Bed Bug Treatments
At Knight Pest Control, our goal is to treat the entire accessible living area of your home—not just the bedrooms. While bed bugs are most commonly found in bedrooms, family rooms, and other areas where people spend extended periods of time, they are easily transferred throughout a home. Bed bugs are often called hitchhikers because they get on people and are carried from one room to another. They feed for a few minutes, then leave the host and hide in dark cracks and crevices for several days before feeding again. That’s why our heat treatments include bedrooms, living rooms, family rooms, bathrooms, closets, hallways, laundry rooms, and other accessible living areas.
We treat the Entire Home
Temperature
Time
Airflow
Monitoring
Effective bed bug heat treatment requires much more than simply heating a room and watching the thermostat. Every area of the treatment space must reach a lethal temperature. At Knight Pest Control, we work to bring every part of the room to at least 128°F, while typically operating between 130°F and 160°F.
Once the necessary temperature has been reached, we maintain that heat for an extended period. This process is known as soaking the room. The soak time is the amount of time the entire treatment area remains at or above the required lethal temperature. This is extremely important because even one cold spot can allow bed bugs or their eggs to survive.
Furniture, mattresses, wall areas, closets, flooring, and other hiding places must all receive adequate heat. Simply raising the air temperature for a short period does not guarantee complete elimination.
Throughout the treatment, we carefully monitor temperatures, reposition furniture, and adjust commercial fans to circulate heated air into difficult-to-reach areas. Our goal is to eliminate cold spots and ensure the heat reaches every part of the room.
This attention to detail is one of the things that separates Knight Pest Control from many competitors. We do not rush the process. We allow the heat to run long enough, maintain the necessary temperatures, and circulate effectively to provide a thorough treatment.
Testimonials
Why We Treat the Entire Home
At Knight Pest Control, our goal is to treat the entire accessible living area of your home—not just the bedrooms.
While bed bugs are most commonly found in bedrooms, family rooms, and other areas where people spend extended periods of time, they can be transferred throughout a home. Bed bugs are often called hitchhikers because they can be carried from one room to another on clothing, furniture, and personal belongings. They feed for a few minutes, then leave the host and hide in dark cracks and crevices for several days before feeding again. That’s why our heat treatments include bedrooms, living rooms, family rooms, bathrooms, closets, hallways, laundry rooms, and other accessible living areas.
Bathrooms are less common hiding places than bedrooms or family rooms, but they are more likely to harbor bed bugs than kitchens, so they are included in our heat treatment process. Kitchens are also heated as part of the treatment. However, because bed bugs typically stay close to where people rest or sleep, they are less commonly found inside kitchen cabinets. In most cases, heating inside kitchen cabinets is not necessary unless the kitchen is directly adjacent to a heavily infested living area, such as a family room or recliner where people spend significant amounts of time.
Our objective is to ensure that every accessible area requiring treatment reaches and maintains the temperatures necessary for effective bed bug elimination.
A successful heat treatment is about more than simply heating the air. It requires careful planning, proper airflow, strategic fan placement, furniture repositioning, continuous temperature monitoring, and maintaining lethal temperatures long enough to eliminate bed bugs throughout the treatment area.
FAQs About Bed Bug Treatments
On average, we are at the home for approximately nine to ten and a half hours, including setup, treatment, monitoring, and equipment removal. Customers should plan to remain out of the home until Knight Pest Control confirms that it is ready for safe reentry.
Here’s what the process looks like from start to finish:
- Heaters: Our heating units sit outside. From there, 18-inch and 20-inch ducts run from the heaters through doors — or windows if needed — into the rooms being treated.
- Fans: Electric fans are positioned throughout each room to circulate the heated air, reduce cold spots, and help the heat reach furniture, wall surfaces, flooring, cracks, crevices, and other areas where bed bugs may hide
- Target temperature: We carefully monitor temperatures throughout the treatment area to ensure that the required surfaces and hiding areas reach and maintain lethal temperatures. Our equipment typically operates between 130°F and 160°F, depending on the room, its contents, and the treatment conditions.
Room-by-room process: We direct heated air into each room long enough for the required areas to reach and maintain lethal temperatures. When the duct is moved to the next room, the fans remain in place to continue circulating the heat already built up. We monitor temperatures throughout the treatment and adjust the equipment as needed
Every room gets heated, but we target different temperature ranges depending on where bed bugs are most likely to be living:
- Bedrooms, family rooms, closets, and living areas: 130°F to 160°F. These are the primary target zones where bed bugs live and breed, so we push the heat harder and longer in these
- Kitchens and bathrooms: 130°F to 140°F. These rooms still get fully heated — bed bugs can be present — but we don’t need to push temperatures as high as the living areas.
