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Researchers Develop New Trap To Capture Bloodsucking Bed Bugs
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Bedbugs (Cimex lectularius) are small blood-sucking insects that can live in cracks and crevices in and around your bed and crawl out at night to bite your exposed skin and feed on your blood, just as mosquitoes do. Now BBC reports that researchers from the Rutgers University Department of Entomology have developed a new trap that has a 77% probability of capturing bed bugs, nearly three times as many bed bugs over 28 days (PDF), as the the Climbup insect interceptor trap, which the authors cite as the best monitor on the market. A better trap design can allow people to detect bed bugs while they are still in small numbers. 'If you have only 10 or 20 bugs in your apartment, it's very hard to see with your eyes,' says Lead author Narinderpal Singh. 'When people realize they have bed bugs they are often already in their thousands, or hundred thousands. It's relatively easy to eradicate the bed bugs when they are in small numbers, but when they are everywhere, it's very hard to eradicate them.' The device can be created at home very cheaply and consists of a plastic dog bowl that's been inverted, with the outer wall covered with a layer of dyed-black surgical tape. The researchers contend that higher walls make their trap more effective than the interceptor trap because it's harder for bugs to escape."
After years of research and government grants, we have invented ... a black dog bowl. ;-)
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
My landlord is so paranoid about getting them I have to initial three separate paragraphs in my lease stating "I will not bring used furniture into the house" "I will notify the landlord immediately if any bedbugs are detected" "I will take steps to ensure bedbugs do not enter the house."
Maybe they should figure out how to prevent them from reproducing instead of trapping a few examples of a menace that, as the summary notes, numbers in the hundreds of thousands.
You mean, yeast, sugar and water? Any supermarket. The article proves that CO2 cylinders are not better.
Fascinating setup (the building they chose, how they collected and nurtured the bed bugs, that they kept someone living in the apartment in the 4 weeks the experiment was run).
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
You regularly wash your mattress and pillows in hot water?
a new trap that has a 77% probability of capturing bed bugs
Well, what does that mean? If I have bedbugs, and I leave this out overnight, is there a 23% chance it'll be empty in the morning? Will it capture 77% of the total number of bugs? Over what time period? And so on...
The BBC article is a bit less vague:
In a laboratory setting, they found that their trap had a 77% probability of capturing bed bugs released, whereas the shallower trap only had a 23% probability.
Although this too could use a rewrite. Does it mean 77% of all the bugs were caught by the new trap, and 23% by the old? Makes sense, given that the probabilities add up to 100% (and the article's photo shows both traps in the test area at the same time). But if they are meant to be independent probabilities, then there's a 17.71% chance that any particular bug won't be caught at all*.
*obviously statistically speaking all bugs will all get caught eventually, another reason not to assume this second interpretation is correct, unless they were doing this a timed trial. Go bedbug, go!
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Interesting point. Unfortunately you framed it in a bigoted rant and will subsequently be ignored.
-Izrun
Not really a good point at all. Bedbugs don't hide in the sheets. They hide in the crevices of the mattress, box-springs, bed frame, and surrounding areas. You might find a few bugs crawling the bedsheets, but it's not where they lay their eggs.
I'm just glad they didn't spend $15 million in tax payer money to invent a $10,000 trap that no one would use. (No one who isn't buying traps with tax payer money, anyway.)
I wonder if the same design works for fleas. I understand fleas are also attracted to CO2, so the yeast + sugar water thing would likely improve results with fleas as well.
I'd been baiting my traps with an an aerosol can of CO2 produced by emissions from an SUV belching C02 into a Styrofoam container full of dry ice kept cool by an R-22 refrigeration system powered by my diesel generator.
> I have read there has been a dramatic increase in bed bugs over the last decade in major urban centers. There is a very good reason why it has.
Yeah, that's where the most people are and where people move around the most. If you live in the boonies you never see people in on business trips, and you're more likely to own a house with no close neighbors instead of live in an apartment with a constantly-shifting set of neighbors. Less vectors.
> People have been told to save energy (and the environment) by using cold water to wash their laundry.
And they aren't people in the country? Got news for you: When you have your own water heater instead of a coin-op laundry, you look for ways to save hot water.
> While your laundry comes out smelling and looking clean just the same, you STILL need to use high temp wash under certain situations, like washing your bed sheets.
Wow. You're an entomologist like Rosie O'Donnell is a metallurgist. First off, the bugs don't live en masse in the sheets, so that won't halt an infestation. Second, when you're trying to kill bedbugs in fabric, it's usually recommended to DRY it on high heat and not even bother tossing it in a wash cycle unless you were going to anyway.
> I mean this is why I hate stupid green alarmists because they can't apply rational common sense to anything.
Try not to look in any mirrors. Learning the concept of self-awareness might destroy you.
