Home: Pest Control: Zapper
Hot air furniture sterilizer   (+7)  [vote for, against]
The most practical yet!

Sometimes you have to discard your mattress because it has become infested with bedbugs, or fleas, or fleas that shoot bedbugs, or spiders. Yes, BUNGCO feels for you. If only there were some way to kill all of those parasitic inhabitants of your furniture without resorting to harsh chemicals. Or resorting to the other various schemes to accomplish this end that BUNGCO has put forth before.

The Hot Air Furniture Sterilizer is a large and durable bag which folds up concertina style. Unfold it to envelop the infested furniture. The HAFS has a hot air output and an intake. Air is heated to and held at 170F. Nothing buggy can survive that for a half hour. And the furniture emerges with that toasty HAFS smell!

BUNGCO asserts that all hotels should own a HAFS and use it pre-emptorily on their mattresses, if that is a word. Louse-prone school districts can acquire or rent one to sterilize couches and upholstry. The world will be a better and less bedbuggy place.
-- bungston, Nov 29 2015

Cover it with a tarp and... http://www.plus613.net/image/29286
[normzone, Dec 01 2015]

Hotels who might want to buy it. http://bedbugregistry.com/
A place to complain about hotel bed bug s and roaches. [popbottle, Dec 01 2015]

But how long will it take the hot air to reach the innermost recesses of the furniture? It seems to me you need to add that time, before you start counting the 1/2 hour.
-- Vernon, Nov 30 2015


// Louse-prone school districts can acquire or rent one to sterilize couches and upholstry //

Wouldn't it be simpler to put the kids through the machine ?

[+]
-- 8th of 7, Nov 30 2015


I've toyed with the idea of adapting a standard cargo container to do this purely with sunlight. (Dark painted container, double glazed wall and roof with trombe wall behind, something along those lines).

If you could guarantee insect clearance, there's a store's worth of cheap furniture thrown out in Boston every year when the colleges let out.
-- MechE, Nov 30 2015


Facts from internet:

Bed bugs die @ 113 F if held for 90 minutes.

Bed bug eggs Die @ 118 f if held for 90 minutes.

Bed bugs in a room die if it is air temp is held at 135 F for 4 hours. (The floors and walls need a chance to reach the killing temp and duration. )

There are fabric covered heated boxes for sale on the internet. Did not see a concertina among them.
-- popbottle, Dec 01 2015


cover it with a tarp and pump hydrogen in.
-- FlyingToaster, Dec 01 2015


" cover it with a tarp and pump hydrogen in "

(link)
-- normzone, Dec 01 2015


ah, but did they have bedbugs after ? I think not.
-- FlyingToaster, Dec 01 2015


//ah, but did they have bedbugs after ? I think not.// [marked-for-tagline]
-- Loris, Dec 01 2015


//Bed bug eggs Die @ 118 f if held for 90 minutes.//

Yes, but who has enough spare time to hold a bedbug for an hour and a half in a hot room?
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Dec 01 2015


huh? Just rent a big enough heater, get the whole room up to temp.

//Bed bugs in a room die if it is air temp is held at 135 F for 4 hours.//

Heh, with dry air and a big enough G&T I could sit in the room with them, issuing taunts about my physiological superiority.
-- bs0u0155, Dec 01 2015


Just proves "It is better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness" ...
-- 8th of 7, Dec 01 2015


If you have to go to such extremes just to feel superior to bedbugs...
-- pocmloc, Dec 01 2015


Everyone likes to have someone or something to look down on, and it's tough when you're right at the bottom of the pile ... ask any Democratic voter ...
-- 8th of 7, Dec 01 2015


I have been pondering a "clean" setting for room thermostats. Usually they go only up to 85 but perhaps a widget could be put on allowing higher temps. You would need to move the crayons to the basement.

An added benefit of the "clean" setting is that any excess moisture would be sucked into the hot air. Aside from the heat the dryness would be tough on unwanted insect roommates. On opening the windows a plume of hot moist air would be exhaled from the living space.
-- bungston, Dec 02 2015


// the dryness would be tough on unwanted insect roommates //

The major reason for the decline of woodworm in dwellings is the advent of central heating. The more constant warmth and dryness lowers the moisture content of the wood to the point that woodworm can't survive.
-- 8th of 7, Dec 02 2015



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