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Bed bugs are nothing to be ashamed of, but they can wreak havoc on your home and your health if not taken care of. Most people will want to try just about anything they can to get rid of bed bugs, especially if it doesn’t involve harsh chemicals.
Saunas and steam rooms can be used to effectively kill bed bugs. People have thrown their clothing or belongings into steam rooms or saunas to let the heat penetrate all the small spots that bed bugs can hide. You can use it in tandem with other treatment methods.
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In the rest of the article, you will learn how saunas and steam rooms affect bug bites and the steps you need to take to use a sauna or steam room to kill bed bugs.
Table of Contents
- Do Sauna or Steam Rooms Kill Bed Bugs?
- Do Sauna or Steam Rooms Help Heal Bug Bites?
- How to Use Sauna or Steam Rooms to Treat Bed Bugs
- Conclusion
Do Sauna or Steam Rooms Kill Bed Bugs?
Saunas or steam rooms aren’t a widespread treatment for killing bed bugs yet, but they have been used by some creative people to kill bed bugs off of clothing, linens, and furniture. Sauna technology has been manufactured into bed-bug-specific treatments as well. It’s purported that since these rooms sit at such a high temperature, bed bugs aren’t able to survive.
The heat and steam usually get higher than 122 degrees Fahrenheit, which is the maximum bed bugs are believed to be able to tolerate. Additionally, high heat can help to kill eggs, which is the major cause of continuous infestation. If you can kill bugs, you have a much easier chance of ridding your space of bed bugs for good.
Do Sauna or Steam Rooms Help Heal Bug Bites?
A steam room or a sauna can aid in the healing process for irritating bug bites. This doesn’t only include bed bug bites but many bug bites you may encounter. You should still clean and treat your bug bites to ensure you don’t risk any kind of infection, but the heat can offer you some relief from the irritation even if it doesn’t do anything else.
In order to get the most out of this experience, you’ll want to make an effort to prep your skin appropriately. Doing so allows you to avoid potentially making the problem worse once you get out of the sauna. That said, any discomfort you feel on your skin afterward should go away quickly once you shower.
How to Use Sauna or Steam Rooms to Treat Bed Bugs
There are a few ways you can utilize the technology of saunas and steam rooms to help treat items that are infested with bed bugs. To treat your home or anything that can’t fit a sauna or steam room, you’ll want to contact a professional service.
Find a Bed Bug Sauna
Bed bug saunas are a relatively new invention that uses infrared sauna technology to target pesky bed bugs. This mechanism, which looks a lot like a tent or a portable sauna, has been increasing in popularity since it’s a chemical-free approach that has proven to have some merit.
Many of these bed bug saunas are big enough for your furniture, large amounts of clothing and linens, and even beds or mattresses. Your items essentially sit in the sauna as you normally would while heat panels target everything inside the sauna.
Create an At-Home Sauna
There has been some anecdotal evidence to suggest creating a sauna-like environment in your home can aid in the treatment of bed bugs in the home. This can be done by using portable heaters or something similar to raise the temperature in a room and allow those to run.
However, in order to do this, you’ll have to make sure anything (or anyone) that cannot tolerate heat is removed from the space. If you are only dealing with a small to moderate bed bug problem, this could be an approach to consider. Otherwise, trying to eliminate a big infestation may be nearly impossible on your own.
Give the Heat Time to Work
The great thing about saunas and steam rooms is that, in an enclosed area, there is not one surface that won’t get exposed to the heat. However, it takes time for temperatures to rise to the right levels and spread through the home. Once the area is sufficiently heated, it needs to stay that way for at least two to three hours.
Since bed bugs are known to be fantastic hiders, it doesn’t matter where they burrow themselves into; the heat is going to find them and take care of them. Heat will also target eggs and nests, which can be really difficult to eliminate.
Professional exterminators have access to heat technology if this is something you want to consider. They will essentially create a sauna or steam room in your home to help kill the bugs, then they will help with the cleanup process. Professionals can determine if your home is suitable for heat treatment; if heat is able to escape your home easily, it’s not going to work.
Use Saunas or Steam Rooms For Small Items
If converting your space into a temporary sauna isn’t feasible for you and you have to go the traditional extermination route, you can utilize steam or sauna heat to help get bed bugs out of smaller items. It’s vital that the area surrounding these items is enclosed so that heat is able to get into every single fold and crack and bed bugs won’t have a chance.
Consider items like your clothes, blankets, bedding, and even books or small furniture items. Let them sit in a portable sauna or what you have available for a few hours before washing them thoroughly and letting them dry.
Conclusion
No matter how careful we are, we can encounter bed bugs and have no idea until it’s too late. While the sauna or steam room isn’t the solution to kill bed bugs in all situations, the heat has been shown to kill bed bugs and offer people some reprieve from uncomfortable bug bites.
There’s no harm in trying to use a sauna or steam room to eliminate bed bugs from as many things as you can and leave the rest to the bed bug experts.
(Featured image by Cicero7 from Pixabay)
