Bed Bugs -- You Better Take Preventative Measures Now

@pustelniakr (Rich),

I no longer recall, but since we're on the subject: are bedbugs, like ticks, "known vectors" of any particularly debilitating disease(s)?
Currently, bed bugs do not transmit ANY illnesses. I have seen homes so infested that they were literally everywhere in the house (mentally incapacitated folks). The folks living there showed no ill effects. I do expect that they were severely anemic though. Bed bugs tend to engorge and hide until the next feeding. They don't tend to bite more than one person during feeding, unlike mosquitoes. Disease bacteria have been tested to not last long inside a bed bug. At least that is one semi-good thing about them.

Rich P
 
Currently, bed bugs do not transmit ANY illnesses. I have seen homes so infested that they were literally everywhere in the house (mentally incapacitated folks). The folks living there showed no ill effects. I do expect that they were severely anemic though. Bed bugs tend to engorge and hide until the next feeding. They don't tend to bite more than one person during feeding, unlike mosquitoes. Disease bacteria have been tested to not last long inside a bed bug. At least that is one semi-good thing about them.

Rich P

Whew. I've been wondering for a few years, but didn't 'sweat it out" as I did following the morning, also in the mid 2000s, @ which I found TWO effin' (Pacific Brown) ticks embedded in my ,um, loins... Got those two suckers (including the heads) out but I imagined they'd already "spat" their effluent into me. Funny thing is that when I removed (quite a few) ticks in my late teens and early twenties I didn't care one iota 'bout the potential for disease and nuthin' ever came of it (them). Or did it? heh heh...

Anyway, great thread Rich, folks need to know about the dangers (perils) of the ever-increasing (expanding?) Bedbug Infestation.
 
We have termites, carpet beetles, ticks and bed bugs. The ones that bother me are the bed bugs. I am close to activating a Vikane fumigation. Lets see what our PCO (pest control operator) is able to accomplish. Vikane is very expensive, only to be re-infested thereafter. We shall definitely be activating a preventative protocol from now on.

Bed bugs and ticks seem to share a bit of sensitivity to what is used on the bed bugs. We shall see. Our PCO says he can make us free in 6 weeks of weekly treatments. I am in hope.

Rich P
 
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130 DegF is the key. Not easy to achieve without special gear, which I have on order. There is no magic bullet, except maybe Vikane ($$$). I have a an integrated program in force. Let's see what is effective...

Rich P

Article says 113. BUT I know where you live that the sun shines hot and if something is in the sun it goes well beyond 130. I could do my mattress if it were me. You are living one of my nightmares. not been infected but am exposed when ever I travel. We keep our cloths in the suitcase. Plastic bag the dirty's and nothing hits the floor. If you have them in a room you can get them.
 
Curious, how long can they survive without “food”. Is it feasible to leave your house for 1, 2, 3 months or more to deprive them of their food and starve them to death and return after they’re dead?
 
Temperature must must reach 130 in all areas of the package for reliable killing. That means a good soak. Steam at 180 degF+ will do them right away. There is much I have learned. We ain't playing no games around here.

Rich P
 
We have termites, carpet beetles, ticks and bed bugs.

This thread has got me itching all over!

What about putting all your stuff in a huge industrial freezer- does that kill them and their eggs?

I used to have Digeridoos I bought for my shop that were made by Aboriginals up north put into a freezer for several weeks- it killed the termites/eggs if there were any.
 
Curious, how long can they survive without “food”. Is it feasible to leave your house for 1, 2, 3 months or more to deprive them of their food and starve them to death and return after they’re dead?
Under ideal conditions (cool and undisturbed), they can live for 13 months without a blood meal. Reliable departure would be for 2 years.

Rich P
 
This thread has got me itching all over!

What about putting all your stuff in a huge industrial freezer- does that kill them and their eggs?
Cold works, but they are not as sensitive to cold as ticks. Better is their sensitivity to heat. I have seen them subjected to freeze mist and recover.

Rich P
 
I was thinking for your record collection. You could have it put into a huge freezer for a period to kill the little buggers.
 
