A council said it had received an “alarming number” of calls to tackle bedbugs amid fears that outbreaks in Paris could spread to the UK.
Which is ridiculous. Bed bugs are always a problem in large cities, and London really isn’t an exception.
It’s unlikely that the outbreak has significantly ‘spread’ from Paris. People are just more likely to notice they have an infestation.
It’s Luton. And the council has had phone calls about fears they could spread from Paris
It’s a non news story
The article is poorly phrased. It could be read as the calls are about fears of bed bugs spreading. But the source article (https://m.luton.gov.uk/Page/Show/Environment/pest-control/Pages/what-to-do-before-your-bed-bug-appointment.aspx) is about an increase in infestation calls.
As that’s the case raising awareness is a positive thing to nip an outbreak in the bud before it becomes pervasive.
An increase in calls, and they refused to say how many calls make an alarming amount and they also don’t say how many infestations…
Also in the article
Bedbugs have been an issue in the UK for many years and were a “public health pest that is notoriously difficult to treat”, said Natalie Bungay, from the BPCA.
They were a bigger issue in major cities.
Ms Bungay said the BPCA was not aware of any unusual increase in bedbug activity.
“There was a dip during Covid-19 due to the lack of global travel taking place, so any increase now could just be trends getting back to normal now that everybody is moving freely again,” she said.
She added that seasonal increases in numbers, particularly as more people travel during the summer months, was nothing unusual.
“It’s also worth remembering that not every call out for bedbugs will result in a positive identification of the pest - increased media attention or public awareness can often lead to false alarms.”
Boston Bedbugs Party
History was made
I find it interesting though.
Firstly, because it’s an example of a common phenomenon in media. One newsworthy thing happens, suddenly the media report any story that’s similar to it, leading naive readers/watchers to think that incidence of the thing being reported has increased. Particularly relevant to crime figures, where people vastly overestimate how often some crimes are committed, due to media coverage.
Secondly, because it’s not that much different to ‘Spanish’ Flu or the ‘French’ Disease. Shows how xenophobia, racism, disgust and a fear of disease are all connected and still quite common place. Bigotry isn’t so much connected to fear as it is to disgust at the different. Seems to be almost instinctual/evolutionary. That person’s different/foreign, might be carrying a disease, eww.
These assholes will hitch rides on your clothing and in your pockets. So be mindful if anyone you know says they might have them. Don’t sit on their furniture, and don’t let them sit on yours.
If you already have them at home, I can only wish you the best of luck. The next six months to year of your life will be living out of plastic bags.
It’s mainly a problem if you live in shared housing or an appartment block with shitty neighbours.
Experts + coordinated efforts and it’s quite easy to solve. Heat, steam, pesticides, diatomaceous earth(especially around chair/bed legs), regular vacuuming, regular tumble drying, matras covers, and plastic bin bags left in the sun.
People exagerate how difficult it is. If it was as difficult as some people say, hotels would no longer exist. Every hotel has problems with bed bugs on occasion.
When you travel, have the contents of your suitcase in a plastic bin bag. Avoid hotels with carpeting. Bed bugs hate tile floors, really hard to move across them. Also, if you have tiles at home, you can simply use bleach to mop the floor. The fumes alone already kill plenty of the buggers.
Some decent advice right here. In many years of regular hotel stays, I have had exactly two encounters with them. There was no issue with cross-infestation. They don’t travel that easily, as you say.
What gets me is that prevention is so easy-peasy, in theory:
- no carpets
- foam or other cavity-free mattress
- impervious mattress cover
Done. And yet hotels still have these monstrous sprung mattresses, which accumulate dust and mites and are basically black boxes for infestation of all kinds. Usually protected by a single layer of dirty synthetic fiber. Yuck.
The whole carpet thing also annoys the fuck out of me.
I mean, it was fashionable once upon a time.
But now? It stains easily, harbours bugs and mites, and is ridiculously labour intensive to clean. Tile, high quality vinyl or laminate please.
I see you’ve never had them.
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Oh look, a none story
Yeah…
“An alarming number of calls… about fears that outbreaks in Paris could spread to the UK.”That’s really not worth the calls OR the news article.
ReindMe! 30 days
Just adopt your bedbugs today and get used to them. /s
Great
This is the best summary I could come up with:
A council said it had received an “alarming number” of calls to tackle bedbugs amid fears that outbreaks in Paris could spread to the UK.
Luton Borough Council issued guidance on what people should do to prepare their homes for “treatment”
Writing on its website, the council said: “The pest control service is currently receiving an alarming number of bedbug jobs on a weekly basis.”
Bedbugs have been reported in cinemas, trains, hospitals and schools amid national panic over the issue in France, with many cases focused on Paris.
Dee Patel, an entomologist, told BBC Three Counties Radio that lavender deterred bed bugs.
He also advised washing at high temperatures, vacuuming often and freezing sheets which stops the bugs from breeding.
The original article contains 271 words, the summary contains 121 words. Saved 55%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Dee Patel, an entomologist, told BBC Three Counties Radio that lavender deterred bed bugs.
“Lavender oil masks their scent pattern and they can’t cope with it,” he said.
I don’t know about their scent pattern, but that’s an essential oil.
Maybe mix it with an insecticide.
Essential oils restore insecticide effectiveness against bed bugs
Gaire and Gondhalekar first tested the pyrethroid insecticide deltamethrin and a series of essential oil compounds on non-resistant bed bugs and a resistant Knoxville strain of bed bugs. A single dose of deltamethrin meant to kill 25% of bugs killed that many non-resistant bed bugs, but it took 70,000 times more to kill 25% of the Knoxville strain.
“Deltamethrin is so ineffective in the Knoxville strain of bed bugs that if you’re using it in the field even in large doses, you’ll get almost no control,” Gaire said.
The active ingredients in essential oils — thymol from thyme, carvacrol from oregano and thyme, eugenol from clove, and others — worked equally against resistant and non-resistant bugs. A dose meant to kill 25% killed that many of each type.
Gondhalekar said bugs’ nervous systems normally open and close sodium channels to pass signals through neurons. Deltamethrin binds to those sodium channels and keeps them open so that neurons cannot stop firing. That repeated firing quickly uses up the bug’s energy and kills it.
But resistant bed bugs possess multiple mechanisms to resist pyrethroids, including overactive levels of an enzyme called cytochrome P450, which degrades deltamethrin. The essential oil compounds, Gaire and Gondhalekar reported, bind to and deactivate that enzyme and allow deltamethrin to do its job on the bed bug’s nervous system.
Gaire and Gondhalekar combined a single dose of deltamethrin with a single dose of essential oil compounds that would be expected to kill 25 percent to 50 percent of the resistant bed bugs. Instead, it killed more than 90 percent of the resistant bed bugs.
Time for pesticides.
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I never had bedbugs or even seen them but when i traveled through Australia, people were terrified if you just mentioned bedbugs. A guy i met gave me his bedbug spray when he left. I read on it that the spray doesn’t poison them, it had micropic glas shards or something in it that would just cut them into pieces. I found that pretty metal
Fire. And/Or chlorine gas.
Diatomaceous earth.