Bed Bugs are known for crawling up the wall, onto the ceiling, and then dropping right onto the bed from above. Yes, they do that!!! This things are attracted to heat and C02 from your breath. So it's best to leave a ceiling fan on to disrupt the air and throw them off. But once they've air-dropped onto your bed, I'm not sure if they've already left a pheromone trail for others to follow rendering the fan useless.
Life is not for the lazy.
Bedbugs are immune to most common poisons. A professional treatment is damned expensive. Lots of inner-city landlords aren't willing or able to throw out that kind of cash.
Everything is better with chainsaws.
The Paiutech Department of Verminology has developed a new trap that has a 100% probability of capturing MBAs, nearly three times as many MBAs over 28 days (one fiscal month), as the classic hooker with blow trap, which the authors cite as the best monitor on the market. A better trap design can allow people to detect MBAs while they are still in small numbers. 'If you have only 10 or 20 MBAs in your corporation, it's very hard to see with your eyes,' says inventor and Paiutech COO Marion Sam. 'When people realize they have MBAs they are often already in their thousands, or hundred thousands. It's relatively easy to eradicate the MBAs when they are in small numbers, but when they are everywhere, it's very hard to eradicate them.' The device can be created at home very cheaply and consists of an empty bottle of Chivas Regal filled with bleach to which is affixed the label: "Six Sigma Smart Juice".
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
They might catch some, but bed bugs are attracted to CO2, heat, and various other chemicals. One of the linked articles actually mentions a story about a guy with an infestation who had put the legs of his bed in buckets of water to keep the bed bugs from crawling up the legs of the bed, as well as surrounding his bed with diatomaceous earth (which bed bugs typically won't cross, since it can clog the holes they breathe through), only to have the bed bugs crawl up onto the ceiling and then drop down on his bed from above, with the fecal trail going up the wall to prove that's what they were doing.
Really, the traps that they're creating are not designed to deal with an infestation. They're designed to alert you with a higher certainty to the presence of an infestation, since everything I've read seems to indicate that a bed bug infestation is not something that the typical consumer is capable of handling on their own.
Just give us the same thing that got rid of them the last time around. DDT works.
Bedbugs were apparently resistant to DDT by the 1950s.
Having stayed in the Hilton (Union Square San Francisco) and coming home with bed bug welts and bites, I can I think I can explain a few things. First, once you see the (clustered) bites, it's too late. Those bites take days to show sometimes. Second, The hotel denies everything. Having been denied satisfaction I left the hotel, but did NOT return home right away fearing for the little fuckers are in my luggage.
I stopped at a coffee shop to internet surf. I found this guy's blog about his battle with bedbugs and how he had to remove ALL furniture from his house in his losing battle against the little bugs. This guy had traps setup, tracking migrations from room to room, sticky side up tape being the most effective. The other side note about the bugs, all sorts of chemicals may or may not work, and HEAT over TIME was the ONLY way to kill these things dead.
I stopped at a dry-cleaner and walked in with NO LUGGAGE and explained the situation I thought I was in. The cleaner said they could take most of my luggage, but not all. They brought out a bio-hazard bin and took my clothes for "special" treatment. I had to take my shoes, suitcase and a few other items home. I threw everything in a 170 degree electric oven for 4 hours each until clean. The car I drove home in, went out to the central valley and sat in the summer sun for 5 hours while I watched movies and drank coffee.
Long story short, use the internet to keep you home safe. HEAT over TIME will KILL the fuckers.
Bedbugs have nothing to do with hygiene. They live off blood and only blood, not dirt or mold or anything related to cleaning.
And there are always places to hide. An air or water bed is a good start, yes, although you can get the same effect by encasing your mattress in a bug-impermeable casing. But they can still live in the bedframe, the walls, nearby furniture, etc.
In fact, a quirk of bedbug biology makes it even worse. Bedbug sex is extremely painful for the female (the term is literally "traumatic insemination"), to the point that female bedbugs will often flee and hide after the first mating if there are other males in line. Then she'll lay her eggs in that new hiding spot. So you'll get a second colony in your ceiling fan, or your electrical sockets, or some other crazy hiding place.
Everything is better with chainsaws.
I used to stay in cheap hostels and in Singapore there was one which was infested with bed bugs. I was getting bit every night until I found that if I sprayed a ring of high powered DEET insect repellent in a ring around the edges of the mattress, the bed bugs wouldn't cross the ring and therefore wouldn't bite me. (I had a DEET spray that was supposed to last 8 hours). Better than spraying yourself with DEET every night.
I have heard they can climb on the ceiling and drop down, but thankfully that didn't happen (maybe it's a rare occurrence?).
*sigh*
Ants, flies, cockroaches, dust mites, etc. are not bedbugs. Bedbugs are not drawn to filth. They might use trash strewn about as a hiding place, but "clean that mess up or you'll get bedbugs!" is just not true. Bedbugs are drawn to you, because you are their food source. They spread by hitchhiking on clothes, luggage, etc. from an infested area to an uninfested area. Hotels are prime breeding and distribution spots. Or, if you live in an apartment complex or building, they'll spread between the walls from apartment to apartment.
