Author Archives: vancouver

New York, NY (PRWEB) July 04, 2013

There are several methods available to kill bed bugs. However, according to a post from nbcnewyork.com published on July 03, 2013, one of them has caused several fire accidents. To help bed bug victims avoid such incident, My Cleaning Products suggested the use of a bed bug spray instead and offered samples of the one that it deemed the best.

In the post, the heat treatment was specified as the method that had been causing fire, My Cleaning Products shared. It added that its implementation had set many houses aflame, particularly, in Canada and the United States.

The post detailed that one of those fire accidents happened in 2011 in Edmonton, Canada where a 50-unit condominium building was burned, MCP stated. The exterminators said to have used the prohibited propane heaters to eliminate the pests, it relayed.

Another incident that the report gave occurred just last month in Woodbury, N.J, MCP said. Based on the account of a fire official in the post, the accident happened after the house owner attempted to exterminate the pests with his own version of bed bug heat treatment.

Here's an excerpt from the post Heat Treatment for Bed Bugs Sets Homes on Fire by My Cleaning Products.

They are pesky and stubborn. Not to mention, they feed mostly on human blood. Because of that, bed bugs are considered as some of the most dreaded pests that could ever infest a place.

To eliminate those tiny vampires, several methods have been introduced. But among those methods, many stand up to the effectiveness of heat treatment. Some even consider it as the best way to eliminate those pests.

However, bed bug heat treatment presents a potential risk. As it requires the place to treat to be exposed to a very high temperature for a long period of time, it could possibly cause fire. In fact, there were already a number of fire accidents reported to have been caused by it.

Green cleaning company My Cleaning Products stated that bed bugs are so annoying that they just need to go. However, to avoid fire accidents, it advised the use of a bed bug spray to kill the pests instead of implementing a heat treatment.

Read this article:
Bed Bug Treatment Causes Various Fire Accidents, My Cleaning Products Presents a Safer Alternative with Complimentary ...

The debate over whether bed bug extermination treatments could pose a fire hazard is raging on in the tri-state area after several fires across the U.S. and Canada were determined to be caused by bed bug exterminations gone wrong.

In the summer of 2011, a 50-unit condominium in Edmonton, Canada fire burned when exterminators used a pest control treatment known as radiant heat, according to investigators there. It promises to eradicate bed bugs using industrial space heaters and fans to bring every square inch of an infested room above 120 degrees. Exterminators say more than an hour and a half of exposure to such high temperaturesensures a 100 percent bed bug kill rate.

The problem is, warming confined spaces with powerful heaters carries serious fire hazards, according to some experts.

The worst that can happen is you can burn your house down, and youre risking your life, said Glenn Waldorf of Bell Environmental Services in Fairfield, N.J.

After the Edmonton condominium building burned, Canadian fire investigators issued a $10,000 fine to Calgary-based pest control company Bed Bug Task Force. The exterminators were found to have used propane heaters against fire code. The owners of the apartment building are now suing Bed Bug Task Force for $3.5 million in damages.

Bed Bug Task Force did not return the I-Teams email seeking comment.

Radiant heat treatments have led to other disastrous fires closer to New York City. Last month in Woodbury, N.J., fire officials said a man accidentally set his house on fire while attempting to kill bed bugs with a do-it-yourself radiant heat treatment. In October of 2012, fire investigators in New Hampshire said a three-family home burned down during a heat treatment. Last Valentines Day, firefighters in Dayton, Ohio, responded to a second-floor fire and found a pest control company was using heaters and fans to kill bed bugs.

Consumers are panicked. You have bugs in your home. Youve got these little vampires in your bed biting you, and they imagine companies have solutions and dont think through what the issues are with any of the various solutions out there, said Waldorf.

Waldorf said that using cryogenic freeze technology is much safer than using heat to kill bed bugs. But while some pest control outfits warn against thermal treatments, others stand by radiant heat as the gold standard in bed bug extermination.

Robert Suriano, president of Bliss Pest Protection Services in New York City, recently invested tens of thousands of dollars in heaters and fans intended for bed bug eradication. He said the recent fires prove only that homeowners should trust trained professionals and avoid low-cost, do-it-yourself heat treatments.

Go here to read the rest:
I-Team: Bed Bug Treatments Leave Homes in Flames

Material scientists at Stony Brook University have developed a web made up of extremely thin microfibres which can ensnare bed bugs and stop their nocturnal feasts on human blood.

The microfibres used are 50 times thinner than a human hair and are effective at entangling bed bugs and other insects. The technology is being commercialised by a company called Fibertrap which promotes non-toxic pest control methods.

The material was developed by researchers at Stony Brook's Centre for Advanced Technology in Sensor Materials. The nanotechnology results in entanglements that are millions of times more dense than woven products such as fabrics or carpets, according to lead researcher Miriam Rafailovich. The microfibres trap the bed bugs by attaching microfibres to their legs, preventing them from moving and therefore feeding and reproducing. The material is created using electrospinning, where an electrical charge is used to draw a very fine fibre out of a liquid.

The lab has tested the material with live bed bugs and termites. The microfibres are safe for humans and pets and don't rely on any pesticides or chemicals, which insects can grow resistant to.

Bed bugs are small, disc-shaped parasitic insects that feed on the blood of people and animals when they sleep. They are remarkably hardy and can survive a wide range of temperatures and atmospheric compositions. They can survive for five days at -10C but will die after 15 minutes at -26C. Meanwhle, at the other end of the temperature spectrum, they can survive temperatures of 45C, but will die at heats above 46C.

The bugs tend to hide during the day and emerge in the night, sometimes travelling up to 30 metres. The bites affect different people in different ways -- from creating tiny red dots to enormous welts.

Bed bugs have been proliferating in Europe, the USA, Canada and Australia in the last few decades. In London alone, between 2000 and 2006, the number of pest control calls relating to bed bugs increased by an average of 28.5 percent per year. This is down to the creatures becoming resistant to pesticides and the increase in international travel.

See the original post:
Microfibre mesh creates bed bug booby trap