Listen to the podcast.

Return of the Bedbugs

The bedbug is back.

Nearly wiped out for decades, this little nocturnal bloodsucker is making a global resurgence, hitching a ride from city to city and country to country in luggage, on clothing and in furniture. They’ve recently been reported in hotels, hospitals, schools and homes across the country. They’re tiny (a few millimeters long), they hide in crevices, and they’re really, really hard to kill.

So what do you do? People readily resort to insecticides, but Insecticides are recommended for homes with heavy infestations, but chemical sprays carry their own health risks, especially for children. So it’s worth trying to use non-chemical methods before turning to pesticides. The good news is that bed bugs are not generally known to carry disease, though there is some suspicion they may play a role in transmitting hepatitis B.

Natural remedies include freezing the bugsm or killing them with heat, so sealing off a room and blasting it with heat in summer or turning off the heat for an hour in winter may help. Small, infested objects like pillows can be wrapped in black plastic and placed in the sun. Placing small wrapped objects in the freezer will also help. Clothes should be washed in hot and dried on a high setting. Ridding a home of these pests requires extensive vacuuming and sealing cracks and crevices where they can hide. Infested mattresses should be removed from a home, but remember, they can live in any furniture, not just beds.

For more information on bed bugs, click here or visit http://ryoko.biosci.ohio-state.edu/~parasite/cimex.html.

To read more about this and other environmental health issues, go to www.environmentalhealthnews.org, www.ourstolenfuture.org or www.healthandenvironment.org.