Anonymous wrote:Dry cleaning does kill them. What you can do if you're going to the thrift store is keep the items in a sealed plastic bag until you're ready to wash them. I've also heard of people picking up bed bugs at non-second hand clothing stores, so this might be a good idea regardless.

Yes- this is very disturbing. A number of stores in NYC have discovered bedbug infestations. It probably has a lot to do with the fact that bedbugs are fairly common in NYC these days, so they could quite believably have been carried in by employees (or customers) with infested apartments or have had bedbugs migrate from the apartments or offices above.

I haven't heard of this happening in other cities yet, but public libraries across the country are having issues... for obvious reasons.

Anonymous wrote:Dry cleaning does kill them. What you can do if you're going to the thrift store is keep the items in a sealed plastic bag until you're ready to wash them. I've also heard of people picking up bed bugs at non-second hand clothing stores, so this might be a good idea regardless.

wait, from regular clothing stores??

We had them in December and used A Healthy Home. They were gone in 2 treatments. The owner is great.

Good luck!!!

Anonymous wrote:Ugh - I was just planning a trip to one of my favorite thrifts but then saw this message. Will dry cleaning kill bed bugs?

It is believed to, but I read an article recently saying that drycleaning in Perc. kills them, but that there haven't been any studies investigating whether newer, more environmentally friendly chemicals do as well or exactly what protocol needs to be followed to be effective.

Of course, you would really need to be careful how you handle anything you think might be infested before it gets cleaned. And I wish people dropping off infested and potentially infested stuff would use some drycleaner other than mine, because their buggy laundry is unlikely to be effectively quarantined before it gets treated even if "the drycleaner is cool with it"!

There should be a way to kill bedbugs in clothes in the dryer (read up on how hot it needs to be for how long), but of course, you'd have to keep things quarantined up to that point.

But yeah, bringing used items into your home is risky, especially if those items have been kept in the same place as a lot of other used items. And if the thrift store's workers live in homeless shelters or other infested homes themselves, that's another way bedbugs could have been brought into the shop.

Dry cleaning does kill them. What you can do if you're going to the thrift store is keep the items in a sealed plastic bag until you're ready to wash them. I've also heard of people picking up bed bugs at non-second hand clothing stores, so this might be a good idea regardless.

Ugh - I was just planning a trip to one of my favorite thrifts but then saw this message. Will dry cleaning kill bed bugs?

Anonymous wrote:Yes. We had bbs in our rowhouse. We discovered them early, and we were able to get rid of them. My advice for you:

1. Do not try to eradicate them yourself. Spraying on your own can drive them into your walls and worsen the problem. Call an exterminator. (We used Western Pest)

2. Follow your exterminator's advice to a T. If he says put all your stuff in bags and wash everything in hot water, do it.

3. Be prepared to live in bags for about a month.

4. Be prepared to throw out things if need be. We ditched a rug that had been in our bedroom.

5. If you don't want to throw out your mattress, buy an encasement that will seal the bbs in.

6. Don't be too disheartened by what you read on Bedbugger.com. I actually had to stop reading that site because it freaked me out too much. You can get rid of bbs. We did.

7. Good luck and big hugs.

I wholeheartedly agree with everything above. DH brought them home from a business trip to NYC (we assume). We dried then bagged every.single article of clothing, ours and the children's. Once those items were bagged, we either left them on our back deck (we found the large ziplocs to be great, in case we needed to see in to get something), or on tables in the bedrooms. We ended up tossing our mattress, as it was 10 years old, and our room was the only one where there had been evidence (DH and I bitten, exterminator found live ones). We got new covers for all mattresses and box springs. (our pest control company had much better prices on these. They treated, then put the covers on for us. We had one treatment. Then had to wait 3-4 weeks before unpacking the bagged stuff. They found minimal evidence on the first treatment (only in our room), and none on the second. This was almost 2 years ago. We went with American Pest Control as they had a 1 year warranty. All others I called, only warrantied a month, saying it was too easy to reinfest. Awful experience, but we got through it. We paid about $900 for the treatment and covers. This was for 4 BR and one living room (we decided to treat the sofa area too) SFH.

