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Oven as Packtite
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kitep
junior member
Joined: Nov '09
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Posted 3 years ago
Wed Dec 2 2009 16:56:46
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Can an oven be used to kill bedbugs, in much the same manner as a packtite? I'm talking setting it to 150 degrees or less (not 400 or some stupid amount!). I also imagine it would be good to wrap things in a towel, to avoid things getting direct heat.
Questions, comments, death threats?
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BB_Slayer
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Posted 3 years ago
Wed Dec 2 2009 21:42:21
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I've killed about 300 bed bugs with a butane cigarette lighter so of course I'd try something like that.
If you have a fire extinguisher nearby and can avoid dying of smoke inhalation if a bunch of stuff in your oven catches on fire.... it might be a good idea.
They're very safety conscious here though and will probably discourage such a tactic.
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your host
Joined: Mar '07
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Posted 3 years ago
Wed Dec 2 2009 22:01:43
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BB_Slayer - 19 minutes ago »
I've killed about 300 bed bugs with a butane cigarette lighter so of course I'd try something like that.
If you have a fire extinguisher nearby and can avoid dying of smoke inhalation if a bunch of stuff in your oven catches on fire.... it might be a good idea.
They're very safety conscious here though and will probably discourage such a tactic.Yes, we probably would.
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hathead
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Joined: Jun '09
Posts: 64offline
Posted 3 years ago
Wed Dec 2 2009 22:28:37
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waal ... i've done it
but i don't recommend itnot really very accurate
and not really very safei would only do this if i had absolutely no other options
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parakeets
oldtimer
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Posted 3 years ago
Thu Dec 3 2009 11:04:52
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Even the title of this post scares me -- "Oven as Packtite"??? I hope no one reads that and gets the wrong idea. Where I live tenants (particulalry ones with clutter) can be cited for a health code violation for simply having things like papers and cloth items TOO CLOSE to an oven, let alone inside of an oven. I wish the post title was "Oven as Packtite is a Fire Hazard." My sister's home burned down one year right before Thanksgiving so I'm extra-sensitive to anything that might start a home fire.
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buggyinsocal
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Joined: Jun '08
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Posted 3 years ago
Thu Dec 3 2009 11:20:54
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In the wake of my bed bug infestation, I had to explain to my landlord the realities of being a lecturer at a university around here. Since I'm not tenure track, I share an office with several people. We have *one* five drawer file cabinet for everyone in the office, and yet, we're expected to keep all paper files related to previous classes for 3-5 years. If each of us, as lecturers (who teach more classes than tenure track folks) teach 3 to 5 classes each term, and teach at least two terms a year--plus additional winter and summer classes), you can do the math about how many stacks of papers that we're required by law to keep that we aren't given places to store in our office start to stack up.
I have a powerful lot of books and paper (aka clutter) in my home that I don't have a good place to store at work and that I have to keep.
In the days before Packtite, I despaired about what to do with them. I read the posts about the protocols some librarians used to rid books of bug infestations. My very old oven is not reliable temperature wise, and I was nervous about trying to use the oven that way for books and papers.
In the end, I had thermal remediation, so my books and papers went through that instead of me having to experiment with my ancient oven.
If we're safety conscious around here, it's for two reasons. First, for every person who can complete a potentially risk act safely, there are many, many more who in their stressed out, sleep deprived state will not safely make it through the same activity. On boards, it's nearly impossible to know who is who.
Secondly, we also want to be absolutely sure that something we recommend will not only be safe but will effectively eliminate bugs.
Following the protocol used by librarians gives you a pretty good chance of getting rid of bugs; however, the Packtite was specifically designed to work on bed bugs, so it gives bed bug warriors a much better chance to eliminate every bug. I believe the library protocol was geared more towards book lice.
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kitep
junior member
Joined: Nov '09
Posts: 68offline
Posted 3 years ago
Thu Dec 3 2009 16:44:37
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Thanks for the responses. I've been wondering about it ever since I heard about a packtite.
Just an FYI - I haven't done this. I simply moved everything out of the bedrooms, and let the BBs remove themselves from the possessions and travel back to the bedrooms. Now if they could just be completely eliminated from the bedrooms
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death_to_bed_bugs
newbite
Joined: Aug '10
Posts: 11offline
Posted 2 years ago
Mon Aug 16 2010 20:27:24
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If you think about baked chicken, you set the temperature of the oven to 350 and use a meat thermometer to get the chicken to 165, in about 45 minutes to an hour, with a nice crispy, crunchy, skin. But if you look at a slow cooker recipe you might find that it takes 8 hours to cook the chicken. That's because the slow cooker uses a lower temperature and a longer time. But you don't get the crispy skin on the outside. The packtite is like the slow cooker, it heats to the desired temperature, not to a much higher temperature, so that your books, shoes, and other items will not get "crispy".
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Eve
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Joined: Apr '10
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Posted 2 years ago
Tue Aug 17 2010 4:33:51
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The problem with using the oven as a PackTite (yes I've had success with this) is that you can't accomplish anything like BuggyinSocal is talking about. You can only do one or two books at a time if you don't want anything touching the interior walls and it takes forever. I would certainly not think about doing loose papers for instance. In my case, it was a library book I was dealing with. I couldn't throw it out (though eventually I just wound up paying for it) and it was definitely infested.
With a PackTite, if one of the posters here is to be believed (and I think she is), you can do 40 books at a time. A whole different scale of events. I can clear out my "may be infested" shelf in a load or two.
Eve
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