Thursday, September 23, 2010

Of bugs and nerds

Joanna Molloy yesterday and today held forth in the NY Daily News about the bedbug convention in Chicago...which she thinks is for nerds. She cites some interesting characters, including one US Army researcher, Harold Harlan, who let the bugs bite his legs for 30 years...he harvested them at Fort Dix in 1970. Now they are at Camp LeJeune. The enemy is within the gates...
And within another Nike store. This seems strange. Lightning strikes twice in the case of Nike and Abercrombie & Fitch. How do bedbugs get into places where there are no beds? Such as the Empire State Building and all the government offices in Manhattan (according to Gale Brewer).
Molloy talks about the sex lives of Cimex - which is about as disgusting as it gets; males like to mate once a minute - with any other Cimex, regardless of its age or sex...they cut through the abdomen of the females and just go at it. Apparently, the female of the species has no, what does on call it - cloaca? Or is that just for the birds?
Most interestingly she notes that Dr Stephen Kells of the University of Minnesota dipped a bug in some pesticide, and it lived on and even laid eggs...in my building they seem to be more prolific after spraying...which is ineffective.
What her article does not mention is heat...heat works. Get the temp up to 113 Farenheit, don't spray wasteful chemicals, and be done with them once and for all. Any article or post on this subject ought to contain that information, it is crucial. All the factoids about their sex lives etc. are just interesting but not what we really need to hear.
By the way, I will contact her and see if she is willing to do the city a service by writing about the Vigilant Hotel, not far from her offices. If that place, called Ground Zero, can be treated with heat and kept under watch by the city, it will make a large difference. Is this journalists willing to help us out? We'll know soon.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

TURN ON THE HEAT!

The new super today wanted to know if I was going to have the spray in my room...the landlord gave me note after note asking me to get all my stuff out...when I took stuff out the last time, they refused to spray till I had everything out in the hall for people to steal. I took enough out to spray but they refused. It seems to be a ploy for them to have me vacate, then lock me out and throw me out.
But whatever, the sprays do not work. They are a way of placating people and getting on record some action so landlords can avoid taking real action. As they benefit large chemical companies, there is a conspiracy of silence in a world run by billionaire idiot politicians. Ooops, did I say idiot? Yes I did, and since this is my blog, that is not going to be deleted as were my comments on www.bedbugger.com. They also deleted a very pertinent comment I made about druggies being a danger to society when they walk around spreading bedbugs...I wonder who runs that site. What I do not see often there is real mention of how to get rid of bugs...#1 is heat, as TIME and other publications tell you - going so far as to mention that chemical sprays, especially DDT - are ineffective. Turn up the heat to 114 degrees Farenheit, and you will quash the bug. End of problem. It really is that simple.
#2, or maybe it ought to be #1, is cleanliness.
#3 is ziploc everything they may get into, on this blog I spotted where in Manhattan one can buy ziplocs up to 20 gallon size.

What does it take for politicians, journalists and anonymous commentators to act? Are they deliberately trying to talk over the facts so that this bedbug epidemic lasts and lasts, an endless opportunity to sell chemicals? That has happened in the past; William Farish (grandpa of WF III, who was Bush's appointee as US Ambassador to the Court of St. James') was indicted for working with Standard Oil to prolong WWII so they could make more profits...this happens all the time...Philip Habib in the Pentagon surpressed good intel about Hanoi which led to troop inaction and the prolonging of the Vietnam War...and what about this nice little profitable war halfway around the world? Profits for chemical companies...more napalm...depleted uranium which has poisoned hundreds of thousands of US troops...
The war on bugs could be won in weeks, with a government initiative to heat buildings that are government run or low income. Information on cleanliness and ziploc bags could be disseminated, with free bags to low income people.
But that would end this crisis. The Daily News, the NY Post, and the NY Times have not shown any interest in ending it, and I wonder about the site, www.bedbugger.com
So attack me if you want, it is obvious I am making enemies here; oh the gentlre art of making enemies! But it has to be done. Or else we will have millions of enemies crawling up our backs at night.

