Got Bed Bugs? Bedbugger Forums » Tools/ideas for fighting bed bugs
"Bed bugs can't live in our organic mattresses"
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your host
Joined: Mar '07
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Posted 3 years ago
Thu May 21 2009 13:22:45
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If anyone claims they have a miracle product, ask for data on testing by an independent entomologist.
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oldtimer
Joined: Feb '09
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Posted 3 years ago
Thu May 21 2009 14:56:48
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I commented too... LOL
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spideyjg
oldtimer
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Posted 3 years ago
Thu May 21 2009 15:25:12
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Mine will never make the cut.
From Clark Kent.
Damn I got good eyes. These "microscopic" bedbugs look from 1-5mm to me or like a small apple seed.
What a crock!
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oldtimer
Joined: Jan '08
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Posted 3 years ago
Thu May 21 2009 17:21:44
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Well never one to miss the chance to educate, LOL:
Hi,
Sorry I think you have accidentally confused dust mites and bed bugs.
Dust mites are the ones that live inside mattress and feed on human skin cells. They can be associated with an allergic reaction that resembles bites. They are microscopic and most of the images you will see are either artists impressions or scanning electron micrographs.
Bed bugs however are larger, as others have said adults can be up to the size of an apple pip. They differ from dust mites in that they actually bite people and live on human blood. The bites can be particularly nasty and if not correctly and professionally treated than can be an issue for a long time. There has been a lot of media attention about bed bugs and how they have come back from near extinction just 6 or 7 years ago to become a major problem in most major cities. One of the best things people can do is to learn the facts about them and how they can either detect them quickly or avoid them in the first place. There are some great websites out there such as:
http://www.bedbugger.com
http://www.bedbugbeware.com
http://www.bedbugcentral.comI have no personal experience of organic mattress for dust mite problems but a simple and cost effective solution can be mattress encasements that allow the material to breath but contains even the microscopic dust mites. They are certain good for the purpose they were designed.
Hope that helps.
David
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Jay A.
newbite
Joined: May '09
Posts: 15offline
Posted 3 years ago
Thu May 21 2009 17:25:06
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My grandparents were poor and lived in the depression circa 1930. They had bed bugs and they had STRAW mattresses or something like that. Organic mattress imo is more prone to infestation.
At least my grandparents had DDT. They sprayed it on EVERYTHING even their bodies and they both lived long lives (well over 80).
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oldtimer
Joined: Jan '08
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Posted 3 years ago
Thu May 21 2009 17:32:39
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Hi Jay A.
I have to jump in on that one, the type of mattress has absolutely no bearing on the likelihood or proneness to infestation.
The fact is that bed bugs don't care what type of bed you have or what type of mattress you have when they decide to hitch a lift into your home or wander in from an adjoining neighbour.
More so though since they do not live inside mattresses as we politely pointed out to the blogger it matters not what filling you have as long as you as comfortable a nights sleep as possible.
David
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Jay A.
newbite
Joined: May '09
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Posted 3 years ago
Thu May 21 2009 17:55:09
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well that's a valid point. but being bitten probably at least 1,000 times I'd really like some DDT. If my grandparents lived as long as they did along with the rest of my extended family, I'd say DDT has got a bad rep. & should be legalised again.
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Jay A.
newbite
Joined: May '09
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Posted 3 years ago
Thu May 21 2009 17:55:58
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...and to clarify the 1,000 plus bites happened in the past.
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your host
Joined: Mar '07
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Posted 3 years ago
Thu May 21 2009 17:59:19
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Jay A. - 29 minutes ago »
My grandparents were poor and lived in the depression circa 1930. ...
At least my grandparents had DDT. They sprayed it on EVERYTHING even their bodies and they both lived long lives (well over 80).I believe DDT was not available in 1930. Some links to history here. But yes, from the mid-40s or so, for several decades, DDT meant most people did not have to worry about bed bugs.
It's not likely to be a solution again, but hopefully research and emerging technology will give us other good options.