I was thinking for your record collection. You could have it put into a huge freezer for a period to kill the little buggers.
There is a product called Nuvan (DDVP), which can be locked in with a package, and let that sit for a couple of weeks. It is an organo-phosphate, and does not leave any residue as it is a vapor type pesticide. That is the way I will go to bring my collection back in after we have been declared "clean" and stay that way. I just hope that my LPs will not warp in the heat of a storage locker.

https://www.bedbugsupply.com/Nuvan-Prostrips.html

Rich P
 
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Since these little vermin are permeating so many places & objects now if ever I need to stay in a hotel/motel I would ask the manager to let me check out the room first to inspect for them before ponying up my dollars. Since they come out at night (mostly) :), you can look around the edges of the mattress for signs of blood. Also, asking if this is a new mattress & what is your policy in controlling any outbreak of critters.

Rome
 
Rich - we fought an unbelievable flea infestation when living in Little Rock in the 90s for two years. We exhausted nearly every effort to no avail. It was hell. Then along came Advantage - a few drops on each dog - and our lives changed forever, for the better.

Surely there has to be some solution in sight with bed bugs. Best of luck to you - please keep us all up to speed.
 
We got extremely lucky ~2 years ago. I found one in the bathroom that had jumped from one of my wife's patients to her scrubs. Managed to catch it before it got out of the bathroom where she'd taken her scrubs off to shower. We kept an eye out for bites and other evidence for a few months but thankfully have never found any signs of a problem. I didn't sleep well for a while there.
 
For the last several years I've heard several talk shows talking about how 3rd World immigrants have been the main reason they have been brought back into the United States I've read several articles also.

Just a real quick Google search pulled up this article though it may not completely blame third world Invaders being the main reason


Third World immigrants are being blamed for bringing the bugs back to the US, with 28 American states reporting recent infestations

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1450001/Tourists-and-immigrants-behind-US-bed-bug-plague.html
 
I use lots of different kinds of bug killers. Being kind of a bug fan anyway, I've learned what works in the mid Atlantic area. I use Home Defense all around the baseboards, under the kitchen cabinets (along with The powdered ant and roach killer Hot Shot). Outside I use Spectracide granular around the outside of my house. I specifically target all ant hills too. I use a pet friendly flea killer on my bed, which softens the exoskeleton so they can't molt, which should also work on bedbugs. If you put on thin coat of mineral oil/baby oil, that also repels bugs.
 
uh oh, a nightmare:

https://www.nwitimes.com/news/local...cle_fc04d922-7072-5a27-a044-b8f4df5a7b48.html
Tuesday, October 2, 2018 incident, published Wednesday October 3, 2018!!
GARY — Bed bugs were discovered Tuesday night in the council chambers during City Council, but no public explanation was given to those in attendance during the meeting.

After a man attending City Council was discovered to have bed bugs, Gary fire and police personnel ordered people in the first two pews closest to the Council Chamber doors to relocate.

Once the pews were cleared, Gary Fire Chief Paul Bradley, wearing bright orange gloves, worked with other fire and police personnel to take the pews into a hallway just outside the council chambers. The two pews were placed on red plastic sheets before being removed from the building.

The parasitic insect known as bed bugs can be transmitted from one location to another through a person’s clothing, luggage, backpacks, upholstery and furniture.

No explanation was given when requested. But after the meeting, a Times reporter asked Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson about the incident.

She responded, “Bed bugs.”

She said a man in the audience was “covered in them.”
 
Since these little vermin are permeating so many places & objects now if ever I need to stay in a hotel/motel I would ask the manager to let me check out the room first to inspect for them before ponying up my dollars. Since they come out at night (mostly) :), you can look around the edges of the mattress for signs of blood. Also, asking if this is a new mattress & what is your policy in controlling any outbreak of critters.

