Posted on 03/22/2017 8:03:33 PM PDT by HiTech RedNeck
I have a buddy in rural Illinois who is living with and helping out his elderly mom, and he likes to cook. He cooks up a storm. They both enjoy the food.
The house they are in has begun to display a very bad bedbug infestation.
Both my buddy's mom and my buddy are freaking out. They don't have a lot of money but they are about to call Orkin.
I stopped to think about the science of bedbugs. Both my buddy and I did a lot of online research after discovering the infestation. But I think I have a scientific theory my buddy doesn't have.
According to a scientific paper I found that describes a study researching the repellent effect of DEET (as in Off! spray) upon bedbugs, the effect of DEET is balanced against the attractive effect of carbon dioxide. The conclusion was, as best I understood the implications, that 10% DEET would counterbalance the concentration of carbon dioxide in breath.
So that's good news for bedbug sufferers who have to survive it somehow. 10% DEET or more (and the sprays get a lot more concentrated than that) and the bedbugs are repelled from a person in spite of the attractive effect of that person's breath. A pain, but better than getting eaten up.
But then I started thinking about that carbon dioxide. And the way my buddy likes to cook on the gas stove in the place. And my brain went BINGO. What is the nominal "wattage" of a person? 80 watts at rest. What is the nominal "wattage" of a gas stove burner? 2800 plus (10,000 btu). And of a gas oven? Not sure, but it definitely is a lot. My conclusion is that if a bedbug smells carbon dioxide and it's lurking outside of an old, drafty house (and been dining on the blood of wildlife up to that point) it is going to think one gas stove burner smells like 2800/80 or 35 people. Might that seem better prospects to the bedbug than squirrels and raccoons and the like?
I've been urging my buddy to look into having the gas stove replaced with an electric one (with the appropriate wiring being done if necessary). I know he isn't a gas-only cooking snob; he used my own electric stove contentedly for years.
But what would FRee scientists think of this theory? I tried Googling gas stoves and bedbugs just for grins, and haven't seen a word about it.
I wonder if pestilences freak people out so much that they forget to reason? To the benefit of the business of exterminators? I'm suggesting to my buddy and his mom that they replace the stove as well as (if they must, and vacuuming and local spraying does not do enough) getting the house treated, so that the bedbug population isn't inadvertently replenished from the great outdoors in that drafty house.
It wouldn’t make a difference, I have personally dealt with a bedbug infestation, it comes from someone bringing them into the house. Only a couple of insecticides work, nothing you can get from Home Depot, heat works as well but it has to be prolonged heat over 120 degrees for hours. The diamatacious earth helps as well.
My poor old aunt who lived in elderly apartments wound up with bed bugs. They were brought in from the lady next door hauling all kinds of crap from trash bins and 2nd hand stores into her apartment.
I wound up doing quite a bit of research on them because it was a real battle getting rid of them. Bed bugs don’t just come in from outside. They are carried in by someone from somewhere. Luckily her grandson in law is a bug guy. Took many trips by him spraying everything. Then almost everything in the apartment was emptied out and sprayed. All clothes, linens, etc were run through the dryers for 40 minute on high heat. They used bed bug mattress covers on the bed and diatomaceous earth along all baseboards. It took months to get rid of them all. Luckily the crazy lady next door that brought them into the row of apartments was evicted.
They’re super hard to get rid of. Good luck to your friends. Bedbug almost drove my poor old aunt nuts.
Then maybe global warming is causing more democrats.
Diatomaceous earth:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diatomaceous_earth
Boric acid:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boric_acid
Steamers:
http://m.wikihow.com/Kill-Bed-Bugs-With-Steam
Dry ice:
https://www.continentalcarbonic.com/get-rid-of-bed-bugs.html
See my post #24 for a horrible bed bug story.
Just thinking about what bed bugs were before they were bed bugs.
They had to eat something. Even in a full literal earth centered creationist view, the bed bugs were there before the people.
Set out a bunch of those foggers, seal up the doors and windows, and turn on the gas oven before you leave.
Problem sol-ved. No bed, no bedbugs.
Me too. On those VERY rare occasions I must stay at a hotel ever few years, I check this website (it is probably not totally up to date, but a good start in searching for a “safe” hotel to use):
Like the idea of using even more CO2 as a lure. Get all the bugs to gravitate to one room, then DEATH.
Philately is both interesting and relaxing.
This is how they take care of bedbugs in remote areas:
Bedbug Remedy Based on Kidney Bean Leaves?
Microscopic hairs on the plants stab the blood-thirsty critters, study shows
and
A New Solution For Bedbugs: Kidney Bean Leaves
It’s actually an old solution, which was mostly lost when bedbugs were eradicated. Now that they’re back, this natural remedy might be better than any pesticides we’ve thrown at them.
https://www.fastcoexist.com/1681875/a-new-solution-for-bedbugs-kidney-bean-leaves
Was she a crazy CAT lady by any chance?
The sheer volume of bedbugs seen in some places seems to defy the idea that they are dining only on people’s blood. How do you get all that bedbug mass? The crazy lady would bleed to death. I think there has to be a connection with other, warm blooded vermin.
I've lived in exurbia for a while now, on a largish number of acres, and NEVER have had even one bedbug. Spiders, ladybugs, stinkbugs, other nasty bugs too,but nary a bedbug; thank GOD!
Perhaps your theory is unsound. *shrugs*
Why couldn’t bedbugs evolve along with the things that became people? I can’t tell if the common bedbug is found in mammal nests/dens in the wild, are they? There are kinds that also infect bats and chickens, but these are mainly in tropical areas I guess.
Freegards
The plural of anecdote isn’t data. FWIW.
If co2 were at all an issue, gas furnaces would be a much bigger problen than a stove burner.
Well it turns out they DO infest other warm blooded critters.
The gas furnace exhaust goes up the chimney; not so the gas stove combustion products.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.