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Jay A.
newbite
Joined: May '09
Posts: 15offline
Posted 3 years ago
Thu May 21 2009 18:05:38
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1930's-40's excuse my poor history. I just know they used the stuff and it worked and it didn't kill them or any other living being in their environment.
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oldtimer
Joined: Jan '08
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Posted 3 years ago
Thu May 21 2009 19:56:44
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Hi Jay A,
There were some studies showing that field based strains are no almost 100% resistant to DDT which tended to be a little over used even by 1940's standards.
The fact that any control procedure alone is itself useless if there is a constant source of new bed bugs arriving in your environment. The only way to solve the whole problem is to effectively get everywhere checked which can only be done through effective public awareness and fact based education.
David
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member
Joined: Jan '09
Posts: 177offline
Posted 3 years ago
Fri May 22 2009 0:13:17
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a quote from the "blog".
"The bugs will not and can not survive in wool."
nope, mine love wool. Wool coats, yarn, if I had a sheep...they just love wool. Or loved...
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versatil
newbite
Joined: Jun '09
Posts: 12offline
Posted 3 years ago
Sat Jun 27 2009 3:14:57
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I love how you all tore into that post. And how there's no responses lol.
Recently people have been getting fed up with my sporadic mention of bed bugs and yet the best I generally get is, "Wash your mattress and pillow sheets." Finally I thought I found someone who sympathized he said, "I have sweet blood, too,..." and went on to confused bed bugs for dust mites as this company seems to have done, "They feed off of your dead skin, etc.." and it was back to the wash your sheets nonsense =|
we need to be educated >_<
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cilecto
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Posted 3 years ago
Sun Jun 28 2009 1:13:06
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versatil - 21 hours ago »
I love how you all tore into that post. And how there's no responses lol.Bet the seller will delete them. It's sad how quick hucksters pop up to exploit a crisis. I've seen the overpriced DE sellers, the crappy steamer sellers and the "electronic repellant" sellers. I expect the house/carpet cleaning and overpriced locksmith scammers prevalent in NYC to shift to BBs anyday, now.
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your host
Joined: Mar '07
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Posted 3 years ago
Sun Jun 28 2009 1:17:17
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If you believe the organic mattress hype, I have a nice organic bridge for sale in Brooklyn.
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cilecto
oldtimer
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Posted 3 years ago
Sun Jun 28 2009 8:31:41
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Nobugsonme - 7 hours ago »
If you believe the organic mattress hype, I have a nice organic bridge for sale in Brooklyn.You'll probably have a line around the block looking to buy it, if you claim it "kills" bedbugs.
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oldtimer
Joined: Jan '08
Posts: 1,170offline
Posted 3 years ago
Sun Jun 28 2009 8:35:35
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Now now NoBugs you know us Brits have first dibs on selling bridges world wide. We still have a few more to sell off in London.
I would not say we tore the poster apart just made sure there was enough evidence left around to posts to ensure that anyone who reads it knows its about as sensible as the rest of the snake oil.
Its sad to see people jumping on the bandwagon with "converted or applied products" so often they lack the basis of the claims they make and certainly in the mattress related industries they still seem to find it hard to distinguish between dust mites and bed bugs. As a rule of thumb if the company you are dealing with can not tell the difference between the two they they are unlikely to be able to give you the service or product that you are looking for.
My principle behind becoming the first dedicated exterminator of BB's in modern times was to show that focus creates results. In our case it does, advanced methods, advanced pattern recognition and an ability to identify the source of the problem often within a matter of minutes of the inspection and asking a few questions.
I am glad to see some others walking the path but at the same time others have missed the plot and have failed to understand that if you don't build you house on solid foundations you become little more than a spray and prey merchant with a bed bug specific name.
OK rant over and normal service may now resume.