GL!!!!

Anonymous wrote:Yes. We had bbs in our rowhouse. We discovered them early, and we were able to get rid of them. My advice for you:

1. Do not try to eradicate them yourself. Spraying on your own can drive them into your walls and worsen the problem. Call an exterminator. (We used Western Pest)

2. Follow your exterminator's advice to a T. If he says put all your stuff in bags and wash everything in hot water, do it.

3. Be prepared to live in bags for about a month.

4. Be prepared to throw out things if need be. We ditched a rug that had been in our bedroom.

5. If you don't want to throw out your mattress, buy an encasement that will seal the bbs in.

6. Don't be too disheartened by what you read on Bedbugger.com. I actually had to stop reading that site because it freaked me out too much. You can get rid of bbs. We did.

7. Good luck and big hugs.

Same experience. A good encasement is a must - don't bother with those $10 things you get at Bed Bath and Beyond. A good case can run $100 each but that's when our bites finally stopped.

Also, I'm not sure how you can be certain you picked them up from any one place, although thrift store shopping is a high risk behavior. You're right that furniture is a more likely vector, but used stuff in general, and anything that comes out of a used stuff store, is risky.

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Thanks pps for the good advice although the first pp made me depressed. I have been going to thrift stores for years and never had any trouble. Obviously, I would never buy furniture there, but didn't think anything of buying t shirts and jean.

Sorry about that, but just think how depressed your next door apartment neighbors will soon be (if they aren't already). And the mothers of the kids whose backpacks rest near your kids' backpacks in school/camp/daycare. And please avoid the public libraries until you get this under control!!

OP here. Thanks pps for the good advice although the first pp made me depressed. I have been going to thrift stores for years and never had any trouble. Obviously, I would never buy furniture there, but didn't think anything of buying t shirts and jean.

Yes. We had bbs in our rowhouse. We discovered them early, and we were able to get rid of them. My advice for you:

1. Do not try to eradicate them yourself. Spraying on your own can drive them into your walls and worsen the problem. Call an exterminator. (We used Western Pest)

2. Follow your exterminator's advice to a T. If he says put all your stuff in bags and wash everything in hot water, do it.

3. Be prepared to live in bags for about a month.

4. Be prepared to throw out things if need be. We ditched a rug that had been in our bedroom.

5. If you don't want to throw out your mattress, buy an encasement that will seal the bbs in.

6. Don't be too disheartened by what you read on Bedbugger.com. I actually had to stop reading that site because it freaked me out too much. You can get rid of bbs. We did.

7. Good luck and big hugs.

Adding-- I'll refer you to bedbugger.com for generally well-informed, updated, reasonable advice and news.

The problem with "spraying" is that aside from possible resistance issues, bedbugs really live their lives in inaccessible crevices and can be really good at avoiding spray residue. In fact, some of the most commonly used pesticides actually have a little bit of a repellant effect because bugs can tell there's an irritating chemical there.

And of course, insect life cycle realities mean that any treatments (expect possibly heat treatments, which would be more effective on eggs) would need to be repeated.

Sorry to say you have a long, difficult road ahead of you, but your treating the infestation aggressively is much appreciated!!

It is very, very hard to eradicate them. I would worry that unless spraying is accompanied by meticulous preparation of other household effects and using a very thoughtful combination of chemicals, it doesn't usually resolve problems completely. And if other apartments are affected, obviously things get more complicated.

We escaped a problem several years ago by moving and leaving almost everything behind (and aggressively treating the few things we brought with us).

Buying used items can seem really green, but until someone figures out how to make bedbugs easier to get rid of, I really wish people would knock it off! Especially my (otherwise very nice) apartment building neighbors!!

I brought bed bugs in from the thrift store. I am having my apartment sprayed. I'm just wondering if the spray they use actually works to kill the bugs?