Bed bugs are taking over

RosiesMaw

There are a heck of a lot more nits and headlice among middle class children from immaculate homes! 🐜 🕷 🐞

I'm itching already!!

There are a heck of a lot more nits and headlice among middle class children from immaculate homes! 🐜 🕷 🐞

Caravansera

I agree. One bug spotted on a man's trouser leg on the Tube extrapolated into London is crawling with them.

My point exactly.

Caravansera

I don't understand what is is that you are panicking about. These creatures are harmless.

Prof Robert Smith of the University of Huddersfield said that people should not be too alarmed by increased reports of bed bugs as these were likely to “reflect widespread media coverage over the last week or so” rather than an invasion from Paris.

Don’t panic if you think you have bed bugs. The thought of these bloodsuckers might be unpleasant, but they don’t carry or spread any human diseases as far as we know. The NHS website has good advice about what to look for and what to do,” he said.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/oct/10/bedbugs-real-source-concern-london-transport-sadiq-khan

Would you behave like this if you saw a tick on a dog?

I couldn’t agree more 🤷‍♀️ Yes, they’re a bugger to have in the home. But in the 16 yrs we lived with them I never saw one anywhere but bedrooms.
I hated the cockroaches more than the bugs 😱

Caravansera

I don't understand what is is that you are panicking about. These creatures are harmless.

Prof Robert Smith of the University of Huddersfield said that people should not be too alarmed by increased reports of bed bugs as these were likely to “reflect widespread media coverage over the last week or so” rather than an invasion from Paris.

Don’t panic if you think you have bed bugs. The thought of these bloodsuckers might be unpleasant, but they don’t carry or spread any human diseases as far as we know. The NHS website has good advice about what to look for and what to do,” he said.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/oct/10/bedbugs-real-source-concern-london-transport-sadiq-khan

Would you behave like this if you saw a tick on a dog?

I’m still traumatised by finding a tick on both me and my dog a couple of years ago! Although I must admit that ticks are far more dangerous than bed bugs. My partner has just had to start a course of antibiotics after being bitten on his arm by something. He reacts really badly to insect bites.

I've seen a tick on a cat and dealt with it. But have never been near bed bugs. I wouldn't call it 'panic' more disgust and horror. Harmless they may be but I really wouldn't want them to come home with me, settle in and invade my mattress. Maybe you are okay living with them, but I'm not. 😏

I took a bus ride today - and didn't sit down, just in case. It was only a couple of stops but I noticed a few other people standing too.

Living in London and only ever seeing one bedbug (from a cab ride) I'm not in a panic. I have pets but never had a problem with fleas either (thanks to the DE).

It's gardening, especially at ground level, that's been a real problem. In late summer/autumn, tiny itchy bites and an allergic reaction if I don't use the tropical repellent. My GP thought harvest mites were to blame. They must be tiny as I've yet to see one. (Itchy now, just reading this.)

the radio news on this today was pretty ridiculous I thought when the other story running alongside it was about what is happening in Israel and the Gaza strip. I'm sure if the bed bugs come we will all be able to cope with getting rid of hem

I don't understand what is is that you are panicking about. These creatures are harmless.

Prof Robert Smith of the University of Huddersfield said that people should not be too alarmed by increased reports of bed bugs as these were likely to “reflect widespread media coverage over the last week or so” rather than an invasion from Paris.

Don’t panic if you think you have bed bugs. The thought of these bloodsuckers might be unpleasant, but they don’t carry or spread any human diseases as far as we know. The NHS website has good advice about what to look for and what to do,” he said.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/oct/10/bedbugs-real-source-concern-london-transport-sadiq-khan

Would you behave like this if you saw a tick on a dog?

I'm sorry? If I sat on the tube and saw a bed bug crawling on me I would be horrified. It rather does indicate they are everywhere. I was born and raised in London and travelled by tube every day but I never saw anything moving apart from the passengers. There was also one shown crawling on the seat. There is a problem, and some people just don't want to admit it.

I agree. One bug spotted on a man's trouser leg on the Tube extrapolated into London is crawling with them.

London is NOT “crawling with bedbugs”
They are NOT “taking over”
Could we have a little less hysteria and a little more perspective?
If “panic is spreading” I haven’t been aware of it. And how does panic spread anyway ? Social media, gutter press, word of mouth have a lot to answer for.
Remember Henny Penny?

One day Henny Penny is pecking corn in the farmyard when – whack! An acorn falls on her head. She believes that the sky is falling and decides to go and tell the King. On her way to the King she meets many animal friends like Cocky-Locky, Ducky-Lucky, Goosey-Loosey and Turkey-Lurkey. Then Foxy-Loxy offers to show them a short route to the King and one-by-one they head underground
This English version of the famous story started as an oral folktale. The earliest example of the basic story is twenty-five centuries old and found in India in the Jataka Tales where a hare spreads panic after a fruit falls on him, teaching that everyone needs to think for themselves

Just been reading about dust mites, and apparently there are about a million of those in your mattress. I wonder how they get on with the bed bugs. It says high frequency sound can disrupt the reproductive cycles, using an ultrasonic dust mite controller which is inaudible to humans and make them move out!

