The horror of moving when you have bed bugs.

So, it's an unbelievable pain to move apartments when you have bed bugs.

Since I don't have money for pesticides, I have to cleanse all my stuff to make sure I don't take any bed bugs or eggs with me.

For clothes, I can wash and put them directly into clean garbage bags that are rubberbanded, and spray them on the outside with rubbing alcohol in the off chance that any bugs or eggs are on the plastic.

For furniture etc., I can spray them down thoroughly with rubbing alcohol till it drips off, since that should kill bed bugs on contact as well as dry out any eggs.

With personal possessions like books, however, it gets trickier.

Bed bugs and eggs will die if they're below 0 degrees (Fahrenheit!) for 4 days straight, or above 120 degrees for 90 minutes.

Or, newly hatched bed bugs will die in 3-4 months without food, and adults after a year.

So, I bought 2 plastic bins at Target, along with a bunch of black Halloween napkins.  I taped up the black napkins on the sides of the bins, loaded some books in, and put it out on the back fire escape where the bins will be in direct sunlight; ideally, as I've read, on very hot days the heat will be trapped if the bin is in direct sunlight, and the internal temp will reach above 120 for at least 90 minutes.

I also got a thermometer and put it in the bin where I can see it without opening, but the weather's been cool and cloudy, so the temp in the bin hasn't been more than 10-12 degrees above the air temp.

I guess if there's not enough hot and sunny days before I move, I can always get seal-tight bins and keep them in my new apartment and freeze or heat the stuff as weather allows over the next year, or just not open the seal tight bins for a year until all the bugs starve and I'm safe again to use those possessions.