The Boston Public Library Has a ‘Car Wash’ for Books

Former bedbug fumigation specialist here (one of those sidejobs out of IT). This wouldn't be viable because every portion of the book and all the pages within would have to stay at the appropriate holding temperature for a good couple hours, and thicker books can take several hours to reach the right temp internally without the heat being too high to start damage to the book itself.

Bedbugs once they detect the heat will start migrating to the cooler spots in the book and some of them or their eggs sometimes magically survive the process if the holding temp isn't long enough. A stack of books ontop of each other can take forever for the internal portions to reach temp. Public libraries were our bread and butter and I will never set foot in one again because of what I know and have seen. Due to banning of appropriate bedbug killing chemicals bedbugs are speading everywhere I live when they didn't exist a decade ago and theres alot of places like libraries that seem to be spreading misinformation on just how serious this problem is.

/r/books Thread Parent Link - atlasobscura.com