REMEDIES.

Undoubtedly the most efficient remedy for the bedbug is to fumigate the infested house or rooms with hydrocyanic-acid gas. This gas will penetrate into every crevice in the house or room where the bedbugs conceal themselves and has an immediate effectiveness which gives it an important recommendation, especially when the infestation is considerable or of long standing. This method of fumigation should be intelligently employed, as the gas is deadly poisonous. A bulletin giving directions for such fumigation has been issued by the Department of Agriculture.[15]

The fumes of burning sulphur are also a very efficient means of control where the conditions are such that this method can be used, readily destroying the insect in all stages, including the egg. The treatment is inexpensive compared with the use of hydrocyanic-acid gas and offers much less risk of danger to human beings. There is, however, a considerable risk of injury to household fabrics, furnishings, and wall papers from the strong bleaching quality of sulphur fumes. This danger will be somewhat diminished if the fumigation can be done at a time when the room or house is thoroughly dried out, as in winter by a furnace or other heating system. Further precautions should be taken by removing all metallic surfaces from the room or building, or by protecting them with a coating of vaseline. Two pounds of sulphur are recommended for each 2,000 cubic feet of space, and the building should be closed for the treatment for at least 5 or 6 hours, or preferably for 24 hours. Sulphur candles may be used where available, or the sulphurous gas or fumes can be generated by burning the sulphur in a dish placed in the center of the room, and for protection set within a larger vessel. Thorough-going precautions must be taken to prevent accidental overflowing or the starting of a fire, and after the fumigation the house should be given a thorough airing.

Other gases have been experimented with, such as formalin and the vapors of benzine, naphthaline, and camphor, but these gases are of little value. Similarly, insect powders are of little value, largely from the difficulty of getting them into the crevices and other places of concealment of the insects.

The old-fashioned household remedies referred to below are effective enough, though at a greater cost of time and personal effort. They will, however, be often of much service in the case of slight or recent infestations, or where the employment of more poisonous and troublesome gases is objected to or is impracticable. Of these simple methods of control perhaps the most efficient is in very liberal applications of benzine or kerosene, or any other of the lighter petroleum oils, introduced with small brushes or feathers, or by injecting with syringes into all crevices of beds, furniture, or walls where the insects may have concealed themselves. Corrosive sublimate is also of value, and oil of turpentine may be used in the same way. The liberal use of hot water, wherever it may be employed without danger to furniture, etc., is also an effectual method of destroying both eggs and active bugs.[16]

Various bedbug remedies and mixtures are for sale, most of them containing one or another of the ingredients mentioned, and these are frequently of value. The great desideratum, however, in a case of this kind, is a daily inspection of beds and bedding, particularly the seams and tufting of mattresses, and of all crevices and locations about the premises where these vermin may have gone for concealment. A vigorous campaign should, in the course of a week or so at the outside, result in the extermination of this very obnoxious and embarrassing pest.

The possibility of temperature control is indicated in the discussion elsewhere of the effect of temperature on this insect, and it may be that if infested houses in cold climates could be opened up and allowed to remain at a temperature well below freezing for a week or more, the bedbug would be thoroughly exterminated. This method of control would be rarely practicable except perhaps in the case of summer houses which are left untenanted in winter.

Transcriber Note

Illustrations move to prevent splitting paragraphs. Minor typos may have been corrected. Produced from files generously made available by USDA through The Internet Archive. All resultant materials are placed in the Public Domain.