horrible creatures...

"Another product is a dust made of crushed fossils called diatomaceous earth that can be sprinkled on floors. It kills bed bugs by dehydrating their shell. Bed bugs walk through the dust, which is also a desiccant, and gradually dry out, said Jeffrey White, an entomologist with BedBug Central."

[warrior1]

3. I can tell you right now

that the best way and cheapest is with very hot steam. That's what I've heard. I would create a room or device that would just fit a bed and then pump in very hot steam. That would do it quite well.