Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for November 18, 2010

There’s been some progress developing pheromone traps and sprays that make the males rape each other to death.

Just saw this gadget yesterday;

http://www.coolest-gadgets.com/20101117/verilux-cleanwave-sanitizing-vacuum-bed-isnt-clean/

Supposedly it’s UV+vacuum cleaner setup fries and disposes of the little varmints.

Or you could just live in a country that isn’t infested with bedbugs. (yet; I expect you’ll spread them)

If you tent the house for a 24-hour termite treatment, it generally also takes care of the fleas, bedbugs, roaches, rats, mice, and even some kinds of mold and fungus. Kind of expensive and extreme, but better than living with bloodsuckers.

I have one of those vacuums for the mattress. It’s amazing the stuff that gets sucked into the hopper. Looks just like grey fuzz until you look closer.

In his classic Hornblower series, CS Forester describes the captain’s common frustration with insects infesting his ship. According to Forester, fleas and lice were readily dispatched once the ship was in the open sea, but bed bugs were much more difficult to eliminate. As GT also describes, the critters are very good at hiding and getting around. Methods that are successful in eliminating other bloodsucking pests (including fleas, ticks, and tax-and-spend liberals) have only limited success with bed bugs.

Just reading this story line makes my skin itch.

“Methods that are successful in eliminating other bloodsucking pests (including fleas, ticks, and tax-and-spend liberals) have only limited success with bed bugs.”

I love the way rightwingers have to insert their lies eveywhere, no matter the forum. Anyone who can actually check facts for themselves, versus spouting Neocon talking points, can find out that up to the end of GW Bush’s term, 90% of the deficit was accumulated under Republican presidents. After JFK did the 1st real tax cut, the middle class paid a lower % of taxes than they do now, while the rich pay a lot less now than they did in 1960. The truth is the GOP is the Tax only the middle class and spend like crazy party.

While cooking your mattress might be good for it, putting on a bug-proof bag is cheaper. Then you wash the bedding.

Carpet is a problem, though. Might be a good time to go hardwood. Cooking the room is even more expensive.

Poisons are either ineffective or illegal, and not where I would want to sleep!

Hardwood floors are pretty easy after you’ve done a couple of rooms. I’ve done 3 rooms in my house and I get a lot of compliments on the living room floor. This is the snap-together stuff. There are several brands. Three things to watch out for: 1) get 2 or 3 different styles and mix them, one style has a severe limit on patterns, you get the same sawn pattern over and over 2) your floor must be flat 3) watch out for bungee cords when you unhook them, those babies really move fast and hit hard owie owie owie!

That side profile of Kim in panel 3 looks like a Picasso.

bedbugger.com might be of interest. That spidey person isn’t too well informed though; “spiders only kill other insects” is incorrect in three different ways. (spiders are not insects, they do not only kill insects, and bed bugs ARE insects).

No particular reason to assume spiders won’t eat bed bugs if they run into them, or the bed bugs run into the webs of species of spiders that spin webs to snare prey.

I wonder whether freezing would work.

Good trick in hot climates for miller larvae is to put your stuff in black plastic bags; leave outside in sun for hours. Might work for bed bugs in mattresses if you had big enough bags.

You not only need to kill bedbugs; you also have to get rid of the eggs, so they tell me.

And it looks like this is when we last see Mama Doonesbury alive.