Bed mites and FDW

[PNGMK]

A friend told me that a recently hired FDW brought beddding or at least linen into his home when they hired her. The linen turned out to have bed mites which propagated through his home. He has thrown literally every mattress out and even some beds and is sleeping on the floor. A word of caution for sure. Don't let your FDW bring bedding or linen in. I am not sure about clothing but I've stayed in hotel rooms with bed mites and not had them jump into my clothes...

[sundaymorningstaple]

Bed bugs will get into clothes, luggage, even shoes and you can bring them into your home from a trip abroad while staying in nothing but 5 star hotels the whole trip. The big hotels have their rooms sprayed at least monthly or regularly bring in sniffer dogs (just like drug sniffing dogs) to sniff out the almond scent of bed bugs. Rather than disposing of all the linen & mattresses, you can have a pest control company come in and hit your entire home with a three pronged attack that usually will do the trick in the first instance. Aerosol bombs (house has to be sealed and vacated for 8 hours) misting of baseboard and bottoms of furniture where they hit the floor and HVLP fogging of curtains and walls. It sound like overkill and it probably is, but it is pretty darned effective. the heavy spraying of baseboards and such is done and then the HVLP spraying and as all leave the premises, an aerosol bomb is sent off in each bedroom, and any other room and usually two in the main hall. All windows closed premises, as said, vacated for 4 hours (8 preferably).

Regarding clothing/linens:

The following research shows the temperatures/times required to have a 100% kill ratio for all adults, larvae and eggs.

http://insectsinthecity.blogspot.sg/201 ... gs-in.html

[BBCWatcher]

Don't let your FDW bring bedding or linen in.

(I see SMS beat me to it substantially, but I'll elaborate a bit.) That's one option, but I've never seen a FDW enter a place of employment without any fabric. If the critters are going to hitch a ride, they'll hitch a ride. If not on day one then eventually -- and with any house guest or resident.

So you need to know how to kill the critters -- and how to keep killing them. One option is to seal everything you want to disinfect in one or more airtight plastic bags and leave it/them outside in the sun for the afternoon -- or even in an unshaded, parked car. Interior temperatures will easily reach 49°C for a sustained period and get the job done. (You can use an opaque bag if you're concerned about color fading.) A clothes dryer, washing (at a sufficiently high temperature), freezing, and chemicals also work, but in Singapore our abundant sunshine, well applied, is the most economical and most environmentally friendly option.

[the lynx]

Too bad I was late for the party.

SMS was spot on about the treatments. The truth is that a bed bug can hitch a ride on clothes, luggage bags from infested place to new place. That's why I always unpack in the living room instead of bedroom. In the 70's, bed bugs had almost gone extinct during the rise of DDT use, but the explosion of cheap travel makes bed bug's global cross-infestation too easy.

Personally there is no way you can prevent a FDW from not bringing anything with her from home. Just make sure she checks through the luggage bag seams and clothes inside before transferring into bedroom.

The problem with bed bugs are that half of the time they hide around the bed, not the bed/mattress itself. Behind wall sockets, carpet seams, luggage bags, wall-floor skirting, wallpaper edges, etc. So throwing away beds and mattresses doesn't solve the problem.

I've seen too often the same groups of people who gets consistent bed bug problems: Airline crew, business travellers, FDWs/menial labour workers returning from home country, backpackers, NS boys (having picked them up from Tekong).

The laundry/sunning method that BBCW is legit. Try getting the temperature 40 degrees and above to kill BOTH adults and eggs.