![]() In short, it is very hard to get new pesticides registered that are labeled for indoor use (as opposed to agricultural use). In addition, there has been a 10 to 15 year trend in reducing the number of pesticide products that receive registration for use in the indoor environment. This cost naturally limits the number of products that make it to the marketplace. ![]() The cost of having a product registered is now estimated to be around $ 100 million. To get an EPA registration, the pesticide product has to be thoroughly tested for acute and chronic effects on mammals (laboratory rats and dogs), the potential effects on birds, fish, and honeybees has to be documented, and the environmental fate (half-life) of these products in water or soil also must be quantified. All pesticides that are labeled for use in the United States have to be registered by the EPA. Question: Are the pesticide companies trying to develop an effective bed bug spray? - Diana Shea, Descanso, Calif.Īnswer: This is an excellent question. Instead, contact the hotel management inform them of the bugs and ask for another room immediately. This may cause them to move around and infest other areas. If you find bed bug, don’t spray them yourself. If you are traveling, always inspect your mattress for bed bugs by pulling back the covers and looking carefully at the seams and tufts for bed bugs or bed bug evidences (black fecal spots). However, dried spray on or around the bed would have no effect. The alcohols and propellants would probably kill bed bugs if you wetted them down with the material. Is this helpful in getting rid of bed bugs? -Ennis, Tex.Īnswer: The only way that Lysol spray could help you is if you sprayed the bugs directly. Question: When traveling I carry a can of Lysol spray and spray the bed with it. If you find any, report this to the management and request a different room. The best defense is to inspect the bed (mattress and sheets) and the head board for signs of bed bugs. Bed bugs can very probably feed directly through the weave of the “sleep sack.” Even if the bag were to offer some protection, the bed bugs could crawl to the opening of the sack and enter that way. Question: Would the silk “sleep sacks” sold as a travel accessory be any help at all against bed bug bites at a hotel? -L Hart, Irvine, Calif.Īnswer: Unlikely. If you are bald, well, the head is fair game. If they encountered your head first, they would most likely move to your face (many people suffer face bites) or some other less hairy area to feed. They would much prefer to feed on the bare skin. Hair on the human head would make this very difficult. In fact, bed bugs need to set their front claws in a particular position so that they can insert their mouthparts into the skin just so, in order to be in the proper feeding position. Unlike fleas and lice that have bodies or claws that are specifically designed for navigating through hair, the common bed bug does not have these modifications. Bottom line, a repellant may prevent you from getting a bite or two but I do not believe that they will significantly hinder a hungry bed bug.īed bugs can get in your hair but the good news is that they really don’t want to be there. Also, bed bugs are most active between 3 and 5 am, which is several hours after the time you would have put the on the repellant to go to bed. If you apply a repellant before getting into bed, a lot of the material could rub off on the sheets etc. In addition, the repellants that you buy for mosquitoes last only a couple of hours before the effects begin to wear off. But we have found bed bugs to be very determined little creatures and I think it would be hard to stop a hungry bed bug. Because we have not tested repellants on skin, we can’t say for sure whether bed bugs would be willing to stick their mouth parts though repellant treated skin or not. These results have been confirmed by the older bed bug literature (Usinger 1966) who stated that many repellant materials were applied to bed frames in an attempt to keep bed bugs from crawling up, but none had any effect. ![]() In fact, they will sit on top of them until they die. Bed bugs do not seem to respond in the slightest to repellent insecticides. Question: If you put on "Off" or some other insect repellant before retiring in a hotel will this prevent them from biting? Can they get in your hair? -Dolores Hill, Bessemer, Ala.Īnswer: Although we have not specifically tested mosquito repellants on bed bugs, we have tested repellant insecticides. Miller, Ph.D., an associate professor in Urban Pest Management at Virginia Tech's Department of Entomology answered some of the questions viewers e-mailed Dateline after the report on bed bugs.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |