Got Bed Bugs? Bedbugger Forums » Tools/ideas for fighting bed bugs
Pillows
(16 posts)-
Louise
senior member
Joined: Jun '09
Posts: 445offline
Posted 3 years ago
Mon Nov 2 2009 11:03:32
#
Login to Send PM
One of the suggestions here is to buy new pillows if you have bedbugs.
May I ask why? What is the difference between encasing a new pillow with, say, a MattressSafe or Protect-A-Bed pillow encasement/cover, and doing the same with a pillow that may (or may not) already be infested?
Louise
-
buggyinsocal
oldtimer
Joined: Jun '08
Posts: 2,440offline
Posted 3 years ago
Mon Nov 2 2009 13:38:26
#
Login to Send PM
Pillows are giant balls of insulation.
We know that the hardest items to debug using heat are the ones that are best insulated.
In other words, pillows, comforters, and really plush overstuffed furniture and the items that are most likely to continue to harbor bed bugs deep inside them after multiple treatments or debugging attempts, and pillows are located awfully close to food sources for bed bugs.
Some people feel perfectly comfortable encasing their pillows in god quality encasements.
Other people are creeped out by sleeping on anything that might still harbor bugs.
I can't speak for anyone else, but for me, the fact that I have a cat whole claws might have punctured encasements meant that tossing my old pillows and starting with news ones seemed a much safer plan than using old pillows in encasements.
My guess is that people who suggest tossing old pillows are doing so based on some combination of those factors even though I can't speak for anyone else.
-
soscared
senior member
Joined: Sep '09
Posts: 429offline
Posted 3 years ago
Mon Nov 2 2009 13:58:41
#
Login to Send PM
I put my pillows (2 of them) together in the dryer for 2 hours every few days. Is that not enough?
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA (<- cry of exhaustion and frustration) -
buggyinsocal
oldtimer
Joined: Jun '08
Posts: 2,440offline
Posted 3 years ago
Mon Nov 2 2009 15:27:35
#
Login to Send PM
ncasing their pillows in god quality
That should read good quality. ::headdesk:: I should know better than to type before breakfast.
In other news, soscared, I think if you're drying them on those heat levels that often, you should be okay.
Please remember that everyone has a different threshold of acceptable risk. People with a confirmed infestation--particularly those with a pretty substantial confirmed infestation that they had for a while and that they had trouble getting rid of--are the ones most likely to have a much higher threshold for acceptable risk. They not be willing to put up with a very, very slight risk in ways that someone who's only had a small infestation would.
I ditched all my pillows because I couldn't stand the thought of there being dead bed bugs inside them, AND my pillows were old and could stand to be replaced. Replacing pillows on top of the expenses I'd already shelled out wasn't a big deal.
I'm still sleeping on my bed which may have dead bed bugs inside it because I had just bought the mattress and couldn't afford to replace it.
Everyone is different. Louise's question was why would someone ditch their pillows. I guessed that a lot of people would make the choices based on that. Remember for everyone who has a legitimate fear that their bed/pillow/couch/comforter needed to be ditched, there is at least one person who needlessly tossed an item that was bug free.
Only you can evaluate what is reasonable and comfortable in your situation.
-
Louise
senior member
Joined: Jun '09
Posts: 445offline
Posted 3 years ago
Mon Nov 2 2009 16:51:46
#
Login to Send PM
Okay, so what I'm hearing is that once a pillow is encased, it is considered "safe"? ESPECIALLY if you encase it prior to having bedbugs?
It just seemed odd to me that new pillows are considered necessary, because if encasements don't work, one would have to be buying new pillows on a regular (daily?) basis to ensure that they were bedbug-free.
That said, I have ditched a majority of our old pillows and invested in new ones (both at home and at the cabin), but that said (and looking into the future), if we ever do have a bedbug/batbug problem, I really don't want to be repeating that process. It seems not only expensive, but also somewhat wasteful (y'know, clogging the landfills with a continuous stream of possibly-infested pillows...).
If pillows (and comforters) are impossible to treat, it would seem to be best to not use any at all during an infestation. I mean, do people actually try to sleep without pillows? Sleeping is hard enough as it is when one is waiting to be bitten, much less trying to get comfortable without a pillow...but then maybe I'm just a big wimp.
