Bug Bombs--Killing Insects in the Garage

[W. eWatson]

I'd like to clobber the insects in our garage. I did this several years ago with some bug bombs, and it worked pretty well; however, I was a bit concerned about the pilot light in the water heater, which I suddenly realized was on. I proceeded to open all the garage doors, and remove the bomb. In the next few days, I did find quite a few bugs who had crawled out from areas near the walls to die.

Aside from the pilot light notion, one needs to either remove stuff from the garage or cover it. That can take a bit of doing.

It occurred to me that since most bugs seem close to the floor why not get some sort of hose that has some fogging repellent that one could disperse along the floor, and between objects close to floor. A check at the local h/w store found none. Comments?

[zxcvbob]

Do you remember Shell No-Pest Strips (vapona) from the 60's and 70's? They are back, but a different brand now. I can't remember what the brand is, but the strips are unmistakable; you can probably find them at a good hardware or farm supply store. I used one last year to get rid of a moth and bug infestation in the loft where my teenage daughter had been living. (boxes of cereal etc left behind furniture, etc)

You might need 2 of 'em in a garage because they are generally not sealed very well.

HTH, Bob

[Steve B]

I would never use bug bombs from the perspective of being explosive, but also from the perspective of getting poison on everything. Buy some good poison, and use it according to directions. If you have that big of an infestation, you are either providing a lot of food, or are just in an area where there are a lot of those particular bugs present. The only way you can eradicate them is to put so much poison on there that it becomes hazardous to pets, humans, children, and passing school buses. Go with the lighter approach, unless you want the scorched earth scenario. No bugs, but where's Lassie?

Steve

visit my blog at

watch for the book

[mm]

If you think the garage is bad, try bombing the kitchen (and the whole apartment). Of course I left and didn't come home for 24 hours I think it was, maybe more.

But I did it once and it lasted until I moved out, at least a couple years later.

We just put things in drawers, blew out the pilot in advance, wiped counters off afterwards. Maybe we coverd the stove with newspaper. I didn't find preparation to be a big deal.

IF you find something, will it kill the bugs you want to kill.

[W. eWatson]

I'm not exactly infested. I regularly knock down spider webs they build around garage windows. They sure like light. I thought I'd just do this as sort of a late spring cleaning. If I counted the number of bugs I see walking through the garage, three cars, I seldom see anything. Sometimes a small reptile gets in but they leave. I've had two rattle snakes inside in 10 years. We live in something of a rural area with 7 acres of property.

[Kate]

I use a device called Victor Bug Killers. You can get them at Ace Hardware if you have one nearby. They come flat, and you fold them into a box. The inside is super sticky. I believe they come four to a box, and were around $7.

My brother had a problem with spiders in his basement. He spent quite a bit of money trying out different bug traps, and he swears by this one, and so do I.

You just lay them on the floor where they won't get stepped on.

Good luck.

[willshak]

W. eWatson wrote the following:

They build their webs where they will get the most bug traffic. The flying bugs will be attracted to the light and get caught in the webs.

[LSMFT]

Shut off the pilot light and do it again.

[Steve Barker]

the pilot light is not a concern.

[Steve Barker]

bug bomb are not flammable. and the idea IS to get the poisen on everything. duh. Here's your sign

[The Daring Dufas]

If you've ever seen the television show Myth Busters you may know the show has explored this issue.

TDD

[gpsman]

Bombs are for infestations/inaccessible areas.

Try what the pros use for "normal" insect control; Tempo WP, Tempo SC or Talstar One, applied according to label directions. The cheapest I've found it is on ebay. I use Tempo WP and Talstar around here.

If there are any feed stores around they sometimes carry Tempo WP in 7 gram packets, but that's kind of the expensive way to get it.

As far as any residual bomb "poison", once it dries there isn't enough active ingredient left to hurt a fly, but most if not all insecticides are perilous to aquatic life, so you'll want to throw a towel over any aquariums and take care to avoid overspray contacting ponds, etc., but that's all in the label directions. -----

- gpsman

[HeyBub]

Mythbusters did a segment on explosive bug-bombs. They set off about a zillion of them in a house and tried to ignite them with fuses. Nothing. Then they tried two zillion. Nothing. Finally, in disgust, they dynamited the house.

Probably made a fortune selling bug-free, used, building materials.

If you want to test this yourself by sacrificing one bomb, it should be a simple experiement to set up.

[Jim Elbrecht]

-snip-

Memory is a funny thing. Someone posted the youtube link to that segment. They got a small 'explosion' on the first go around with

11 bombs as the urban legend stated- then added more so they could break some glass. No dynamite in the 11 minutes on youtube.

You might want to do it outside-

Jim

[Steve B]

No, thanks. I do not like saturating my belongings with pesticide. YMMV.

Steve

visit my blog at

watch for the book

[Steve B]

Funny, an explosion was one of the OP's original concerns. Remember the OP? No? sigh ..........

Funny, there have been more than one actual cases where this has happened in real life, as reported by the news. And everyone knows that if it's on the tv or news, it HAS to be true. Right?

Funny, you might want to google "insecticide bomb explosion". About 24,300 results in .23 seconds. I didn't read them all, but there are many accounts of these exploding for one reason or another.

But then, you said that couldn't happen, so I guess Google, history, common sense, and the laws of physics must be thrown out of the window, because thou hast spoken. You said it, that settles it.

[HeyBub]

Good point. "Space Alien" has over 13 million hits, so I guess Google, personal anecdotes, and the like are proof sufficient that eventually all will be anally probed (some, evidently, have already).

[Steve B]

Couldn't intelligently answer the points I brought up, eh?

Steve

visit my blog at

[mm]

It seems like there might be more than one kind of bug bomb. I woudnb't wnat to rely on experiments done on some brand other than what I was using. Or some of the same brand made in a different year. And it is so very hard to turn off the pilot and tape the light switches.

[krw]

Why would you tape light switches?