Sally Law of the New Yorker’s Book Bench discusses the awful truth — that bed bugs can and do infest books — with Dr. Louis Sorkin of the American Museum of Natural History in “Don’t Let the Book Bugs Bite.”
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Kill bed bugs in your stuff
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Where are you?
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Is there a reliable way to deinfest them w/out a packtite? .. freezing?
never_again,
The Packtite is reliable because you can use the temperature probe to ensure the insides of your books reach the required temperatures and stay there.
Freezing is theoretically possible, but it is very hard to reach the required temperatures and maintain them with a home freezer. The freezer likely is not that cold. Opening the freezer will make the temps fluctute. It also takes a very long time even if the temps are cold and do not fluctuate. Lou Sorkin tells us he killed bed bugs in 5 days at -29F (which is probably colder than your freezer, even if left unopened). But Lou’s bed bugs were not inside books: think books = insulation. (This is true in the Packtite too, but you can use the probe.)
You may be able to do it but each batch will take a long time and the length of time will be longer than Lou’s if you cannot maintain the temps he reached.
This FAQ may help, but we don’t really know the exact length of time needed to kill bed bugs depending on various freezing temperatures.
“By placing the books in a standard oven at the lowest temperature possible (130° F for 3 hours) and placing wet newspaper or a pan of water in the bottom of the oven to maintain humidity inside the oven chamber, all stages of this insect, and in fact any insect, will be killed.”
Chapter 7, UNESCO Library Protocols
Sigh the link: http://www.unesco.org/webworld/ramp/html/r8820e/r8820e07.htm#initiating an integrated pest management program