Louise
-
buggyinsocal
oldtimer
Joined: Jun '08
Posts: 2,440offline
Posted 3 years ago
Mon Nov 2 2009 17:00:52
#
Login to Send PM
I had thermal, so all my bedding got treating when the whole apartment reached 140 degrees F for many, many hours.
I wouldn't say that pillows and comforters are impossible to treat, just more difficult than other items. Since bed bugs generate so much uncertainty, I think a lot of people have different thresholds of how much uncertainty they can live with.
-
tinyvampire
newbite
Joined: Oct '09
Posts: 30offline
Posted 3 years ago
Mon Nov 2 2009 18:40:52
#
Login to Send PM
i decided that all of our bedding (expensive down comforter included) and pillows were going to the landfill. so, we're sleeping without pillows (and with 1 sheet and 1 wool blanket each) until we hit that magical 55-60 day point.
in fact, i also decided to get rid of 2 of my parkas (made me sad, but i was bitten in one of them) and a sleeping bag we sometimes used as a blanket (because it collected less cat hair than the comforter) -- just to cover all of my bases with the insulated stuff.
i'd love to get rid of our couch and one lone padded chair too, just to be safe, but then we wouldn't have any furniture (and are totally post-BB treatment and follow-up broke), and my husband wouldn't have a place to sleep (i'm sleeping on a *tiny* twin mattress that's on a metal frame, he on the couch...neither has room enough for both of us)...
:[
-tinyv
-
fantastapotamus
junior member
Joined: Nov '09
Posts: 77offline
Posted 3 years ago
Sun Nov 8 2009 4:08:35
#
Login to Send PM
right now all I have on my bed for blankets is the fitted bottom sheet, a single pillow (memory foam that I dried for 35 minutes on high) in a pillow case, and a single top blanket.... I found my bedbugs just over a week ago and I'm willing to be a bit cooler at night at the expense of easier identification (and less laundry) at this stage of the game.
I tossed every other pillow I had - 2 or 3 old ones, 4 others that were on my bed when I discovered the infestation (a couple "doubled up" in a pillowcase to make them useful), and I even pulled the stuffing out of my two giant thick pillows out on the couch to be sure. I'm considering pulling the stuffing out of a quilt my grandmother made for me simply because it is quite thick and has bunched up in a few places, and I'd sooner lose the stuffing than lose the quilt completely.
as buggy said, these decisions are all about what gives me peace of mind.
I saw those as the highest risks and decided to just remove them from the equation. in truth all the pillows I tossed should have been gone a while ago, but I hate to throw things away when they aren't completely worn out.
soon, new pillows, new encasements, and eventually I'll bring back the comforter or quilt to the bed when I'm feeling a bit more confident my PCO got rid of the problem and the nights get cooler.
-
bedbuggio the wise
junior member
Joined: Jun '11
Posts: 43offline
Posted 1 year ago
Sat Jun 4 2011 7:54:11
#
Login to Send PM
I'm kind of weird about my pillows. I'm very attached to them (one very old feather pillow and one body pillow). I can never sleep in hotels or other people's houses with pillows I'm not used to.
I'm going to wash them in hot water, then dry on high for two hours, then encase and hope for the best. I can't throw my pillows out!
-
Rosae
member
Joined: May '11
Posts: 235offline
Posted 1 year ago
Sat Jun 4 2011 11:45:47
#
Login to Send PM
There are still several families of bedbugs in my pillows. But they are dead. Each time I plunge them into a bucket with hot water (+50 degrees celsius) to kill any new bugs, I see them all through the tick. Dead and very pale, kind of yellow, just caught in the act of digesting their meals together
.They can do no harm anymore, but I will buy new pillows as soon as the bed bug drama is over. I won't open them; it will make me too sick.
-
Rosae
member
Joined: May '11
Posts: 235offline
Posted 1 year ago
Sat Jun 4 2011 12:00:35
#
Login to Send PM
When a pillow is encased, it is safe. It is easy to make your own encasement if you have a sewing machine. Just use percale cotton and sew everything together with a thin needle and small stitches (at least 10 per cm) after closing the zipper so they can't pass the zipper. Or seal the zipper with colorless glue.
