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decontaminting electronics
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Hi,
I have been giving this a lot of thought the last few days and have a few theories I would like to put into play. The trouble is that oddly enough I don't tend to see this as a problem in the UK and thus material to test is hard to come by.
I was wondering if anyone would be willing to send me some small items that they know have bed bugs so I can test out the theories. I would anticipate needing the items for up to 4 weeks in the warehouse with the view to developing a robust non chemical process.
Ideally I am looking for items such as personal stereos, portable electronics rather than laptops and DVD players as they will be more complex to send through us.
If you can help please email me:
Regards,
David Cain
Managing Director
Bed Bugs Limited
London UK -
itchyincharmcity
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Posted 1 year ago
Thu Nov 29 2007 10:27:51
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David, I have a VCR I was planning to get rid of as it is obsolete. It works fine. I don't think it is infested but I was worried about giving it to Freecycle or the Salvation Army or whatever because you never know. Donating it to the bedbug war would be perfect. But perhaps it will be too big to send to you?
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cosbear
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Posted 1 year ago
Thu Nov 29 2007 11:23:44
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Howdy David: This sounds really interesting and I can't wait to find out what your up to. I would gladly send something, but I just moved and opened everything up and made sure it didn't have any bb's. Now I don't have any bb's, I hope. If I come up with something I will definitely be in touch though. Later... cos
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Hi,
Thanks for the offers but the items need to be small enough to air freight to London and most importantly must definatly have an infestation of bed bugs. Ideally I need 3 or 4 different items to test the 3 ideas I have.
David
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itchyincharmcity
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Posted 1 year ago
Thu Nov 29 2007 14:24:05
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OK so like portable CD players, clock radios, mp3 players, etc? Wow it might be hard to find things that are definitely infested. Maybe you could take them to your clients' homes and load 'em up with BBs!
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nomorebugs
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Posts: 115
Posted 1 year ago
Thu Nov 29 2007 14:35:13
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Hi David,
Wouldn't sending infested items in the mail be a bit risky? Of course you do great work that will benefit all of us. Isn't possible to infest items by planting bed bugs on them , perhaps place some infected cardboard inside an alarm clock.
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Hi,
Two good comments worth replying to.
I would take items to clients to get infested but for one small problem, most of my clients don't have them for long enough to infect an item and as I said before I to date can not recall a single electronic item with a bed bug issue.
Posting bed bug items, well the simple answer to that is to use the same principles that I hope we all do with travel luggage. Protect it or at least use hard sided cases rather than cloth type bags. I have shipped samples all over the world and yes couriers seem to hate the idea of it but if sealed correctly there is no danger, unless someone opened the package and which case they would be a thief (or more accuratly a thief + bed bugs).
As for placing infected material into items again its not a natural occurence. Yes the alarm clock has bed bugs but it only has them because I placed then in there. I want to study the ones that decided to get in there of their own accord because if the only way we can get them into electronics is to place them there then the simple answer to the problem is not to place them in there.
Regards,
David
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I have a question.
If people send you contaminated small electronics and you learn something useful about decontaminating them, will you then tell us what you learned, or will it be one more in your list of proprietary secrets?
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cosbear
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Posted 1 year ago
Thu Nov 29 2007 16:55:17
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Howdy David:
I design and build custom computers. I've been doing it for 20 years. Also for part of that time I repaired non-clients computers as well. I have found spiders on the outside of computers a couple of times. I have yet to see a bug inside one. One person posted here that he started up his laptop and started typing and a bb climbed out of his keyboard and posted wanting to know how to save his laptop. I tried to advise but was surprised as to how anxious some people are about bb's in computer equipment. Not that it should be that surprising considering we are talking about bb's I suppose.
It's here if you are interested: http://bedbugger.com/forum/topic/1323?replies=24
I had a horrendously bad infestation in my last apartment and we did get rid of them but when I got ready to move I inspected and cleaned all six of my tower computers which live on the floor on carpeting and the two laptops we have and never found a bedbug or a clear sign that any had been in there. It would be easy for them to get in of course, but my guess is it's not a place they are interested in being. I was wondering if it was because of the rf frequencies they emit. That's why they use electromagnetic shielding on the chassis I believe. I have read that some bugs are sensitive to it. What are your thoughts. Thanks cos
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itchyincharmcity
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Posts: 262
Posted 1 year ago
Thu Nov 29 2007 17:48:46
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David wrote: "...most of my clients don't have them for long enough..."
LOL. I love a confident man!
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David,
This could be very interesting and I hope you will find some volunteers as well as share what you learn with us.
I would think that people would need to seal the item in plastic inside the container, since otherwise a bed bug could come out and harbor in the packaging, or even get out. (I also do not know a lot about electronics, though I suspect sealing something in plastic may be a bad idea since it can cause condensation to accumulate. I'd welcome someone correcting me on that.)
One woman was cited in the news (covered on the blog) as having one crawl out of a yellow envelope with paperwork she had just obtained from a hospital (I believe she carried it rather than receiving it in the post).
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mrbill0626
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Posted 1 year ago
Thu Nov 29 2007 23:01:26
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I could be wrong, but isn't it illegal to send stuff like live bed bugs through the mail? Remember when the anthrax was being sent through the mail and what happened with that?
Mr Bill
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I suspect that people inadvertently ship live bedbugs every day.
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OK, well you have to love different time zone , sorry if this is a long reply but I will attempt to address all main points in one go.
hopelessnomo - interesting concept, long list of proprietary techniques and skills, hmm I think what you mean is experience. Cant really help the fact that I was working on BB's when no-one else would do it. I would also point out that as I said I don't see enough of this for it to be even close to commercially viable. I was planning on writing a protocol that could be shared around, if I was not going to do that I would not have asked for help.
cosbear - thanks I had read that post and yes we have the same belief on this its a rare situation and I was partly prompted by the recent post and a personal interest. I think you are right people are anxious about BB's and it does often blind them to reality, it certainly appears to reduce peoples ability to actually read memo's and text.
itchyincharmcity - confidence we are not short of around here which is good because it appears to be a major ingredient in our treatment process, that and experience.
Nobugsonme - yes I had factored in for condensation but that also depends upon the route of transport and environment in which the item is sealed. For transport of infected items in post of vehicle I have found that 3 layers of cling film/saran wrap to be effective. In the last 4 weeks we have decontaminated about 60 cu ft of material from one of our clients, no electronics though.
mrbill0626 - live anything is usually on the no no list for posting if you are going to follow the letter of the law. Unfortunately without this ability we would have no BB research. The other year an incubator broke and cooked one of the main UK stocks of bed bugs with no survivors the research would have been delayed for months still stocks could be built back up. Thankfully we were able to restock them within 3 days from fresh collections.
DougSummersMS - exactly, when you get on public transport or bring anything into your home you are at risk, its a matter of making an educated and informed decision. A few years ago I had a string of infestations linked to second hand books. The source was allegedly a book seller who attended fairs and flea markets. I think 2 clients both had books from the same or a similar source but neither had the details of the supplier to chase back down the infestation line.
I am not sure what the outcome of this will be yet, as I have said I have not seen a single confirmed case of BB's in electronic items, cockroaches yes, they love the dark and warmth of appliances. I am yet to be convinced that they are a big issue for appliances but I am willing to decon something to test a few simple theories and hopefully develop a non chemical approach to dealing with them.
I hope that clarrfies that list of points.
David
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