Thursday, September 9, 2010

20 Gallons ziploc bags

In my further quest for the bugproof bag, I went to the Container Store on 6th Ave and found they had a small selection of small bags...going in packs of 10 for about a buck a pack. Theirs I think are thicker than others, at 4ml, but other companies I have seen do not note their thickness on the pack.
People who went to Duane Reade told me they had no more 10 gallon bags, so who knows. Could be they are bought up quickly. In any case, I found a 20 gallon bag on the shelf at Associated on 14th St near 8th Ave; $6.49 for three.
Some are slow to take on board why this is important. It removes a habitat. They cannot shed, breed and sleep when there are no piles of papers or clothes or little crevices. Between bagging and painting and cleaning you will get rid of these pests, and with less money than it would take to have some idiot spray poisons around. That is the lazy man's way to do this.
Paint up, clean up, and bag up and you will be safe.

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Steps to eradicate bedbugs

No site on Cimex is any good without some practical advice.
So here it is. Get lots of ziplock bags. I keep books, papers, socks, etc. in these,
and my hanging gear hanging in full length dry cleaning bags.
As to ziplocks, it's hard to source large ones. In Manhattan I found a 99cent store
on 23rd near 8th that had gallon size bags, which hold 81/2 x 11s, (but not UK A4, which is taller)
for $1.29. The ten gallon size bags, 20" x 24", hold oversize - but cost $7.99 for four at Duane Reade, though not all DR carry these, I got mine near Penn Station.
The bugs have less places to breed this way, and I can put on clean threads each day and not carry them around. This is important. I do not have to scratch on the subway. It is not hard to defeat them.
They tend not to like splippery surfaces, one sufferer noted they do not climb the smooth wood on pool tables, but this is not 100%. They can if they really need to, but it does help.
Putting sticky traps around the bedposts also works.
But the real way to be rid of them I hear is heat, 113 degrees, or excessive cold.
Another tactic is to keep a spray bottle of acohol for those close encounters.
And take a bath before bed, so your smell is less obvious - mask it with alcohol, lotion, oil, etc.
And of course lots of periodic cleaning.
Hope this helps and please leave any other tips as a comment so we can add to this list.

Update on the Vigilant and its guests

Today I woke up with tons of the buggers. With the drop ceilings, they just pour into the rooms no matter what one does to them. The hotel management painted the floor last week, as if that was the answer to the problem. They also took bedstands out of empty rooms (there is only about a 45% occupancy rate) and painted the stands and the rooms. The paint job was so bad I grabbed one of the young men involved and asked him pointedly if he was ever in the service. He replied that his dad was and his dad was in some special unit. I had no patience at this point; I cut him off and told him the question was about him; then I towed him over to one of the bestands, where mats of hair and dirt could be seen under a thin layer of spray paint, and told him that in the US Navy if he ever did such a lousy paint job the boatswain mates would throw him to the sharks. He then started blaming his coworkers and blubbering. He needed to grow up, so I told him where to find the army recruiter. Not that they would want him. Neither the army nor the marines are looking for a few stupid men.
Sometimes I can be mean, as many journalists can attest. It started with a hapless teacher I had at PS 64, who sent me home with a note to my mother to complain about my attitude. The next day, the note was signed and in the teacher's hands. She looked it over and demanded to know why it was scribbled over. I had to tell her my mother had me correct her spelling. And I've been correcting the spelling of the hapless ever since, whether they by journalists, mayors, or weak young men who can't hold a paintbrush.
And of course building managers and owners who can't get good help.
And then of course I have the same proclivities towards local politicians who are out-of-touch with reality - and that might or might not be Christine Quinn, who has not responded to two emails and whose phone does not pick up; or Mike Bloomberg, who leaves NY every Friday morning to play in the Bahamas. Or any number of other employees who take our hard earned and play games while we have to host these bugs.
So maybe I will be giving Quinn and Bloomberg the number of army recruiting; but I don't think they would want them any more than the hapless blubberer.