Housing group turns up heat on bedbugs

Vancouver complex to include 'sauna'to zap pests infesting belongings as frustration rises over cost of outbreaks
WENDY STUECK
June 17, 2008
The Globe and Mail

VANCOUVER -- Bedbugs can go a year without a meal, hide in tiny cracks and survive chemical campaigns to kill them.

But they don't do so well in heat, which is why a housing complex under construction in Vancouver will include what's been dubbed the "bedbug sauna," a room where furniture, clothing and other belongings can be heated to a point that kills Cimex lectularius, the common bedbug enjoying a worldwide resurgence.

The idea was born of frustration with the rising cost of treating bedbug infestations and the desire to find some way to get rid of them that wouldn't force people to throw away their belongings, says George Simpson, operations manager for RainCity Housing, the non-profit group that has ordered the bug room for a 92-unit complex now under construction.

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