If you really want to avoid getting bedbugs, the best thing you can do isn't to keep your room meticulously clean. It's to put your clothes and luggage in the dryer as soon as you return home after spending a night in a hotel.
Everything is better with chainsaws.
1) you grow them, genius. Beans will sprout any season, if you start them indoors. a 1lb bag of kidney beans costs a few dollars. You can get a surprising number of leaves from that. Dry beans are available year round.
2) You dont burn them silly. You stuff them into the dumpster out back. Be sure to take pictures of the bugs for facebook.
3) While I admit that sneaking living plants into a hotel is going to be a difficult prospect, you can get a very similar effect by using glue boards. More expensive by far than kidney bean leaves, but more easily transported, and with a longer shelf life. You can get them in "Enormous" sizes. Failing that, you can always Make your own.
Again, take pictures of all the trapped bedbugs for facebook, then dispose of the bugs in the big dumpster behind the hotel.
So how did we get rid of them? We tried various techniques. Encasing our mattress/boxspring and pillows in bedbug proof cases. Putting the legs of the bed in bowls of water. Spraying multiple times, sweeping constantly. The spraying did reduce the numbers, but didn't eliminate them totally. The final nail in the coffin for them was going out and buying a clothes steamer, and steaming the mattress, boxspring, pillows, baseboards, and any other hiding spots in the bedroom. They have to be heated to a certain temperature (can't recall the exact temp at the moment) in order to kill the adults and eggs. So it was a very slow process to make sure they were cooked by the steam. We repeated this process every other day for over a week. At the same time we washed our bed sheets and clothes... ALL OF THEM, even ones we rarely wore and were still clean.
Of course we were paranoid that there were still eggs, waiting to hatch that we had missed... and we were just waiting for that second outbreak. Lucky for us it never came.
Kidney beans sprout after 3 to 8 days, giving access to 2 seed leaves.
After 14 days, they will have the 2 seed leaves, and 5 to 8 trifolate adult plant leaves, if left to their own devices.
After 20 days, they should have between 15 and 20 adult leaves, and the seed leaves will have wilted and fallen away. Flowers begin to show.
Plant continues to grow, flower, spread, and produce immature bean pods up until 80 days time. That is when mature bean pods appear. Flowers and mature pods will coexist on the plant. In a climate controlled and well lit area, beans are ever bearing as long as mature pods are picked daily.
The bush will be bigger than a 55 gallon barrel long before this time, and be covered in leaves. About 4 weeks after germination, the bush will be producing leaves at an alarming rate. (1 bush.) Continual harvesting of leaves is easily possible at that point. 10 plants would easily give enough leaves to surround a bed daily.
Since it is a plot that resembles a log graph, and you want leaves "right now!", but also need many leaves later, I would suggest this process:
Plant 200 beans, spray the "pots" with peroxide before planting. After 5 to 8 days, you should have around 400 seed leaves. Harvest the leaves fro 3/4 of the plants. Leave them on the floor (sb around 300 leaves, each leaf about 4x4 inches for a good healthy bean. That's about 100 square feet of coverage.) Leave the leaves for a few days before disposing of them, to get the most out of them. They should last at least 3 to 4 days before drying out, and will continue to catch bedbugs over that time. The remaining 50 plants or so should have several primary leaves by then (3 to 4 per plant, in addition to the 2 now very large seed leaves.) Pick the seed leaves from all plants (100 leaves) and 1 to 2 adult leaves, depending on how many are on the plant. Don't take more than half. That should again cover your floor for several days if you leave them down. After that time, there should be close to 10 leaves per plant, and they should be getting quite large. Fully harvest 2/3 of the plants to thin them out in your potting room, and keep those leaves down for several days. By that time, there should be 20 to 50 leaves per plant. Take about a third of the leaves from each plant, and give them a weak fertilizer. (Weak!) This should give you another 3 to 4 days of leaves on the foor if you leave them down. After that time, there should be well over 100 leaves per plant, and should be blooming. There should be about 16 plants in your potting room. You may need to move them to bigger pots. (I presume using plastic or styrofoam cups to start them in. Something disposable and cheap. After this point, use real flowerpots.) Continue with the 1/3 leaf harvest every 3 to 4 days average. By the end of the 4th week since germination, the bushes should be big enough to harvest every other night. By the end of the 8th week, you can probably harvest 300 leaves per 16 plants daily. (18 leaves per plant) assuming you keep feeding it a very weak fertilizer every week.
While it takes time to start the process, the bean plants will continue to grow and make leaves year round as long as they are given enough light, space, and kept warm, and will grow to enormous sizes. 16 plants will eventiall take over an entire room without effort.
Keeping them alive will keep you supplied in bedbug killing leaves purpetually. And supply beans to eat after 80 days.