Thanks, that advice is really helpful, and green.

Because bed bugs are such a problem in your building, the best thing to do is contact a professional.

Ask if they use commercial products from any of these EcoSMART partners. They are 100% safe to use around your residents.

It isn’t the washing that kills the bedbugs and eggs, actually — they don’t necessarliy drown in washing machines! — so much as the drying. Make sure everything is heated to at least 120F for 20 minutes. (This does mean that already-clean clothes can just go in the dryer.) For individual items less than a laundry-load’s worth, they can be put into an oven bag and heated in the oven instead of the dryer.

And to kill bedbugs in electronic devices like computers & DVD players that can’t be safely heated, here’s what we discovered: Place the contaminated items in a large, sturdy plastic bag, cover with a towel or other padding, and place about 1/2 cup dry ice per gallon of the bag’s capacity on the padding, then squeeze all the air out of the bag (being careful that the plastic doesn’t come in contact with the dry ice) and seal it tightly. As the dry ice evaporates, the bag fills up with CO2… and, like us, bedbugs breathe oxygen. They suffocate in CO2! The carbon dioxide is heavier than regular air, too, so any oxygen in the bag rises to the top while the CO2 sinks to wherever the bugs are hiding. Since this method does NOT kill eggs, you should plan to leave items in the bag for 3-5 weeks and then dry-ice them again, so that any eggs laid will hatch and the hatchlings suffocate too. Of course all appropriate dry-ice safety precautions must be taken — never handle without insulated gloves (oven mitts work fine) and be sure the area you open bags full of evaporated CO2 in are well-ventilated so you don’t suffocate yourself.

Odds are that we’ll wind up re-infested at least once more, and we wouldn’t mind trying out EcoSMART bedbug control if that happens. Otherwise, we also have intermittent issues in our building with both weevils and those nasty little moths that eat food and clothing, and we’d really like to test out a product that would get rid of those without being toxic to humans or pets!

For bed bugs, the best thing to do is contact a professional to rid yourself of these pests.

When you contact them, ask if they use commercial products from any of these EcoSMART partners. This will ensure you’re still only using eco-friendly products in your home.