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.
Friend, you had me at “weed”.
Pyrethrin is supposedly toxic to cats.
this science is settled... you are drunk.
A few years ago my uncle’s building became infested. When I pulled back his blanket I saw thousands of bedbugs. They were everywhere.fat red bugs crawled in the clothes he was wearing. It was like a horror movie and I still have flashbacks sometimes. It all started because the next door folks bought used mattresses.
Yep. Sounds like my poor old aunt’s situation. The bedbugs almost drove her nuts.
Eggs-xactly!
Bedbug eggs are tiny and almost as hard as diamonds. Some eggs have been found on a single strand of carpet fiber in a un-trodden room corner.
Chemicals will NOT destroy the eggs.
So, after killing all the adults you need to wait two weeks and re-soak with the chemicals again. In the meantime, if they hatch early and breed and lay eggs early, and/or some survive in some tiny crevasse and it is a bred female, then you really need to wait another two weeks after the second spraying and do it again—that is, a third time.
My father had a terrible infestation of them. His wife, my step mother, who recently died, spend several months in hospital and hospices before coming home to die. And they have an electric stove.
It is a well-known fact that hospitals have them, and it is a familiar vector for them to be brought into a house from a person recently hospitalized.
You should treat a hospital stay as you would a hotel visit.
Oh, and for the above on hospitals.... You can thank politicians vying for “Sanctuary City” votes.
All the vermin and disease we wiped out here in the USA is making a comeback ridin’ an illegal.
I help a friend remediate a bed bug infestation. you can get bed bug bombs from home depot. If they can go away for a day or 2 that’s likely the way to go. also dry ice to increase the co2 levels while pushing out o2 levels for a day or so will kill them and their larva off. since they don’t jump or fly putting sticky tape around the feet of beds/chairs can prevent them from getting to you. when trying to eradicate them don’t forget closets and other dark spaces.
Right, it’s like Roaches. They don’t teleport there. One must know that when you go somewhere with roaches (Democrat habitats. Seriously. Cities and ghettos) when you step on one, you kill the roach but that roach attaches it’s eggs to your shoes and comes home with you.
These bugs don’t just appear.
Just remember that a little spark from static electricity when you pull the key out of the lock when returning might ruin your whole day!
The stigma will probably (for sure) out live the bugs!
Bird mites are likely their first cousins.
Until you see a flock of several to a dozen in a line "surfing" the air currents above breaking waves with what looks like zero effort.
IIRC...that "good night greeting", is from at least the early 1800s, so yes, it's been around for a VERY long time. But I always said it to my progeny and now, to my grandson. :-)
Unlike you, I live in the real world, acknowledge reality, know facts, and have been more polite to you, than you deserve.
Get stuffed !
I think that you’re right about the purse. Anything used should be suspect. We always check the mattress and box spring of any hotel where we stay when we go away. So far, so good. Knock wood.
Best of luck to you, grame.
Bedbugs aren’t only in big cities; they are also brought to places by people who come from filthy hellholes in other countries; however, I get your drift and it’s clever. :-)
I hate cooking on an electric stove top. Put in a vent+fan with outside exhaust.
This thread made me itchy.
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