There has been advice to boil your bed linen,

If the bugs are in your mattress surely they will just climb back onto your just boiled sheets,
so is there any point to boil your bed linen?

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Oh & the video did show those trays that are supposed to attract them don’t work, all the bugs were in the opposite corner 😩so I wouldn’t waste your money.. good old fashioned cleaning is the way to notice if you have them or not.

I watched some videos on YouTube, said to steam clean beds & carpets, plus spray with diatomaceous earth, especially around skirtings & bed legs is best. They are becoming immune to insecticides. I would die if I ever got those in my home! Bad enough seeing carpet beetles every now & then (diatomaceous earth good for those critters as well). First thing I do on holiday is put my case in the bathroom & check the corners of the mattress.. luckily never seen any so far.. off to London next month & already nervous in case we pick any up 😩

Yes, WWM, I’ve always remembered that scene from the L-Shaped Room. Keep a torch & a wet bar of soap near the bed, it might work as well as anything else?

Mirran
I’m not a forefather but I live with them on and off for 16 years. That ended in 1962 when we moved into a new house.
If anyone does get an infestation check your clothes and bag before you leave the house. You get used to it 😉

@WhitewaveMark2

The L-Shaped Room

Chestnut

Caravansera We also have millions of people arriving from all sorts of places across the world, both legally and illegally, carrying goodness knows what with them. In London some of them are living in very cramped conditions, working day and night and sleeping in shifts in the same beds. The bed bugs can move around quite freely.

The Latin name is Cimicidae Lectularis.

Cimicidae is a parasitic bug that feeds on the blood of animals. Lectularis means of the bed or couch. It’s a bit of a misnomer. It just means that they are nocturnal creatures and prefer to feed in the dark when the host is more likely to be sleeping. That could be any animal not just humans and could just as easily happen in a cave or a stable or a sleeping car on a train or when the lights are turned down on a plane.

So long as they have one host to drink blood from, the females will keep laying eggs until they hibernate and eventually die. Close living conditions and shared bedding have little to do with it.

As I said upthread, the most common place to hide is behind the headboard of a bed. A bug will come out in the dark, feed and find cover. It could be in a travel bag, up the sleeve of a jacket or the leg of a pair of trousers where it will hitch a ride to a new location.

Mass tourism is the main culprit so that the bugs can travel from place to place just as mass tourism was partially responsible for the initial spread of Covid from country to country.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_on_cruise_ships

I remember staying at my boyfriends house in the 70s, I woke in the morning covered in red raised lumps with a red spot in the middle, it was agony and itched like crazy, my boyfriend took me to A & E and I was told they were bed bug bites!!!! talk about being horrified. We checked the bed in the dark and using torches and the bed was crawling with them
We got rid of all his bedding and burnt the mattress and washed the base and bed legs with Parrafin , which my nan recommended.

I never slept there again and got no more bites..yuck yuck...

Bed bugs , fleas and other parasites have been with us since time immemorial.
We managed to get on top of infestations using DDT. This has now been banned ( quite rightly) so all the nasty little critters are on the rise.
Their presence is often nothing to do with dirt. Bed bugs are very good at finding human hosts. They don't jump though.
They are about the size of a grain of rice so can easily be seen and you can also see the blood spots they leave behind.
They don't usually spread disease but the bites , for those unfortunates like me who react badly, are intensly itchy . Not everyone reacts though.
I think it's probably something we are going to have to learn to live with again, just like all our forefathers.
An unpleasant thought but I think it's our future.

I read that the smell of lavender helps to deter them. That scent disrupts something in their senses( can't remember exactly what, sorry) and so they can't find each other. I will be looking for lavender sachets for the bedroom and wardrobes.

Wash anything that can stand it at 90 degrees rather than 60, as I suspect bed-bugs like body and hair lice can survive a 60 degree wash cycle quite happily.

The real problem here is what to do with your mattresses!

I don't think hoovering them will be enough and honestly we cannot afford to buy new mattresses all the time, can we?

Fitted carpets probably habour these beasts too and upholstered furniture certainly does.

So prevention is better than a cure here. I think the only thing that works is a return to our grandmothers' standards of house-cleaning.

All floors washed in hot soapy water regúlarly, Clothes and bed linen washed in as hot water as possible. Anything that cannot be washed, sent to the dry cleaners regularly or discarded and furniture and mattresses hoovered and the mattress turned if possible once a month.

Taking a bath or shower as soon as you come home from a journey is a sensible precaution as is unpacking and washing clothes as soon as possible.