Bedbugs are back. I will link up the hilarious and horrifying blog which probably cannot be topped as an infestation story. Bedbugs are tough to beat. They can go hungry for a long time and they hide well. But I bet when you are home, they do not go hungry on purpose.
In a bedbug infested home, you are the bait. Medicines in your blood should be consumed by the bedbug. I propose bedbug sufferers be put on ivemectin, a versatile drug that kills just about all arthropod parasites. The bedbugs eat, they die. You might need to stay on ivermectin for a while until all the eggs hatch.-- bungston, Mar 13 2007 (?) Bedbug tale http://apictureofme...004/07/bite-me.htmlRated PG for mild foul language... [bungston, Mar 13 2007] (??) Comfortis http://www.comforti.../comfortis-product/Active ingredient is a new insecticide called Spinosad. [bungston, Jul 23 2010] The "Sans Pareil" of infestation stories http://fray.com/drugs/worm/Churn [AbsintheWithoutLeave, May 01 2012] It looks like she is allergic to the bites. Those welts look like what happens to me after some types of mosquito bite me (and they hurt like hell). Her room-mate doesn't get them? I'll bet she does, but doesn't know it.-- Ling, Mar 13 2007 [+] For a great concept!-- placid_turmoil, Mar 13 2007 /Bed bugs can go months between feedings/
They can if they must, but do they if there is food? I bet not. If you are there they will bite you.-- bungston, Mar 13 2007 Could you take enough Ivermectin to make yourself poisonous to the bugs in this 'secondhand' way?
For more fun, just dose up on a convenient radioisotope. The plus is that you can then hunt down the bedbugs with a Geiger counter. The minus is that if you don't catch them in time they may give rise to two-foot-long offspring with long hairy teeth.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 13 2007 I found Max's scheme here. I wonder if it would work. People get radioisotopes for various things. Thyroid cancer patients get a big load of radioactive iodine. I bet it would be enough to make a blood-feasted mosquito detectable.-- bungston, Jun 05 2009 Instead of yourself being the bait, a dog fed with insecticide (linked) should work as well or better. The product kills fleas that drink dog blood and should be just as good for other blood drinkers. Have the dog live in the infested room. Bedbugs will bite the dog and die. The dog may need to stay for a while as eggs / larvae mature and get hungry.
Alternatively one could have one or more cages with small mammals (rabbit? guinea pig?) on the floor: maybe easier care because no need for walks, but same principle.
This would work not only for bedbugs but also kissing bugs (Chagas vectors) and fleas.-- bungston, Jul 23 2010 Bedbugs in the news lately. I think that my its mechanism, this spinosad stuff should work well against bedbugs. Plan: post spinosad-treated dogs in areas frquented by bedbugs. Begbugs do bite dogs; I would think chihuahuas would work best but any dog would probably do. A controlled experiment would be wonderful but apocryphal info from bedbug suffering would be nice.-- bungston, Jan 24 2011 hmmmm, I wonder... churn.-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Apr 30 2012 It seems to me that this is a perfect opportunity for cat-haters and dog-haters to let those animals be the bait.-- Vernon, Apr 30 2012 A blob of simulated flesh, then ?-- wjt, Apr 30 2012 In zer old days, the travellers would take a piglet with 'em. Get to abode, put piglet in bed, go for supper or whatever, bedbugs feast on pig, traveller retires, and sleeps undisturbed.
So, what you need is a piglet slathered in ivemectin.-- not_morrison_rm, May 01 2012 random, halfbakery