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Can't find local dry cleaner who uses PERC! Help! Berkeley/SF
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SimoneFrank
junior member
Joined: Jun '09
Posts: 36
Posted 8 months ago
Mon Jun 29 2009 17:42:49
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I called five local drycleaners - NONE use PERC. (I live in Berkeley/SF area, so this is actually believable - stupid enviroment lovers ;)
They said they still use chemicals - it's not just water, and it will kill bed bugs - but then when I got there they told me that "putting my clothes in a zip loc bag in the freezer will kill bed bugs", and they want people to do that first. They took out papers saying this freezer thing was true.
Well, I KNOW that's not true. So if a dry cleaner doesn't use PERC - is dry cleaning completeley pointless?? Or if it is actual chemical-based dry cleaning - will it still work?
Thye said what chemical they used - but I forgot.
Simone
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Simone
I have posed that question to several bed bug experts & haven't found anyone that is familiar with the newer green dry cleaning chemicals and their lethality for bed bugs.Regular machine washing with soap & water is usually effective .... But I have not been able to obtain a credible answer on the effectiveness of the No PERC systems yet.
Some of the "No PERC Dry Cleaning" methods are actually water based gentle cleaning approaches that don't damage clothing that are labeled dry clean only. There are a couple of older threads that explored the issue in greater depth.
If you can find out which chemicals they are using.... I will be glad to make some additional inquiries or try to find a dry cleaner that wants to perform an empirical trial.
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paulaw0919
oldtimer
Joined: Jul '07
Posts: 1,034
Posted 8 months ago
Mon Jun 29 2009 22:12:12
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How much $$ do you think you have in a dry cleaning bill?
The reason I ask is because most articles of clothing can just be heat treated in the dryer for an extended period of time (not washed, just dried) and that would kill the bugs and eggs.
Another option is to purchase a Packtite and bake you dry cleaning items in there. The Packtite was not an option 2 yrs ago and I can say we spent over $1000 in dry cleaning. If I had the Packtite avail to me back then I would have saved a lot of clothes, be able to treat many personal home items and saved a lot of $$ to boot.
(I'm not affiliated with Packtite at all, just a person tossing some available options to the poster) -
SimoneFrank
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Joined: Jun '09
Posts: 36
Posted 8 months ago
Tue Jun 30 2009 23:52:59
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paulaw0919 - 1 day ago »
How much $$ do you think you have in a dry cleaning bill?
The reason I ask is because most articles of clothing can just be heat treated in the dryer for an extended period of time (not washed, just dried) and that would kill the bugs and eggs.
Another option is to purchase a Packtite and bake you dry cleaning items in there. The Packtite was not an option 2 yrs ago and I can say we spent over $1000 in dry cleaning. If I had the Packtite avail to me back then I would have saved a lot of clothes, be able to treat many personal home items and saved a lot of $$ to boot.
(I'm not affiliated with Packtite at all, just a person tossing some available options to the poster)Hi,
Thanks for the advice. Our packtite came yesterday.
I really just wanted to get the stuff OUT of the house and at the drycleaners so I would have one less thing to deal with at this point. We brought very few clothes from our trip (threw away most of them) so the total dry cleaning bill for 10 items was $84. I am definitely going to packtite them as soon as I get them back though.
If we end up with an infestation in the house, then I won't take anything else to the drycleaner and will just packtite it. that would be extremely expensive otherwise.
I am not feeling grateful at this point - but I guess I should be - compared ot getting bed bugs five years ago when so many people didn't blieve they existed and there were no packtites or PCO's with clues - it's a lot better now.
But I still don't feel grateful - damn it! ;)
Thanks!!
Simone
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SimoneFrank
junior member
Joined: Jun '09
Posts: 36
Posted 8 months ago
Tue Jun 30 2009 23:55:02
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paulaw0919 - 1 day ago »
How much $$ do you think you have in a dry cleaning bill?
The reason I ask is because most articles of clothing can just be heat treated in the dryer for an extended period of time (not washed, just dried) and that would kill the bugs and eggs.
Another option is to purchase a Packtite and bake you dry cleaning items in there. The Packtite was not an option 2 yrs ago and I can say we spent over $1000 in dry cleaning. If I had the Packtite avail to me back then I would have saved a lot of clothes, be able to treat many personal home items and saved a lot of $$ to boot.
(I'm not affiliated with Packtite at all, just a person tossing some available options to the poster)By the way, even with my limited bed bug pain thus far, there really is nothing like the glorious feeling of unpacking the first set of "cooked" items from the packtite and knowing that at least those items are pure and bug free. It's like having found the holy grail ;)
Seriously though, it was so nice to look at a pair of shoes and KNOW that something wasn't going to bite me from inside of them... Glory oh glory! :)
-Simone
Simone
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