What's your experience with steam cleaning bed bugs?

[hanks75]

The more I read, the more I'm thinking I don't want to do the job. The customer was told by exterminator that he should have carpet steam cleaned. I'm concerned about transferring bed bugs to other locations.

 

[Shawn Forsythe]

It's only a problem with those Hacks that pre-vac. !gotcha!

 

[joe harper]

HANK.... :!:

For someone who has ZERO years in the biz...You SURE do StaRt a lot of
TECHNICAL threads.... :roll: THEN.....you never respond to the POST.s... :shock:


WHAT GIVES HERE.... :?:

Most of your threads...end up PROMOTING...the "big Boyz"...Product's...


If you are NEW to the biz..."Get out while you can"...!!!!!!!!!!

Joe Polish....is Looking for a CaRnIvAl ScReaMer...with your TALENT... :mrgreen:

 

[hanks75]

Appreciate the insight and encouragement, but i"m all in!! This is the industry I chose, and I've found this site to be a great resource.

 

[joe harper]

Appreciate the insight and encouragement, but i"m all in!! This is the industry I chose, and I've found this site to be a great resource.

http://www.interlinksupply.com/index.ht ... ++++++++++

then here is your ANSWER... :!:

 

[hanks75]

Thanks

 

[Bruce Humphrey]

What states are having the largest out breaks? I have not heard anything on our local news about bed bug problems in my area.

 

[SDSinc]

How would you guys apply it? Post spray through pump up or pre spray let dwell then flush out?

 

[sweendogg]

Maybe I misread his statement, but it sounds to me like the pest control guy already treated the bugs, so he suggested a follow up cleaning to clear out any dead bugs and chemistry, then they return to do a follow up with a preventative product. X580 is great stuff and we use it when need be, but in most states you have to be licensed to apply a pesticide. I'm thinking harp intended that you use it to treat yor own equipment to prevent cross contamination.

 

[Shawn Forsythe]

Good post, David.

 

[Jim Pemberton]

One of the problems with bedbugs is that they aren't necessarily in the bed or the carpet when you're called upon to clean it.

During the daytime, they hide from light, and tend to get between components of the bedframe, inside of the box springs, and often behind electric outlet covers. You'll find enough of them between the bed and box springs to gross you out and make you feel better about it all when the Microban X580 kills them before you eyes, but you will have only scratched the surface.

Let the pest control people do their job, then decontaminate your vacuum and cleaning tools with Microban X580 or Sterifab when you are done cleaning.

If you aren't sleeping in your customer's home at night you aren't really likely to bring bedbugs home with you.

 

[ascrubabove]

The problem with killing them with pesticides is that it does not kill the eggs (from what I read), from my research into it, it seems like the only sure way to kill the adult, larva, and egg is with heat. Some outfit comes in and heats your house to 140 deg. F. for 4 hours and no more bed bugs.

 

[Jim Nazarian]

I have a bed pug post cleaning Tuesday, they had the house heat treated & something about wrapping the mattress...

Bedbugs Bad for Business? Depends on the Business http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/08/busin ... ugs&st=cse which one of you hacks is going to throw your dog in the van & call it a bedbug sniffing expert?

I am itchy & scratchy already just thinking about it.

 

[everfresh1]

What states are having the largest out breaks? I have not heard anything on our local news about bed bug problems in my area.

I've done a few jobs with a bed bug problem, Haven't had any issues. And no I don't prevac the customer is responable for that.



Detroit, Mich. – Greens can take a bow: Bedbugs are back with a vengeance.

Responding to the biggest bedbug outbreak since World War II, the Environmental Protection Agency hosted its first-ever “bedbug summit” Tuesday outside Washington to address a widening public outcry. Some of the most vulnerable communities are inner cities like Detroit, and the major culprit, as it turns out, was the summit host.

Nine years ago, the zealots at Bill Clinton’s EPA banned the pesticide chlorpyrifos (to widespread media and environmentalist hosannas), the most commonly available household product in the world to address bedbugs, cockroaches, and other nuisances. Better known by its trade name, Dursban, chlorpyrifos had been available for 30 years in some 800 products in 88 countries around the world.

But despite widespread protest in the scientific community, EPA Chief Carol Browner erased Dursban from the shelves. “EPA has gone to great lengths to present a highly conservative, worst case, hypothetical risk based in large part on dubious extrapolations . . . and exaggerated risk estimates,” said Michigan State University toxicologist J. I. Goodman in a typical response.

Even Dr. Alan Hoberman, the principal researcher whose data Browner cited, told the Detroit News he disputed the agency’s interpretation of his findings.

Such critics were also ignored by the press — as was evidence that the nation’s urban poor would be most vulnerable to a ban. Children insect-bite allergies and cockroach-induced allergens outnumber pesticide poisoning by 100:1. “Hardest hit will be lower-income families in cities like Detroit, who can ill afford a weekly house call from the Orkin man,” warned News writer Diane Katz, now with the Fraser Institute. “Yet that is precisely what the EPA is recommending as a substitute for a couple squirts from a can of bug spray.”

Nine years on, Greg Baumann — Senior Scientist at the National Test Management Association — confirms that the Dursban void has been largely unfilled, leaving millions to fight pests with less convenient preventative measures. Extermination, for example, costs between $400 and $900 — out of reach for low-income Detroit families.

And those accountable for this predictable disaster? The very media outlets who were cheerleading the EPA ban now feign ignorance. “Out of concern for the environment and the effects on public health, the EPA has banned many of the chemicals that were most effective in eradicating the bugs in the U.S.,” shrugs the AP in graph ten of its story.

And the EPA Administrator who approved the ban? Browner has been promoted to “climate czar” in the Obama administration.