Posted on 03/09/2012 6:55:20 AM PST by george76
With spring break coming up, travelers may want to make sure they don't pick up the souvenir no one plans to take home - bedbugs.
Bedbug cases have been increasing dramatically over the past three or four years, said Dawn Gouge, entomologist and associate professor at the University of Arizona.
"Pretty much everywhere where anyone goes on vacation is where you'll find bedbugs," said Gouge, noting that even travelers who stay at high-end resorts can be exposed to the parasites.
(Excerpt) Read more at azstarnet.com ...
Don’t let the bedbugs bite.
Once you have them, they are so hard to get rid of. You have to keep all your clothes in plastic bags and you have to vacuum every room, every day for months on end. If you overlook anywhere, you might have to start over because they reproduce quickly.
My termite guy gave me a helpful tip regarding hotels and bedbugs.
First, he said to leave all luggage in the car when checking in - don’t take your bags to your room until you have verified the room is “clear”.
To verify the room is clear, best way is to pull back all the covers on the bed and check along the bed rails, where the little suckers hang out.
One person trying to find a way to do that would get busted of course... Nonetheless if some group of people with the wherewithal to do something like that were to put its mind to the problem hard enough....
Two other things which work for many categories of insects are boric acid and diatomaceous earth, both of which are still legal and easily obtained. Spreading DE all over a house or apartment would probably put the kibosh on bedbugs, it would look funky for a couple of months and then you could vacuum it up...
Of course, the “high end” places would be infested. Rich liberals and celebrities are crawling with disease and vermin—
Adult and nymph bedbugs die within 15 minutes at temperatures greater than 113F and 60 minutes to kill eggs.
This impresses me as a great entrepreneurial opportunity for someone. If there is an infested room, move all its furniture and other things like appliances and clothing out to a truck that can be heated inside, while the room itself is being fumigated. Fumigation can often miss nooks and crannies in furniture, but heat doesn’t.
A few fans inside the truck will insure even heating so there are no cool spots for bedbugs to hide.
Dump all your infectables out in the interior of the car and leave it sitting in the sun shine.
140degrees for 4 hrs will kill them.
Harder to do in winter.
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