David
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buggyinsocal
oldtimer
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Posted 3 years ago
Sun Jun 28 2009 13:01:30
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And for the record, DDT harmed and continues to harm, even after it's been discontinued, plenty of living beings, even if it didn't always have a substantial effect on the health of humans. Yes, even in the United States. As I've said before, I live very close to a Superfund site created because Montrose Chemical saw fit to dump 110 tons of DDT (along with PCBs) into the the ocean just off the Palos Verdes penninsula between 1947 and 1971. The DDT spill is continuing to harm people today because of the fish who get contaminated by it and then get caught and eaten.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-palos-verdes-pollution12-2009jun12,0,1974319.story
And now the US government is going to have to spend quite a bit of money trying to clean that mess up.
Saying that DDT didn't harm any living beings is simply not true. Taking the anecdotal example of two people and saying that just because something appeared to be safe for them it's safe for everyone is faulty logic of the highest sort. In fact, the formal study of logic has a name for that kind of leap. It's a logical fallacy known as a hasty generalization. It comes from drawing an absolute conclusion from too small a data set.
I'll give you a non bed bug related example. I drink cow's milk. Lots of it. Always have. It's one of my favorite drinks. So did my dad, when he was alive.
I have never had any gastrointestinal upset from doing so. Neither did he.
If I then conclude that clearly lactose intolerance doesn't exist because it's never happened to me or my father, and we both drink plenty of milk (or drank in his case since he's been dead for twenty years), then I'm guilty of a hasty generalization. Coming to that broad conclusion based on a small amount of evidence sounds like a good, sound, logical approach, but really, it's flawed because it's leaving important examples out.
As I've said before, my experience with bed bugs has made me much less opposed to chemical pesticides. I still wish that non-chemical treatments were more widely available and affordable to people who want to use them as alternatives, but the nature of bed bugs is such that non-chemical treatments like thermal are not going to be available and effective to everyone. (For example, many people in multi-unit buildings are going to have at least one neighbor who is resistant to treatment, and thermal isn't going to help that person. As a result, it's just as important to me to have a good variety of highly effective chemical pesticides available for bed bug treatment as it is to have thermal available for the crunchy granola types who'll refuse pesticides all together.)
I think anyone faced with bed bugs who has heard the horror stories about getting rid of them longs for a quick, efficient fix. And it's easy to look back on the past with rose colored glasses.
It's entirely possible that bed bugs were easier to get rid of in the mid 20th century not because of the specific pesticides we had available, or at least not only because of that, but because other circumstances that we're not paying attention to made it easier. For example, perhaps habits that people had long developed because they were familiar with bed bugs made it easier to get rid of them. or at least was a contributing factor to being able to get rid of them more easily.
Again, even my crunchy granola self in the middle of my infestation --and I was lucky, I didn't have one for long--stood on my front step and begged the universe to bring DDT back if it would rid me of this scourge.
But desperation isn't as helpful in the shaping of policy as science. It's unlikely that DDT would today be the magic bullet it seemed to be then partly because plenty of studies from places where it's still used suggest that it's not that effective on bed bugs today.
There isn't going to be any one magic bullet that will get rid of bed bugs. What we need is a variety of effective approaches and a way to educate people including landlords and PCOs without experience with bed bugs and more of the general public about ways that we all need to work together to get rid of them effectively.
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surrounded
junior member
Joined: Sep '08
Posts: 79offline
Posted 3 years ago
Thu Jul 2 2009 9:08:21
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I think people are getting confused about what the effects of DDT were that got it banned. DDT absorbs easily into soil and accumulates in the food chain, where it starts affecting the reproductive cycles of living things. humans, birds, fish. remember the hype about the hawks and eagles' eggs that were so thin-walled that they broke and the baby birds were never hatching? DDT. If you live in California as i did, you will know that DDT was responsible for the extinction of the California Condor. A pretty amazing animal, it looked like something prehistoric, i mean it was HUGE. And if you dont care about animals and only care about yourself, remember that it goes into the ecosystem (humans are also part of the ecosystem) thru groundwater etc and spreads. Just spraying your house for bedbugs, if you live in a single family home or on the ground floor, can wash easily into the ground. Imagine what it does to the birth cycle of other things, like us...... and do you really want to find out?
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