The West End, Yaletown and yes, even the Downtown Eastside. All suffer from two simple words, dreaded by most apartment-dwelling Vancouverites: bed bugs.

But RainCity Housing, which runs a number of city shelters and social-housing complexes, has found a creative new way to put a stop to those spine-tingling cimicidae. With its very own bed bug sauna.

The Lux, RainCity's newest housing project at 65 East Hastings, is equipped with a "bed bug oven", a 200-square-foot room with a gas boiler and an electric fan that pumps out heat. Infested furniture is carried into the "oven" and the heat is cranked to a whopping 60 degrees celsius for four to six hours. One trip to the bed bug sauna and voila - all bed bugs go to heaven.

It makes sense. If your clothes or linens have been infested with bed bugs it's not your washing machine that kills them, but the heat from your dryer.

Thinking back to when I first moved to Vancouver, my only familiarity with bed bugs was from the popular children's rhyme, "goodnight, sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite!"

Two years and two bed bug scares later, I find myself paranoid when purchasing used furniture and always bag any clothes I buy used and immediately dry them on high heat. I find myself longing for the days when bed bugs were just a silly fable.

Though The Lux has only been up and running for six weeks, the bed bug oven seems to be a success and RainCity is able to save mattresses from the landfill as well as curb the use of harsh chemicals.

One thing's for sure, with all the bed bug horror stories I've heard these past few years, I certainly wouldn't object to a bed bug sauna in my building!

For more information on the bed bug sauna, check out this Vancouver Courier article by Cheryl Rossi.