Dry Cleaning & Laundry during treatment « Got Bed Bugs? Bedbugger Forums

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Dry Cleaning & Laundry during treatment

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Vergeofinsanity

newbite
Joined: Jun '08
Posts: 12

Posted 4 months ago
Thu Jul 2 2009 9:06:40
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After being BB free for over a year they are back. Do not know how we got infested again, must be the damn building. But anyways, we caught it early this time and are getting a PCO to come in on Monday.

I just have a question on laundry & dry cleaning. They ask you to do your laundry and bag everything before the treatment. Is this truly necessary? I mean if they are going to spray etc why do we need to do laundry before hand. Just wondering if we really need to go through the whole laundry process. My fiance has a ton of clothes and it is just a pain to do everything.

Thanks in advanced,
Vergeofinsanity
buggyinsocal

oldtimer
Joined: Jun '08
Posts: 1,160

Posted 4 months ago
Thu Jul 2 2009 10:44:52
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I'm so sorry to hear that they are back.

The laundry/dry cleaning followed by bagging is essentially a way to make sure that fabric items that might harbor bugs (either as harborages or stragglers) are bug and egg free. Sealing them in plastic bags means that any bugs elsewhere can't get back into them. It's a way of helping to reduce the number of places they can be hiding in order to make treatment more effective. Depending on how PCOs deploy the chemicals, dusts, or heat they use, it's also partly about making the area to be treated accessible for the treatment, esp. for those of us in small places.

Some PCOs will refuse to treat if you haven't done all the prep work.

All of which means that, unfortunately, I suspect that work though it is, it's necessary.

Do remember that if the clothes are already clean, you don't actually have to wash them. And putting already dry (and clean) clothes in the dryer means that it takes much less time to get them up to the thermal death point.

For anything that's clean and can handle the heat of the dryer, I would consider just putting it into the dryer until it's hot enough to have killed the bed bugs. If you're starting with a dry item, it won't take as long to reach those temps. So that will save you both time and money since you won't have to pay for the wash cycle and/or sit there for the full time of a wash cycle. And you'll need less time in the dryer.

If you have a lot of items that aren't dryable in a dryer, it might be cheaper to buy a Packtite and treat the drycleanable clothes in that. I think Packtites are around $300. Compared with what I pay for dry cleaning, that's a bargain.

The problem is that at the moment I believe the manufacturer is out of stock.

If you are willing to be absolutely vigilant and cautious, you could bag the dry cleanables up without treating them until you can get a Packtite. Then once you get a Packtite, you can begin Packtiting the dry cleanables that are clean and bagged in small batches in the Packtite. My suggestion if you choose this plan is to clearly label which bags of items have been treated and which will need to be Packtited once you have one.

Packtite is available in the US and runs on the voltage used throughout North America. I don't know where you are, but I thought I'd mention that, as if you're in another country, that might not be an option.

Hope some of that helps, and again, I'm so sorry to hear that the bugs are back. Hopefully having caught them early, it won't take as long to treat them, and you won't be living in Ziplock Land quite as long.
Vergeofinsanity

newbite
Joined: Jun '08
Posts: 12

Posted 4 months ago
Thu Jul 2 2009 11:46:09
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Thanks for the quick reply. Great idea on just throwing them in the dryer if they are already clean. I will definetly check out that packtite stuff and compare the costs w/ dry cleaning.

Thanks again,

Vergeofinsanity