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Thursday, September 12, 2024

There Are No Bugs On Me (I Hope)

 What am I up to now?

Well, when I came home in August, I learned that there was some sort of biting nuisance that had taken up residence in my bed. It does not seem to be bedbugs, although I can't rule that out completely. We (Marie and I have been trying to puzzle it out by phone) thought maybe the mites that affect bees were the problem since I have about 100 new dead bees in the house every day, but apparently that kind of mite doesn't bite humans. I have eliminated about all the logical choices except some kind of mite.

Spray that kills arachnids (ticks, lice, mites) did not get rid of them.

Spray that is supposed to kill ants reduced the population to something less awful, but I'm sure if there were ants in my bed I'd see them.

I was thinking I'd freeze all the bed parts this winter, but if it's bedbugs, they have to be below zero degrees F for four days. Unlikely.

However, any of the bedding-type pests can be cooked at 120 degrees.

Meet my new large oven.
mattress in a car


With the temperatures hitting the high 80s today, I thought I'd give a closed car a try. It was over 125 degrees for 8 hours. I'm leaving everything in there one more day for another 6-8 hours of cooking tomorrow.
thermometer at 125 degrees


I washed all the bedding, pjs, etc in 140 degree water. I sprayed the room really well, and will clean it all thoroughly tomorrow after the smell subsides a bit.

Hopefully this will work. I'm really tired of waking up with a whole new set of bites (mosly in unpleasant places).

In other news: I walked to the post office. Didn't accomplish much on my usual projects.

Miles walked in 2024: 428.7 miles

See Bees

3 comments:

Ann said...

Good luck with that. Hope it works. Waking up with bites is not fun.

Sharkbytes said...

Ann- there haven't been as many as when I first got home, but it was so bad for a while I had to take Benedryl, and I can only take small doses of that

The Oceanside Animals said...

Lulu: "KILL THEM WITH FIRE!!!"