Kill Bed Bugs With Cold
You can compare your insect to the pictures on our identifying bed bugs.
Kill bed bugs with cold. When it comes to high temperatures more than 100 degrees fahrenheit 37 778 c starts to damage bed bugs whereas 113 f 45 c can kill bed bugs in 90 minutes and 118 f 47 778 c can kill them in 20 minutes. Bed bugs don t go away for the winter they will stay close to their food source and try to keep warm. Extreme cold doesn t work to kill bed bugs but extreme heat will so we have learned that bed bugs are very tolerant of cold weather much more so than other pests. As for the low temperatures 13 f kills both adults and bed bug eggs in about several days.
Put an infested object such as bedding or pillows in a sealed plastic bag then put it in a freezer at zero degrees fahrenheit for about four days. Think through your treatment options don t immediately reach for the spray can. Cold weather will not necessarily kill bed bugs. Therefore the insect is vulnerable to cold.
Bed bugs resort to a process called supercooling to deal with temperature drops but are not not as freeze tolerant as some other bugs like cockroaches. Temperature that kills bed bugs a similar process can be used with heat. However compared to other insects the bed bug is not good at supercooling to keep the chemical and physical tactics unfrozen. Joelle found that bed bugs are tolerant to cold to an extent.
Bed bugs can survive outside for several days in harsh weather and without a host. But they also found that bed bugs no matter in what life stages they are and their feeding status can be killed after being exposed in temperatures of 16 degrees cold for 80 hours. In most cases the pest can die at temperatures that are lower than 3. Top ten tips to prevent or control bed bugs.
Make sure you really have bed bugs not fleas ticks or other insects. The researchers said that bed bugs could survive cold temperatures as low as 25 degrees celcius. The epa says that even at 0 f cold weather can take several days to kill bed bugs and almost a week when the temperature is 20 f. The study ultimately proved that the adult bedbugs could be killed by cold only through exposure to temperatures of 16 deg c or lower for a period of at least 80 hours.
Bed bugs don t form internal ice crystals and then thaw out. Instead they are freeze avoiders and produce their own antifreeze. Other experts suggest the required period is at least two weeks. What they have very little tolerance for however is intense heat.
They would need to be in 0 degree weather for several days in order for them to reach 100 mortality. That leaves bed bugs an extended period in which they are free to mingle and perhaps even escape your sealed bag.