There is nothing worse than bed bugs. Bed bugs have infested our cities to the point that no one is safe. They do not care if you are below the poverty line or the richest person in the world. The only difference is a rich person can afford to get them exterminated while a poor person cannot and may have to live with them for the rest of their lives if they cannot afford to move out of the place they live in at the time. This is an issue in our society that pest control is something only wealthy people can afford while the poor suffer from bed bug bites every night. That is why cheaper treatments that take a bit longer were designed. A one-bedroom apartment is treated with an expensive heat treatment will cost you thousands of dollars, using the two-step method will save you thousands and only cost five hundred dollars for the full treatment.
Bed bugs were once eliminated in all of North America back in 1947. This was when a powerful pesticide spray was perfected and used throughout the country to eliminate all bed bugs. We thought they had gone extinct but we forgot we are not alone on this planet. While North America was enjoying being bed bug-free those same bed bugs were busy evolving in other countries that could not afford the expensive treatment and are forced to use other methods that may leave some bugs still alive. This is called bottlenecking a species and is the fastest way to make them evolve even quicker. This caused them to become immune to the treatment that was created, and to every other treatment, we tried. In 1997 bed bugs returned to North America with a vengeance. Now there are only two possible treatments and neither of them is easy. The old chemical could just be sprayed around the house and on soft surfaces and would kill the bed bugs instantly including their eggs. Now the eggs are immune to pesticides of all kinds. The only way to kill them is with a costly and dangerous heat treatment where your house is brought up to a temperature that will damage the house permanently. The alternative commercial option is a two-stage process separated by two weeks in which powerful pesticide and boiling steam is used to safely kill the bed bugs without harming the home. The eggs will not be affected but the exterminator has a trick for that. He will return, two weeks later after all of the eggs have hatched but the bugs are still in their nymph phase which means they cannot lay eggs until they reach adulthood. The exterminator will perform the second treatment which kills the remaining bed bugs before they have a chance to lay more eggs. This is a very effective method but requires a license to perform. Steam on its own is not enough to kill bed bugs but sunlight is. Strong hot sunlight, a day where the UV index has shot through the roof, take all of your things outside, everything that could be infested with bed bugs and lay them out in the bright sun for the whole day. The bed bugs are hypersensitive to powerful UV light and the sun can kill a human with its UV radiation. This will kill the bugs even if they climb to the very bottom of the matters because every hour you will go outside and flip them so the side they are on is facing the sun. This process will successfully kill any and all bed bugs but only things that can be moved. If you have wall-to-wall carpeting then you will not be able to get rid of the bed bugs with UV radiation.