Hitting the temperature is only half of it. We also soak each room — meaning we hold that lethal heat for a sustained period of time so it fully penetrates walls, furniture, mattresses, and every void where a bed bug could be hiding. Temperature alone isn’t enough. Temperature, efficient airflow, sufficient heat exposure, furniture manipulation, and attention to detail all work together to provide a thorough bed bug treatment
No. In most cases, you do not need to throw away your beds, mattresses, bed frames, or furniture. Our heat treatment is designed to treat these items along with the rest of the home. Your mattress, bed frame, box spring, recliner, and other furniture can remain for treatment
That said, bed bugs leave fecal staining on mattresses and upholstered furniture that simply won’t come out. Some customers choose not to keep a heavily stained mattress or recliner for cosmetic reasons, and that’s completely understandable. But that’s a personal choice — not a requirement of the treatment.
No. You do not need to move any furniture. We handle all of that. Part of our process is manipulating the furniture ourselves to make sure the heat thoroughly penetrates every area where bed bugs could be hiding. Just leave everything in place.
Leave them in place and simply unplug them. Bed bugs can get into the grills and vents of TVs and other electronics, so we make sure those items get thoroughly heated. Here’s our process:
Step 1: We leave TVs and electronics unplugged and in place at the beginning of the treatment so they can reach the necessary treatment temperature, allowing the heat to kill bed bugs that may be hiding inside.
Step 2: Once the TVs and electronics have reached the necessary treatment temperature, we either cover the TVs with reflective insulation to protect them from additional heat or remove the TVs and electronics from the heated area.
Do not remove electronics before the treatment — they need to be heated. You do not need to unplug appliances in the utility room or kitchen.
Leave picture frames on the wall — do not take them down beforehand. We will heat them as part of the treatment. Depending on the frame, we’ll either leave them in place for the full treatment or take them down partway through.
- Oil paintings and canvases: These get heated for a shorter period of time, then we’ll remove them and bring them back into the home after the treatment is complete to avoid any heat damage.
Yes — heat has to be able to flow freely through the space to do its job. Overstuffed closets and drawers can trap cool pockets and prevent the heat from reaching every hiding spot. Here’s what we ask:
- Closets and drawers should be loosely packed, not jammed
Think of it this way: if you pack a dryer completely full of clothes and run it on high for 45 minutes, those clothes in the middle come out still damp. That’s because the heat couldn’t flow through. The same principle applies here — heat needs to move and penetrate, not just sit on the surface. A stuffed closet is no different than that packed dryer. Even a Thanksgiving turkey works the same way — pack the cavity too full and the center takes far longer to reach temperature than it should.
- Too many clothes? Remove the excess, wash and dry them on high heat, then seal them in a fresh bag and keep them out until the treatment is complete.
We have a detailed prep sheet that covers everything specific to your home — David will go over it with you before the treatment day.
Yes. Any aerosol cans or combustible items must be removed before we begin. This includes:
Important: Always inspect any item carefully for bed bugs before removing it from the home. The last thing you want to do is carry a bed bug out on an item and spread the infestation somewhere else.
- Medicines and prescription bottles
- Small compressed items: Soda cans, carbonated beverages, and anything similarly pressurized should be placed in the refrigerator, garage, or outside the home before treatment. These items can burst if left exposed during heating.
- Aerosol cans, medicines, candles, and CO2 items: Inspect these carefully before removing them. Take them out before the treatment, and once the treatment is complete, they can be brought back into the home. They’re removed for safety during the heat — not because of bed bugs.
- Heat-sensitive items — guitars, LPs, VHS tapes, and similar: Heat-sensitive items that cannot be treated should be inspected, sealed in bags or containers, and handled according to the prep instructions we provide. Do not bring them back into treated rooms until Knight Pest Control says it is safe to do so.
- Firearms: Firearms may remain in the home but must be unloaded. Ammunition must be removed from the firearm and stored as directed before treatment. No loaded firearms may remain during treatment.
- Loose photos: Photos are heat-sensitive and need to be inspected carefully and removed from the home before treatment.
- Lighters, candles, and similar items
Kitchens are included in the treatment, although bed bugs are less commonly found there than in bedrooms and living areas. Items may usually remain inside cabinets unless we instruct you otherwise. Before treatment, remove heat-sensitive items from the counters, including wine bottles, chocolate, and soap.
Bathrooms are included in the treatment. We direct and circulate heat throughout the room, open cabinet doors as appropriate, and monitor temperatures to ensure the necessary areas receive adequate heat.
Before the treatment, remove the following from the bathroom:
- All aerosol cans, including hairspray and deodorant
- Lotions and liquid cosmetics
- Fingernail polish and remover
- Any other pressurized or heat-sensitive items
These items need to be out of the house—not just moved to another room—before treatment begins.
Bed bugs can be transferred to vehicles. Upon request, we can chemically treat your vehicle as part of the service.
- Items in the car: Before treatment, bag papers, bags, and other removable items from the vehicle and bring them into the home so they can be heat-treated with the rest of your belongings.
- Shop vac the vehicle: Before treatment, thoroughly vacuum the seats, flooring, trunk, and crevices. Empty the vacuum outdoors immediately afterward.
- Remove personal items: Remove personal belongings from the vehicle before treatment.
- Chemical treatment: If requested, we can chemically treat the vehicle while the home is being heat-treated. Allow approximately 12 hours for the treatment to dry before using the vehicle.
