I personally think the painter’s tarp is a bad idea. It also costs almost twice as much as the National Allergy covers (click here for a discount) and nearly as much of the ones sold by Protect-a-bed. And anything sealed with tape is likely to develop gaps.

Unless you plan to seal your belongings on the balcony, undisturbed, for 18 months, I would not go that route. Laundry is a pain in the ass, but if you get good thorough treatment from a PCO, you won’t need to bag up everything you own.

I would look at some of the other FAQs. Your mattress MUST be encased in a sealed cover, but you do not need to fully isolate it. I would, however, move it away from the wall.

Sorry you have to deal with this too…

I’d just junk my bedding and buy an inflatable until my home was secure!
They go on ebay wholesalers for very reasonable prices!

Now, in reality for me, I have an old custom made $1700 Private label queen size bed for the last 12 years… and I just discovered the infestation about a week ago.
Mind you, I’m dirt poor (bed was an insurance settlement).

I don’t have a clue what to do, partly because I’m in a bachelor apartment of 16′x16′ and in order to isolate my bed I’d have to practically put it in the middle of the room!

To simplify life, I guess I’ll put most of my old laundry and VHS tapes, books, in garbage bags and boxes on the balcony–lol, too lazy to do too much washing–you know of the guy who owns one fork and spoon? Honestly, I haven’t read the part 1 and 2 completely but I have an idea what i’m in for… sigh.

garbo

The plus to this is that I can easily steam off the mattresses both top and bottom, or rub them down with 91% isopropyl alcohol, but there are negatives too:
a) the duct tape tends to come a bit loose in a few places, so there are risk and maintenance issues similar to a cover with a seam,
b) the plastic is not what you’d call comfortable,
c) it looks rather unsightly.
I did notice a few pin holes from where the plastic must have torn by my practice of taping the sheets and blankets to the plastic–so I stopped that practice.

Now I just sleep in the sterilized clothing I plan on wearing the next day, or I use something I keep tucked in-between the two mattresses.
Bohemian yes! With the blankets bundled up around me, I am getting better at not letting them drag on the floor. And that’s a serious issue. I tend to subconsciously bundle myself up now during wake-sleep-wake-sleep-wake-sleep periods ….
But this was only after having to throw all those sheets and blankets back into the drier, like 5 or 6 times because they’d draped and hit the floor.

Am I being bitten? I don’t react much to the bites, so, only time will tell.

(I doubt any mattress cover(s) would have fit my futon mattresses very well anyway. My understanding is that mattress covers are made for mattresses—not futon pillows-beds.)

I don’t think the solution to Nomo’s problem is a cheaper plastic cover (the ones I had–3 of them, from Target not only ripped easily, as WMSB says, but would surely have been as exposed at the seams and zip as the NA one.

But I am open to other suggestions and I really do want to hear from others about their experiences!

I decided not to isolate my bed but this would apply also to someone whose bed isolation efforts failed (where you know you are being bitten in bed despite your best efforts).

The NA encasing is plastic inside (good) but fabric outside (very bad) and has reinforced seams that appear to be covered in plain cotton cloth. The seams, in fact, very closely resemble the reinforced seams of a mattress. My bedbugs were harboring on the surface of this encasing–based on evidence of excreta and some shiny debris which I could not identify but assume to be eggs. No amount of vacuuming would solve this problem. I re-encased in plastic and can now see largish black specks under the new vinyl encasing.

I’ve been reluctant to post this because a) most people report success with the NA encasings on an isolated bed, and b) I am highly suspicious of the Cooper encasings which are sold exclusively by them at a very high price and are now touted as “new and improved.” I’m allergic to new and improved marketing claims. Rapaciousness comes in many forms.

It is my opinion that if you are being bitten in bed daily, a fabric encasing will compound all your problems.

I do not have any alternatives to recommend–other than plastic, with its well-known flaws.

I will enquire about tests and get back to you all.

However, please look at the links you supplied above: I could not find any information on research linked from the Mattress Safe site (in fact, they only mention dust mites, not bed bugs).

Protect-a-bed, similarly, did not include such information. I could not even find the encasing that Cooper describes being sold on the Protect-a-bed site. They only showed a mattress cover that was top-side only, not an encasing.

I truly do not want to recommend (or use) products that do not work. I am using a NA cover and if others find them to be (or research shows them to be) ineffective, I will end this relationship with NA.

On the other hand, Cooper is selling very expensive encasings and I know many people have trouble with costs.

I also want to note that I was offered an affiliate deal with Brookstone, who sell a similar but more expensive product. They would have offered our readers no discount, their product cost twice as much. Should anyone have purchased one, I would have had a nice kickback. I’m not interested. Why? Because I have no evidence it’s better, and because I’d rather readers got a discount out of the deal as well. If I was not using an NA cover, I would not recommend them.

The costs to anyone purchasing a National Allergy cover via our links are 7-10% off; the modest affiliate commission is paid by National Allergy and does not raise the price to our readers, who would pay more if they just surfed into NA.

Anyway, Sean, if you can give us research findings on the products above, that would be helpful. I will enquire about whether NA also has some to share.

Can National Allergy supply research to support that their encasements are bed bug proof? If so, can it be posted here?

To my knowledge the only two companies that have had bed bug researchers working on the development of their products are:
Mattress Safe
Protect-A-Bed

My fear is that there are MANY companies out there that were in the business of selling anti-allergen encasements that have jumped on the bed bug gravy train and slapped a “bed bug” name, logo, or wording on their existing encasements with little to no testing.

I applaud you for outright stating that you will receive a commission on any sales leads from your site.

Sean
Entomologist / Pest Professional
http://www.thebedbugresource.com

(Editor’s note: test results done on National Allergy’s mattress encasements:
http://bedbugger.com/2007/09/11/national-allergy-mattress-encasements-test-results/)