I-Team: Bed Bug Treatments Leave Homes in Flames

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.

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I-Team: Bed Bug Treatments Leave Homes in Flames