Bed bug heat treatment

[FlissyE]

We discovered we had bed bugs over 3 months ago. In that time we have hot washed and dried all clothes and bedding. We now use only a small pool of clothes and bedding which we keep in sealed boxes and hot wash and dry after wearing. We have thrown beds, mattresses, sofas and so much more away and have totally declutterred. We are constantly hoovering. We have received 8 spray treatments from the most well known national pest control firm but still have signs that the bugs are still there. We are at our wits end and just want our lives back. It is severely affecting our mental health.
A full house heat treatment appears to be the only option left to us. Does anyone have any recommendations for a reputable company to do this in the home countries area please? TIA

Have you tried CimeXa? It's a fine silica gel powder that works by dehydrating them. Similar principle to diatomaceous earth but much, much more effective. After a 5 month battle that's what finally worked for us.

https://www.pctonline.com/article/pct0814-silica-gel-research-bed-bugs/

Worth a £28 punt before you spend £££ on heat treatment?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/ROCKWELL-CXID032-CimeXa-Insecticide-Rockwell/dp/B0085HRWI8

Watch some youtube videos for how to apply. We very gently stippled it all round the bed frames with a wide paintbrush to keep dust to a minimum. You only need the tiniest amount and it stays effective for up to a decade so you can leave it down as a preventative measure. They don't develop resistance like they do to chemical pesticides and it's a lot safer for people and pets.

The reddit bedbugs forum is very good.

Best of luck, you have my utmost sympathy The effect on mental health is unreal, isn't it?

Hi PencilsInSpace. Thanks so much for your reply. No we haven’t tried Cimexa. I’d read about it but as everyone kept saying don’t bother with DIY just get in the
professionals, that’s what we did. I’ve just ordered some from Amazon. Can you tell me how long it took to work for you please? I am so desperate for this to be over. I make excuses not to have visitors over, my grown up children haven’t been here for ages and the thought of Christmas without us all here is more than I can bear. Thank you so much for your help.

I’m still interested in the heat treatment so if anyone knows of a reputable company offering this treatment in the Home Counties area please let me know.

It was really quick, it only took a couple of days for almost everything to be dead. Then just the odd new hatchling over the next couple of weeks which soon met their end.

Thank you PencilsInSpace. Cimexa has been down for nearly two weeks now. Just about to hoover it up and apply more. No signs of BBs or blood spots etc on sheets and just the occasional singular bite on me, which tbh may be spots not bites as they had a little white head. I think I’ve irritated my skin to death with my constant showering! Fingers crossed.
How do you ever know if they have truly gone?
My biggest fear is to start getting back to normal, having visitors, putting clothes away in a new wardrobe as opposed to living out of sealed bags and boxes, getting new sofas etc, only to find they are back or never went away in the first place!
I really don’t think I could go through all this again and the thought of sending hitchhikers home with friends and family makes me feel sick.

Sounds horrendous and hope you’re finally clear. If you put the little sticky traps down around the edges of the sofa, bed frame, room then you’ll notice if they’re still about.

Also be careful with your vacuum unless you have one that empties straight away and you can clean out.

Thanks so much for all your help. Fingers crossed!

How do you ever know if they have truly gone?

That's the difficult question, isn't it? There's only ever 'signs of bedbugs' or 'no signs of bedbugs'. I think we started to relax after about 2 months of no signs.

If you leave a thin layer of cimexa down it will catch any stragglers and any new hitchhikers you bring home. There's no need to keep hoovering it up and reapplying, it will carry on working for years. It doesn't need to be everywhere, as long as they would need to walk through it to get to you, so a few strategic bands will do the trick. And you only need the thinnest of dustings - if you imagine a slightly dusty surface so you can only see the dust when the light catches it - that's how much you need.

Ours were in the bedframe so to get rid of them we dusted a 2" wide continuous band all around, just where the sheet tucked in. Now they're gone, we leave a light dusting on the bed legs and around the bottom edges of the frames on all beds and that only gets reapplied when we do a deep clean. No signs in six years now.

It does sound like you've cracked it, I'll keep my fingers crossed for you

The bites can be weird - you can get a delayed reactions and old bites can flare up again for quite a while afterwards, so if that's the only sign you're seeing I wouldn't worry too much. Thread discussing it here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bedbugs/comments/d35asj/delayed_reaction_and_flared_up_old_bites/

Thanks for all your help. I’m still getting the odd bite, although as I said they are singular, not often not itchy and different to the bed bug bites I previously had. We had cautiously started to put them down to skin irritation due to constant paranoid showering and to believe that maybe we were in the clear. However this morning there is a largish (5mm?) blood
spot on the sheets. We have no visible scratches or injuries. To say my heart sank is an understatement.

Do you mean a red blood spot or a black spot like bug poo? If it's red blood and there are no other signs then I still wouldn't panic. It doesn't take much blood at all to spread to 5mm when it soaks into a sheet so it could be from a tiny scratch too small to notice. If it was bug related, I would think one of you would soon have an unmistakeable bite to show for it.

You say you're still getting the odd 'bite' but they sound completely different from bug bites, especially if they don't itch, and also you said they have white heads. Could it be that you're (understandably) ascribing everything possible to bed bugs when they're not the cause?

Try to ease off on the showering. They don't hang out on your body anyway so it would make no difference even if you still had them.

Still keeping everything crossed for you!