I'm in the wrong business (bedbugs)

[Airport Shuttle]

Also make sure you purchase your mattress from a professional company. There are companies out there that refurbish matresses and sell them as new.

[Red Green]

"h" wrote in news:i69dka$1ld$1 @speranza.aioe.org:

Wrong. Flat out WRONG.

If you believe that then I challenge you spend a few hours at a place where bedbugs are established. Go for it if you have the nads.

[Oren]

You betcha. Visitors in Las Vegas carry them home -- unknowingly. Likely those time share places and the critter hikes a ride.

... are you feeling itchy

[Tegger]

"h" wrote in news:i69dka$1ld$1 @speranza.aioe.org:

Calls to exterminators have skyrocketed since the carbamate ban.

You mean /you/ haven't got them, and therefore nobody else does either.

Call any exterminator company in the phone book, and ask them what they see.

Bedbugs live off blood. Where there is blood to be had, they can be there. They couldn't care less about dirt or lack of it.

[jamesgangnc]

Bedbugs can get through the stitching of mattresses and inside the mattress. Also through the areas where box springs covers are stapled down. The bugs are fairly flat and that enables them to slip through small spaces. They will also crawl into the space between the carpet or flooring and the moulding at the base of the wall. Do you have paintings or pictures on your walls? They will get inside those as well. You can't clean or vacuum these spaces. It's got nothing to do with how clean you are. Anyone can get bedbugs.

[Red Green]

"h" wrote in news:i6duvm$d0b$ [e-mail]:

They like to hide in the inside corners of bedrails, recessed screwholes in nearby furniture, where carpet is tucked under the base molding, ect.

OK so your kid goes to a friends house after school and they do stuff in the friends room - TV, PC, smoke weed, whatever.

Oh lookie here. Some bedbugs that hitched a ride on a backpack tossed on the floor.

[Oren]

Clean children go to school and get a case of head lice or pink-eye.

Check into a hotel room and bedbugs will hitch a ride home, even cockroaches (giant ones from NJ).

[gpsman]

I am reminded of the Hawaii Cockroach Rule. Dirty or clean, you're going to have roaches. Dirty ones or clean ones. -----

- gpsman

[Tegger]

"h" wrote in news:i6duvm$d0b$ [e-mail]:

It's /extremely/ difficult to kill those bastards. But carbamates did the job wonderfully.

They can and they do, easily. Believe it or not. They are /very/ tough, and they slide into the tiniest of spaces. A crack the width of a hair is more than enough for them.

You need at least eight-hours of 120-degree heat to kill them. And the huge problem with heat is that, unlike with chemicals, there's no persistency. Any bugs next-door to the heat-attack simply march in, unopposed, once the heat abates.

Environuts are stupid and selfish, plain and simple.

[Tegger]

"h" wrote in news:i6em7t$1m2$ [e-mail]:

Do you describe yourself as a a"greenie"?

[Red Green]

"h" wrote in news:i6e4ho$ner$ [e-mail]:

OK. They read this and now know the rules.

[HeyBub]

All the people on earth, if stacked up like cordwood, would fit in a cubic mile.

At the same population density of Hong Kong (which is making out quite well), the entire population of the earth would fit in West Virginia.

Of course living in West Virginia has its own problems...

No, the Malthusian Doctrine was discredited long ago.

[HeyBub]

It's pretty easy and they'll go for it in spades.

You see, there are many good and heartfelt arguments on both sides of the abortion issue. After weighing all the possibilities and permutations, I find myself on the side of the "Right to Choose" crowd.

The consequence that tipped the scale is that abortion reduces the number of progressives in society - similar to eating the seed corn.

See the "Roe Effect" for a full explanation.

[Ed]

When heating a room be sure to remove things that are sensitive to heat, expecially electronic items.

[Red Green]

"h" wrote in news:i6g2pv$l9j$1 @speranza.aioe.org:

OK, I have just one question for you...

[Don Klipstein]

By some of them being where the vacuum cleaner does not go.

