How to treat sheets and other textiles in a bed bug infestation?

 How to treat sheets and other textiles in a bed bug infestation?

Bed bugs are often found in beds, mattresses, or in crevices or shelters near beds. Although they can also seek refuge among the clothes that are stored near the bed, or even between the sheets. Among the sheets or other textiles they can go unnoticed and function as a source of new infections.

- How to treat sheets and other textiles in a bed bug infestation and Bed Sheets Product

Clothing and other textiles infected with bed bugs are not usually treated with insecticides because their use is closely associated with contact with human skin. So how can these types of objects be disinfected?

The most practical solution is through washing, although precautions must be taken when carrying out this type of disinfection, since not all types of washing are equally effective. In a 2010 study by the University of Sheffield in the UK, a number of practical solutions are detailed for treating bed bug infected clothing.

One of them is to wash clothes in the washing machine. For 100% mortality to occur in all stages of this insect (eggs, nymphs and adults) it is necessary that washing be carried out at 60ºC, since temperatures below this threshold do not ensure the death of all individuals. For example, at 40ºC, 75% of the eggs survive.

Another way to disinfect textiles is through hot cycles (40-45ºC) of 30 minutes in the dryer. Immersing clothing in cold tap water does not kill bed bugs, as the eggs survive even after 24 hours of immersion.

For delicate textiles that are infected by bed bugs and cannot be subjected to such high temperatures, there is the alternative of professional dry cleaning with perchlorethylene, performed by most dry cleaners. In case of opting for this last form of disinfection, it is very important to inform the dry cleaner that the clothes are infected by bed bugs, since in this way the accidental spread of the plague is avoided.