Bedbugs on the Big Island

[DoryGray]

hahaha When I lived in a centipede riddled house, I put my bed legs on sticky traps. Worked great until my someone asked "what about the centipedes that fall from the ceiling". Well, ignorance was bliss for a while.

[missydog1]

Snopes says that the email going around posted by Larry T is not true -- about the new clothing, but the dryer method is real enough, and the problem is real.

Nice article on ways to avoid the problem:
http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/household/bedbugs.asp

I would paste it in, but it's long.

[AlohaSteven]

An update from the recent ESA meeting; notes on bio-controls and pesticide advances are found at the bottom of the article.
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/...dbug_today
Entomologists call for eternal vigilance against a resurgent foe
by Susan Milius, Science News web edition: 23DEC2010


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Baby Hummingbird
http://wimp.com/babyhummingbird

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[Bullwinkle]

I always wondered about sleeping on a conventional mattress on island. Seemed when I stayed in rentals on the Puna side - the mattress always a little funky due to the humidity, now with the appearance of bed bug issues a solution could be ...........

I opted for a sixties solution and bought a waterbed - a plastic envelope that can be wiped down when it gets funky when I furnished the house.

My feeling is that owning a conventional mattress in this high humidity environment will lead to problems sooner or later - having spent years living on a boat - I am well versed in keeping the sleeping quarters fresh.

The woof likes it too...........

[AlohaSteven]

...opted for a sixties solution and bought a waterbed - a plastic envelope that can be wiped down when it gets funky....

Well, that would eliminate one place they might otherwise hide (inside a mattress & box springs) and sounds good to me inasmuch as it accomplishes this much. Bedbugs, however, seem to be so-named because they tend to bite and feed on people while folks are asleep in bed at night, not because the bugs actually live in the beds themselves. Any crevice will apparently do, from nearby pictures hanging on walls to hollow electronic appliance casings (such as inside a TV).

If the lack of reports from the Big island is actually indicative, then it seems like we have somehow ducked the bedbug bullet, at least for the time being. How, exactly, given all the visitors traveling to the balmy year-round-insect-paradise of Hawaii from everywhere (passing through infested hotel rooms en route) and with Hawaii as the midpoint in a bazillion trans-Pacific flights, seems a mystery.

Perhaps it is not so much that there are few to zero incidents of bedbugs here as that those incidents are shushed. This article by Maggie Koerth-Baker speaks to that phenomenon:
Of bedbugs and metacognition
http://www.boingboing.net/2011/01/04/of-...metac.html

I particularly like the point "you can't just extrapolate—one way or the other—from a pattern. Instead, to know what you're actually seeing, you have to use the pattern as a jumping off point, to start looking for causal mechanisms and evidence. Just because something happened in the past, doesn't mean that's what's happening now. But the opposite is just as true. The only way you know for sure is to examine the specific situation."


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Awesome photo (be sure and click on it to embiggen for even vaster awesomeness)
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badast...e-picture/

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[TrevorKane]

@laniA

The homeless have less problems with bedbugs... No beds, so....

Actually, bedbugs don't infest you, they infest your bed / curtains, etc. etc. So even though the above was a joke, it is also very true.

[csgray]

I was wondering if the holds of planes are a vector of distribution for bedbugs with all that luggage crammed together from all over. My in laws are coming from the east coast after a brief visit with friends in California. Their luggage will have been on 6 planes and in two rent a cars by the time it gets to our house!

Carol

[AlohaSteven]

...wondering if the holds of planes are a vector of distribution for bedbugs with all that luggage crammed together from all over...Their luggage will have been on 6 planes and in two rent a cars by the time it gets to our house!

Myself, I'd rather not find out the hard way so in advance of their departure from homes on the mainland & Alaska I am asking all visitors coming to stay with us to please:

-at hotels, insert luggage in contractor-trash-bags, seal the bags, and then place them in the bathtub for the night,

-separately bag in plastic and seal for laundering any clothing which is out overnight,

-upon arrival, be patient while each piece of luggage separately cooks inside a black plastic bag set in full sun for a few hours. (Individually bagging each item of luggage in a black trash bag facilitates a higher temperature being reached more quickly than if two or more items are bagged together).

So far everyone has indulged me in these requests -and been glad to know some techniques for reducing the odds of accidentally taking bedbugs back into their own houses, picked up on the return trip via contamination en route in hotel rooms or luggage holds or where-ever.

My friends and family already know to expect a bit of OCD with me, but after they get the Cliff notes on bedbugs I think they embrace the concept of prevention as being more than just Steven being xenophobic about parasites. Actually, one visitor had already gone through hell at his house back on the mainland and was all for not only the measures above but also fumigating the sealed bags as well. This seems a bit excessive to me, but perhaps I'll change my mind about that if I ever need to do battle against bedbugs in my own home.

I wonder if placing packets of lavender-scented mothballs in one's luggage would be at all effective in discouraging bedbugs from hitching a ride in there?


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Awesome photo (be sure and click on it to embiggen for even vaster awesomeness)
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badast...e-picture/

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[Obie]

You guys need to google bed bug hype .

We have an invasion of little fire ants.Bed bugs ain't crap.

Soon to be island wide the lfa.
http://www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/oc/freepubs/pdf/ip-lfa.pdf

[csgray]

They have certainly taken over HPP. Everyone I know has given up getting rid of the LFAs and are just trying to keep them out of the house. But after hearing what a coworker went through getting rid of bed bugs after a visitor brought them into his apartment I will continue to take precautions. I can't afford to replace my bed or my furniture and I tend to be very allergic to most bug bites.

Carol