http://bedbugger.com/forum/ Bed bug support forums en Sat, 20 Mar 2010 01:08:57 +0000 http://bedbugger.com/forum/topic/33-infestation-rate-in-1930s-how-did-we-recover-so-fast#post-61328 Sun, 01 Nov 2009 13:53:35 +0000 buggyinsocal 61328@http://bedbugger.com/forum/ <p>I also remember reading that bed bugs were never 100% eliminated. However, pest control practices that were in wide use at the time may have held bed bug populations in check.</p> <p>That is to say, growing up in the 1970s and 1980s in apartments in a part of the country with epic bug issues, we used to have a pest controller who was hired by the apartment complex spray our buildings once a month or once every few months.</p> <p>When routine spraying of broader spectrum chemical pesticides was standard pest control protocol for, say, roaches and ants, there is some speculation that the chemical pesticides there held any existing bed bug populations in check.</p> <p>As pest control shifted to a more integrated pest management approach--using chemicals specific to specific pests--and as more bugs in general and bed bugs in particular became more resistant to some classes of chemical pesticides, bed bug populations were able to make a resurgence.</p> <p>I'm not an entomologist or pest control pro, and I might be misremembering, but that's the explanation I remember reading somewhere. </p> http://bedbugger.com/forum/topic/33-infestation-rate-in-1930s-how-did-we-recover-so-fast#post-61316 Sun, 01 Nov 2009 10:41:14 +0000 cilecto 61316@http://bedbugger.com/forum/ <p>Some speculations:<br /> DDT was persistent enough in the environment (hence the hazard to other living things) that eventually BB ran into them. Kind of like if you didn't take a flu shot but everyone else did so you didn't have anyone from whom to catch it.<br /> It wasn't just DDT, and BB, but the general application of all sorts of "broad spectrum" agents against any and all insects, in many parts of the house (as an added bonus, any insects you missed were eating your BB). Contrast this with more modern practice of placing roach-specific bait traps (eg Combat) in roach-prone locations, a technique that misses BB entirely.The roaches are toast, the BB get a free pass. </p> http://bedbugger.com/forum/topic/33-infestation-rate-in-1930s-how-did-we-recover-so-fast#post-61307 Sun, 01 Nov 2009 08:43:21 +0000 bugration 61307@http://bedbugger.com/forum/ <p>It seems to be widely accepted that the overall BB infestation rate reached horrific levels of about 33% in cities like Stockholm and London in the 1930s, and that through the use of DDT from the 1950s they ceased to be a real problem by the 1960s. However, I really don't understand how this is supposed to have happened. No doubt DDT was effective in those days, before BBs developed a resistance to it, but still... I mean, even if all of the infested houses could have been treated with DDT and completely freed of BBs, this couldn't have been done overnight and the re-infestation rate (given the background infestation level of 33% of all accommodation, obviously many times higher than in 2009!) of already treated properties must have been extremely high. </p> <p>Furthermore, as is often stated on this site, a large proportion of people (maybe as many as 50%) never react to the bites and aren't even aware they have BBs. Therefore, imagine all those houses in the 1940s with major BB problems that weren't treated at all and yet which could keep re-infesting other places (both adjacent properties as well as anywhere that the occupants might travel like subway, office etc).</p> <p>I also get the impression that at the beginning of the DDT era, BBs were largely treated on a case-by-case basis, as opposed to major city-wide drives which surely would have been all over the news. Imagine having to treat all the subways, buses, offices, houses etc - I presume they didn't do this back then? Yet it would seem that major city-wide drives in e.g. London would be the only way to reduce the infestation rate from more than 33% to a very low number by the 1960s/70s. Thoughts? </p>