By some of them being elsewhere at laundry time.

What about the boxspring? What about headboards, etc.? What about bugs in vacuuming targets at laundry time and in laundry targets at vacuuming time?

Scrubbable and polishable floors are not where most bugs of even most kinds will be in one's home.

Not much of a home's bugs of any kind will be on ceilings or walls, especially walls not having furniture close to them. And monthly cleaning is not going to do in more than just a few bugs.

With only a little difficulty.

Try telling that to even 4-star and max-star hotels in NYC and Toronto.

Fleas are difficult enough without aggressive treatment including chemical treatment of pets. (Flea collars do usually work at least fairly well, provided your pets wear them long enough to poison your home's fleas through a full length of their 5-stage life cycle, only 2 stages of which are parasitizing mammals such as pets.)

Bedbugs are worse by being on their hosts mostly when feeding upon their hosts, and at other times sheltering in places where they shelter. And they are mobile and they can find places to hide. Too many of them will be away from laundering targets at laundry time and too many of them will be away from vacuuming targets at vacuuming time.

Often, to rid a home or even a room of bedbugs, it becomes necessary to make every square inch of surfaces and every cubic inch of space in the whole place unsurvivable by bugs. That often means either fumigating the place with some serious poisonous gas or fumes or spray, or heating the place to a temperature that cooks every bug everywhere in the place.

[Don Klipstein]

You think a bug in a screw hole is going to get killed by dusting? Heck, a bug in a screw hole has some chance against a vacuum cleaner, especially if the vacuum cleaner has an attachment covering more than 3 square inches or having a brush!

Who scrubs bed screw holes? Who scrubs carpet, let alone weekly? How good is dusting a carpet? And vacuuming a carpet with most carpet attachments for vacuums won't even clean a carpet of fleas clinging on deep down (but will take some toll), and takes a lesser toll of bedbugs because unlike fleas bedbugs do not have a pupa stage where they are slightly-somewhat-close-to-adult size but nearly inanimate.

What about ways mentioned recently but not repeated here? Such as how bedbugs can find ways into mattresses and boxsprings to shelter in during the many hours that they are not feeding upon their hosts?

What is all the laundering, vacuuming and scrubbing in the world going to do against bedbugs sheltering inside matresses and boxsprings among other places other than vacuuming targets at vacuuming time and laundry targets at laundry time?

Fleas don't bother so much there - fleas spend more time riding their hosts during the 2 of their 5 life cycle stages that they feed upon their hosts.

Except for the ones that shelter where they are safe from vacuuming and scrubbing.

[Don Klipstein]

I would like to add that bugs have about a snowball's chance in hell of surviving 130 F for 5, especially 10 minutes. Apply 130-plus F heat long enough to get every nook and cranny and the interior of mattresses and boxspings up to 130 or upper 120's F for 10 minutes, and every bug in the whole place is a *Crispy Critter*. With 135 F of blown-in heat, I think that can exterminate the whole place within an hour.

Bedbugs don't go through walls too much. If the walls are ones that are not barriers to bugs, then there is merely a bigger place to exterminate at once.

[Don Klipstein]

My experience is that conservatives and rightwing-nuts on average have more rug rats apiece than greenies do. Especially religious conservatives, especially various fundamentalists, like to "be fruitful" and produce lots of offspring. On average, of course.

[Don Klipstein]

It is enough if all nooks and crannies and mattress interiors get to

130 or upper 120's for 10 minutes.

Electronic items that are not connected to power sources can take 140 F, with few exceptions. The main problem items for such heat are magnetic media (especially other than hard drives), vinyl phono records, aerosol cans and containers of volatile liquids such as gasoline or rubbing alcohol.

Also, get the place free of thermostat, motion sensor and timer switches making sparks unless one is confident that the place will be free of leaking/evaporating flammable/combustible liquids with flash point of similar or lower temperature (such as kerosene and some penetrating oils).

I don't think that is too tall an order.