This weeks Pop Quiz: Which of these kills bed bugs on contact?

The correct answer is 90% or better Alcohol.

Heat at 120+ will kill adults to eggs, but not instantly. In a dryer wet clothes take longer to heat up. Recommendations from PCO’s in the know, say 1 hour, plus 30 extra minutes if the load is 100% dry. I’ve been going on 2 full dry cycles, each is over an hour. A dry vapor steamer is a great weapon in killing them. You can use it on baseboards, furniture, shelves, but it is suggested to hold the steamer on each area for 10 seconds and you have to get up close (watch what you are doing, it burns!).

is (Dangerous) but not so dangerous you can’t use it effectively and safely without a lot of trouble. IMPORTANT – Don’t put it in or on your bed, your chairs or your sofa, or anywhere it would make the powdery substance go into the air where you are breathing, caused by “plopping down”. Here is a link about using this substance, DE Fact Sheet.

Check www.bedbugger.com and search for . It’s a mechanical killer and breaks down their exoskeleton when they get it on them by walking through it. You use the faintest dusting on baseboards, cracks and crevices. If you are working with a pest company, talk to them first about using it. One PCO recommended a blush brush. Using it in conjunction with caulking is the best course of action BUT YOU DON’T WANT TO CAULK UNTIL AFTER POISON GOES UNDER THOSE BASEBOARDS AND CRACKS, a RESIDUAL poison. Anyway, don’t get it on your skin, it will dry you out. There are different kinds of DE. You should get FOOD GRADE, but don’t eat it. Linton Feed had the powdery kind (not flaky) in a small bag, rather than 80 lbs. Depending on the growth cycle it can take up to 10 days to kill BB with DE.

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I THINK i see bed bugs, and I feel like I get nibbled on, find little tiny brown clingy things on my clothes (in my kitchen, right?) this bitey thing doesn’t happen anywhere else in my (and forgive the repetition) little studio. But lately, I’m giving consideration to whether they may actually be gone. Could it be? I am hesitant to be overly optimistic, but…maybe life can return to a semblance of normal.

Last adult found under bed 5 weeks ago, at 10 AM in the morning (1 hour before last PCO  treatment). It may have been hiding for a month under one of the flan dishes my bed legs sit in with Murphy Oil. And, I’ll just add, cause it makes me feel good, and safe, that I have had no bites in my bed since getting a new bed and isolating it, and being very disciplined about getting in bed alone, if ya know what I mean. But I still HATE LINT (and think we here should form a No Lint Society)

I’ll preface by saying I don’t have a dog, and that i discovered a tip of putting two rubber soft spikey dog toys in the dryer to combat the evil lint monsters. I also indulge myself NO MORE than two or three times a night pulling the covers back to check, because we know that could go on for hours, but that’s not so good in the sleep and rest department.

We suffer alike, therefore we understand, there are times when being a little crazy is way better than being all the way crazy. So I indulge this for now, and when it’s safe to let down my vigilance, I’ll get less crazy (i hope and so do my friends, god bless them for reading up on this and then saying “Holy Crap! I had no idea.” I thank them for taking the time to learn and acknowledge that lice this is not. If only a “poison shampoo and rinse”, and even possibly a haircut would solve this, you know it, we’d be there, and quick. But it isn’t how this works (and please post your stories, isn’t this isolating enough?)

Sensations in my clothes, face.. But no one can find one now. So, it’s the same question…and it’s a tough one cause our brains are on trauma mode and what is real has become even more…unsure. (please, Buddhists, I know, I know). Are they there, or am I so afraid they’re there, that my brain is acting like they are, and maybe they’re not, or…seeeee!

So for fun I happened to be at a local garden center and picked up a lighted 30X Microscope. And the bug I was certain I had just wiped up with my finger off my floor…..is bark, or wood or something that’s not a bug. Yes, it looks like it has a head, apple seed shaped but too small to tell with my eyes. So under the little light, and no bug. Maybe this will help me believe that what I see that are not bugs, are not bugs.

I’ve become Woody Harilson’s character from “A Scanner Darkly.”

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