Comments on: don’t think you can fight bed bugs without pesticides

By: nobugsonme

nobugsonme — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 04:11:06 +0000

Ravan,

Your comments are not very charming, but I will respond anyway.

This post was written in Nov. 2006, when there were few options available as far as bed bug treatment. Thermal methods, and dry vapor steam were not as widely used back then.

Now, two years later, I am happy to say there are good methods we’re aware of that are alternatives to pesticides. I still think a good professional can do a better, quicker job than people not trained to find and kill bed bugs.

I encourage you to look into PCOs who use steam (perhaps coupled with a dust) or thermal methods. You can get feedback on those in the forums.

However, and I stress this: Brent Herbert, the writer cited in the post above, did not use effective methods of bed bug control, in my opinion.

By: Ravan Asteris

Ravan Asteris — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 21:36:51 +0000

I am as wary of pesticides as the next person. I am sensitive to them, and a recent neck-to-toe 12-hour application of Elimite (permethrin) for the treatment of what my doctor thought was scabies (it was bed bugs), made me ill.

Obviously not all that sensitive. Sensitive to the point of ending up in the hospital folks would know you for an idiot.

Seriously, what’s the good of a pesticide application to kill bedbugs if it renders the occupant unable to breathe, or so sick they can’t work? Are you nuts?

By: willow-the-wisp

willow-the-wisp — Sun, 20 May 2007 15:26:14 +0000

this is about Vasaline … a few people like me have temporarily used it as a caulk, but putting it into the little holes in the bed-frame can become problematical: this is especially if you want to use real caulk later on. So i can’t do that now, and must stick wit hthe petroleum jelly. This is O.K. but limiting. I’ve found that little bottles like hair dye bottles used for filling in the gaps in my metal futon with vasaline is easier than trying to do it with my bare hands.
I make sure each and every hole is stuffed with it. It can get messy but so long as I don’t disturb the matress too much it is O.K.
willow-05-20-07

By: more lousy advice about bed bugs « Bedbugger: your foxhole in the war against bed bugs!

Sat, 02 Dec 2006 07:31:29 +0000

[...] I posted last week about an article an authorÃ‚Â wrote on the NY Indymedia site about his attempts to live with bedbugs (he intends to live alongside them, and yet avoid being bitten).Ã‚Â He’s now posted a second article in the Portland Indymedia site, arguing that: Therefore I have isolated my bed. I am sleeping ‘tight’, and I just will not let those bed bugs bite. Bed bugs have trouble climbing the side of a metal coffee tin, which some people use around the bottom of their bed posts. I am using the highly polished slipper surface of a stainless steel bowl, since if bed bugs have trouble with a coffee can, I am sure they will have even more trouble walking upside down up the slippery slope of that stainless steel bowl. Inside the stainless steel bowl I have water. I have been considering adding some insecticide, but even water would probably be good enough. You see a soaking wed (sic) bed bug can hardly walk, due to the extra weight of that water, and therefore, since I have greased my metal bed posts with slippery vaseline, it seems unlikely that such an overburdened creature will be able to pull its soaking wet carcass vertically up that greased pole. I have a glue trap consisting of double sided carpet tape further up the pole. I am wrapping my mattress and box spring, trapping bed bugs inside where they will starve to death. I am adding on tropical insect netting, as an extra barrier. I will be putting a six inch barrier of fresh water Diatomaceous Earth around the stainless steel bowls (do not use the salt water variety as it is unsafe, and keep in mind that there is an inhalation risk when spreadin this substance). This substance cuts the shell of crawling insects and causes them to dehydrate and die within 48 hours. The bed bug will also be falling upside off that stainless steel bowl I am sure and landing on that DE a few times I am sure and getting cut up a little more each time. If need be I will pitch a tent, using velcro or duct tape around the zipper each night, since immature bed bugs are small that a pin head and can make it through a zipper. [...]

By: deb

deb — Sat, 25 Nov 2006 23:04:40 +0000

I can’t say this enough…I was born in 1948…I grew up on the South Side of Chicago…..DDT fogger trucks were a common occurrence in our alleyways..for disease carrying mosquitos and disease carrying flies…I ate delicious vegetables and fruits…that were probably sprayed with DDT…Nothing in my life has caused as much angst as bedbugs…if stress kills …then I will be dead soon…DDT was the most beneficial pesticide ever used…my grandparents were dusted with it upon their arrival on Ellis Island…my Uncles were dusted with it upon their return from WW II … Nothing green is going to kill bedbugs…In our overly politically correct we are paying a big price……bedbugs are something to fear…they are fact..not fiction…the fears behind DDT are fiction..not fact…this guy who thinks he can isolate his bed and win the war is naive…Please…we cannot live with bugs infesting our homes…..give us something that kills them..Please…Deborah