Rome
We had my 1979 waterbed. It just offered too much to the bugs, so it got disassembled and tossed. We had a new mattress and box spring delivered the day before our initial treatment. We put bedbug encasements on them and slept on the bed. It was treated as a part of the initial treatment, then we put brand new bedding on, and ClimbUp traps under the feet of the frame and night tables. When looking they like to climb, and the traps have pitfalls which they have to cross to get to the bed legs to climb. They cannot climb out of the pitfalls. This makes for an island in the storm, so you can sleep without fear of being bitten.

Prep was horrible. Most of the contents of the treatment area of the house have to go out. Some to storage and some to the landfill. We tossed so much of what we had. It really hurt. Once treatment began, nothing that has not been treated comes back into the treated area. Treatment methods, depending on what can be tolerated and how quick it needs to be complete: Heat, steam, vaporous pesticides, insect growth regulators, residuals, contact pesticides, etc.

For me the worst was the contents of my media shelving (vinyl, CDs, cassettes, reels, etc.) So many places for the bugs to harbor in. If you do not use seal-able outer sleeves, you better start using them.

Nothing from someone else's house comes into mine without treatment, from now on. Shoes off at the door and left outside. Backpacks and purses, etc. stay in your car. No sleepovers. One fellow recently had a friend of their teen stay over and the fun then began. Incoming luggage (exposure possible on planes, old folks homes, and in hotels): clothes go straight into wash and dry, then an additional dry cycle on high; the luggage goes into a portable heat box to soak at 140 degF for a while, or into a sealed ziplock bag with a Nuvan strip for 3+ weeks.

You learn to live in and out of ziplock bags of all sizes. freshly treated items go in bags, and stuff headed to laundry and treatment in their own bags.

My ground zero was my recliner and adjacent love set (I would sleep in those, since I go to bed much later than my wife). Only found 3 hiding in the corners of the waterbed frame.

To keep from spreading yours to others, freshly laundered clothes are put on just before you leave. Shoes are great places for hitchhikers, so they get steamed, brushed and polished. Our bags and purses are left in our car, and not carried in anywhere.

Our congregational facilities have been inspected with no signs seen, but that does not mean much. If someone sleeps in a location, discoverable harborages form. Where no one sleeps stragglers can hide and sleep until folks arrive. We signed up for regular treatments, and will be using active traps (pheromones, CO2 exhaling, and warmth), to see if we have stragglers. We want to prevent hitchhikers.

The two worst days of bed bug exposure are the day you see your first one, and the day you tell your first person about them. Hence, folks tend to not tell others, so they cause those others to unwittingly experience the non-zero possibility of exposure without their own informed consent.

The last teaching I gave to my congregation was education on prevalence and measures to mitigate against bed bugs. I then confessed that I, the pastor, had come down with them. I thought it might kill the congregation. We shall see how many ever return.

The day is coming when we will all have them, just like it was before the 40s and 50s. G_d forbid, bed bugs are coming to a sofa or bed near you, it is just a matter of time...

Rich P
 
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I use lots of different kinds of bug killers. Being kind of a bug fan anyway, I've learned what works in the mid Atlantic area. I use Home Defense all around the baseboards, under the kitchen cabinets (along with The powdered ant and roach killer Hot Shot). Outside I use Spectracide granular around the outside of my house. I specifically target all ant hills too. I use a pet friendly flea killer on my bed, which softens the exoskeleton so they can't molt, which should also work on bedbugs. If you put on thin coat of mineral oil/baby oil, that also repels bugs.
Stuff you can buy locally will generally make the problem worse. A treatment program is very specific and targeted. A variety of things need to be implemented as part of a system. There are no magic bullets, no effective repellants, no way to make yourself taste bad to them, no acceptable predators. As I said previously, DIY is NOT your friend in the case of bed bugs. Seek professional help at the first sign, soonest is best. They tend to stay localized unless you do something to scatter them, like locally available chemistry.

There is alot of misinformation on the web. I have been studying 12 to 18 hours per day for the last few weeks. My PCO (pest control operator) is actually a general manager for the company (short-handed, so doing field work to supplement). He says I should send him my application for employment. I told him I never want to see the words "beg bug" ever again.

Rich P
 
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