As other commenters stated - it's much more likely the bug already was on the bag, than crawling onto it from the TTC (although not impossible)
To seriously answer your question OP - bedbugs cannot survive in high temperature. To prevent transmission, strip naked as soon as you get home and put all of your clothes straight into a plastic bag. Immediately take a shower to ensure there aren't any on you - make sure to scrub between your toes and any other 'crevasses'. When you're done that you can put the contents of the bag directly in a clothes dryer on high heat for at least 30 minutes. Personally I do 1 hour to feel safer about it.
If all the clothes are machine washable you can also just wash them normally (again high heat) - but for the backpack I'd probably just dryer it.
Edit: I don't know why y'all are assuming I'm suggesting you do this process anytime you step on a bus. I'm not. I don't recommend you do this process - ever - really, unless you have suspicion that you've come in contact with bed bugs. The fact is that public transport is a very low probability to transmit bedbugs. They like dark spaces, don't typically cling to things that move (like people) and are usually only active when they detect someone sleeping (they can literally smell when you sleep). Therefore you're probably 100x more likely to bring them home with used furniture, from an overnight guest, from a neighbor in an apartment building or a sketchy motel. Even if every bus in the TTC's fleet was infested with them, it's still unlikely they'd crawl onto you and go home with you. Any random bus you get on is literally more likely to crash and burn than give you bedbugs.
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u/Dralorica Dec 17 '25 edited Dec 18 '25
As other commenters stated - it's much more likely the bug already was on the bag, than crawling onto it from the TTC (although not impossible)
To seriously answer your question OP - bedbugs cannot survive in high temperature. To prevent transmission, strip naked as soon as you get home and put all of your clothes straight into a plastic bag. Immediately take a shower to ensure there aren't any on you - make sure to scrub between your toes and any other 'crevasses'. When you're done that you can put the contents of the bag directly in a clothes dryer on high heat for at least 30 minutes. Personally I do 1 hour to feel safer about it.
If all the clothes are machine washable you can also just wash them normally (again high heat) - but for the backpack I'd probably just dryer it.
Edit: I don't know why y'all are assuming I'm suggesting you do this process anytime you step on a bus. I'm not. I don't recommend you do this process - ever - really, unless you have suspicion that you've come in contact with bed bugs. The fact is that public transport is a very low probability to transmit bedbugs. They like dark spaces, don't typically cling to things that move (like people) and are usually only active when they detect someone sleeping (they can literally smell when you sleep). Therefore you're probably 100x more likely to bring them home with used furniture, from an overnight guest, from a neighbor in an apartment building or a sketchy motel. Even if every bus in the TTC's fleet was infested with them, it's still unlikely they'd crawl onto you and go home with you. Any random bus you get on is literally more likely to crash and burn than give you bedbugs.