-
buggyinsocal
oldtimer
Joined: Jun '08
Posts: 2,440offline
Posted 1 year ago
Sat Jun 4 2011 12:30:11
#
Login to Send PM
I'm not sure that making your own encasement is as easy as it sounds. The failure of encasements often has to do with failure at the zippers or the seams, and I'm not sure that the fabrics the best encasements are made from are readily available.
My understanding is that the brands of encasements that are recommended by experts are recommended because they've been through independent laboratory testing.
I'm not saying, Rosae, that a skilled sewer couldn't make a bed bug proof item; I am saying that I don't think you'll see a lot of oldtimers suggesting DIY encasements simply because we have an obligation to suggest things that we have plenty of evidence work in large scale deployment.
Anecdotally, you may have had luck with DIY encasements, but I don't feel comfortable suggesting them to others without data to back that up. I'm not saying I wouldn't welcome that data. Plenty of folks around here, myself included, were quick to adopt the dry ice in a dog bowl DIY active monitor system; I'm far more likely to suggest that than more expensive monitors, frankly.
I am saying that often the pricier items have a lot more engineering behind them than it might appear. David James has spoken a lot about how many small things had to be accounted for in the design of the Packtite, and I'll tell you, every time I look at the Packtite I'm astounded because I never would have thought of all those things if I'd been trying to figure it out. (But then, I'm an English major, not a group of people generally known for being handy or mechanically inclined . . .)
I do sew a little. I have a friend from college who sews a lot (and by sews a lot I mean majored in theater and costume design. She's one of those people I envy who can build her own patterns from muslin and make just about anything) as does my aunt. Having looked at a middle of the line encasement, I strongly suspect there's a lot more engineering behind the good quality ones than the method you're describing.
Again, I'm not saying that to discourage you from trying it. I'm just saying that I might not recommend to others that they should try it to until DIY encasement designs have had a larger scale test and/or unless it's suggested as something that may not work because it's still untried.
-
your host
Joined: Mar '07
Posts: 13,731online
Posted 1 year ago
Sat Jun 4 2011 12:55:48
#
Login to Send PM
Rosae - 52 minutes ago »
When a pillow is encased, it is safe. It is easy to make your own encasement if you have a sewing machine. Just use percale cotton and sew everything together with a thin needle and small stitches (at least 10 per cm) after closing the zipper so they can't pass the zipper. Or seal the zipper with colorless glue.10 per cm? I don't know much about sewing, but is this enough to ensure a first instar nymph can't get through? A first instar nymph is 1mm long. Presumably, a lot smaller in width.
I also would not recommend sewing your own engagements.
-
Rosae
member
Joined: May '11
Posts: 235offline
Posted 1 year ago
Sat Jun 4 2011 13:46:08
#
Login to Send PM
@Nobugsonme - well, I bought an anti-mite encasement, a very expensive one, and it is lovely, very soft and you can't make tears in it, but I had to redo all the stitches. They were way too wide. Now the encasement works great.
I must admit that the encasement was not recommended against bed bugs.
-
Rosae
member
Joined: May '11
Posts: 235offline
Posted 1 year ago
Sat Jun 4 2011 14:23:15
#
Login to Send PM
@buggyinsocal - yes, you're probably right.
-
your host
Joined: Mar '07
Posts: 13,731online
Posted 1 year ago
Sat Jun 4 2011 21:29:27
#
Login to Send PM
Rosae - 7 hours ago »
@Nobugsonme - well, I bought an anti-mite encasement, a very expensive one, and it is lovely, very soft and you can't make tears in it, but I had to redo all the stitches. They were way too wide. Now the encasement works great.
I must admit that the encasement was not recommended against bed bugs.Hi Rosae,
My main point was that if "10 per cm" means the stitches are 1 mm apart, they are not small enough.
I am glad you are not having trouble with your pillow, but I agree with buggyinsocal that others should not be trying to create their own encasements. If it is not really bed bug-proof, then it creates a nifty harborage.
Reply
You must log in to post.
