Dont use the oven on anything you put alot of value in. The temperature is hard to control and you can easily end up burning whatever you put in it. As with a turkey, youll also find that heat from an oven will not penetrate thick materials very easily (ex. folded linens and folded clothes) and can burn the outside while leaving the middle still cool. I think work boots would be ok, only because its made with durable leather and the air can circulate inside the shell to acheive a uniform temperature.

Scalding water will kill a bug on contact. These bugs and their eggs are small enough that brief contact to scalding water will equalize their innards to the same temperature, cooking their innards and busting their vessels. Although a full bathtub of scalding water can sterilize many items, it is not easy or fun to wring dry everything once youre done.

Steam is great cuz its not messy and it has good penetrating power. You can also use it to clean things that bug poison cant get at. The issue up for debate was what temperature output is sufficient to do the trick, and therfore if buying a $500 steamer is necessary. For clothes and linens, i would recommend using a hot iron with the steam setting on. My clothes dryer is a piece of crap, so i have nothing to say about that technique.

ANy advice is appreciated.

If this is indeed the discussion, then clearly an issue for debate is: what is the required heat to kill bedbugs? Follow so far? How would you test that. Would you set your house on fire and measure the internal temperature, or perhaps shove a dirty bug in your oven or frying pan. No. For obvious reasons, those experiments are not feasible.

I elected to dip a bug in a bucket of hot water. The water temperature you can control (meaning you can test a range of temperatures), remains relatively stable and can be easily measure with a thermometer. Am I making sense to you? The purpose of the water, again, is to test the effect of elevated temperature on the viability of a bedbug. Viability means whether or not it lives or dies.

So now comes the conclusion. Bedbugs upon contact with 110-120F water (or 110-120F steam or 110-120F chocolate pudding or anything of that temperature) will die.

The bucket of water mentioned above was a temperature test to highlight that even an acute (1sec) exposure to ~110-120F will kill a bedbug on contact. The more affordable steamers have temperature outputs much greater than this. Much greater. If concern is with losing heat in crevices (which applies to all steamers), i dont know how deep and gaping your crevices are, but people having common sense will judge if sealing those with filling or using the steamer is sufficient.

As for the mold issue, youre right, moisture can enhance mold growth.. In fact i hear a lot of things require water to grow. And i hear water comes from places other than steamers. Most people are not idiots. As long as you dont steam the crap out of your drywall or curtains so that its sagging under its supports, you wont have a problem. Thats the beauty of water, it evaporates.

Dont spend $500 needlessly. Do your own test at home and determine for yourself if a $40 walmart steamer will suit your needs.

First of all, mold is a real and serious problem both for your health and for the value of your property. Look into mold remediation (which is not DIY!) and you will learn about what a mess a little (or a lot of) extra water can do to your living environment.

Dry vapor steamers make it possible to kill bed bugs with steam and with less water being applied (especially if you use the technique experts recommend of a towel on the steam wand).

Secondly, 120 F does kill bed bugs. But when you’re applying 120 F to the surface of things, you have to understand the bed bugs living in the crevice or under the surface are not encountering killing temperatures. And remember also that 120 F water does not stay 120 F for very long. You’d have a hard time applying water at killing temps to your home.

Experts such as Jeff White recommend steamers which emit steam at over 180 F and the closer to 200 F the better, so that you have a good chance of bed bugs being killed.

That’s not easy.

Depending where you live, if you rent, the landlord may be responsible for treatment.

In any case, please come to the forums to discuss this further: http://bedbugger.com/forum/