Products such as Rest Easy and Bed Bug Bully claim to be highly effective at controlling the insects, but researchers say there aren't yet any consumer products proven to keep bedbugs away.
By Chris Woolston, Special to the Los Angeles Times October 25, 2010
Bedbugs combine all of the bloodsucking annoyance of mosquitoes with the survival instinct of cockroaches. No bigger than apple seeds, the adult bugs hide in ingenious places — inside electrical outlets, behind baseboards, deep in carpet fibers — during the day and attack their victims during the night. You may never know that you have a bedbug problem until bites start showing up on your skin. Bedbugs don't spread any illnesses, but still. Ick.
The bugs are tough, they're devious and they're gaining new ground in homes and hotel rooms across the country, says Susan Jones, an entomologist at Ohio State University in Columbus. "They are the worst insects that we've ever had to deal with in an urban environment."
As worry about bedbugs grows, it's no surprise that many people are taking pest control into their own hands. Do-it-yourself exterminators can choose from many different sprays that claim to kill the bugs and prevent infestations.
Some products, like Rest Easy Bed Bug Spray, are sold as all-natural alternatives to traditional pesticides. Rest Easy, manufactured by the RMB Group, contains essential oils from cinnamon and lemon grass, among other ingredients. Bed Bug Bully, produced by a company called My Cleaning Products, claims to be 100% natural. The company website doesn't list any ingredients, but a sales manager reached by phone said that the spray ingredients include tea tree oil and lavender. The company didn't respond to a request for more information.
A 16-ounce spray bottle of Rest Easy — sold at many Walgreens, Ace Hardware and other stores — costs about $16. The company website instructs users to spray Rest Easy on "dressers drawers, closets, along baseboards, behind headboards, and around any other furniture you want treated." The site advises against spraying the bed directly. "If bed bugs are present in the bed," the site says, "call a professional for extermination."
A 32-ounce bottle of Bed Bug Bully, available at many drugstores, retails for about $50. A video tutorial on the company website encourages users to spray "wherever you think bedbugs may be."
If you want a little more punch in your spray, you might consider buying a product that contains an EPA-registered pesticide. Steri-Fab, a spray from Noble Pine Products, contains alcohol with a small amount of d-phenothrin, a common pesticide often found in flea and tick products.
It's sold online — Amazon is one option — and at many professional cleaning supply outlets. On Amazon.com, a 1-gallon bottle sells for a little more than $40. According to the company site, a gallon is enough to cover eight to 10 pieces of upholstered furniture or six to seven mattress sets.
The claims
The Rest Easy website says that its "optimized blend of natural ingredients has been universally recognized for thousands of years as a means for controlling insects." In a phone interview, company President Howard Brenner said, "We are all-natural and highly effective." He also said that people who have a serious and obvious infestation should call an exterminator. "Our product is for people who think they might have bedbugs or are paranoid that they might get them."
The Bed Bug Bully site says the product is "by far the best bed bug treatment you can get on the market today." It also promises "the same results delivered by pest service without evacuation."
The Steri-Fab website says that, "unlike any other product available in the U.S. and the world," Steri-Fab kills bedbugs, fleas, ticks and lice along with bacteria and viruses. The site also says it "dries in 15-20 minutes and lproduct kills bugs on contact but becomes essentially inactive once it dries. In a phone interview, company Vice President Eric Bryan said his product "isn't a panacea" but does have a proven ability to kill bugs.
"Those all-natural botanical products" are baloney, he added.
The bottom line
Gail Getty, a research entomologist at UC Berkeley, says she'd love to see a day when people could quickly solve their bedbug problems on their own. "I want to encourage new research. It would be great if there was something that was safe and effective."
Unfortunately, she says, no consumer products on the market today have been proved to completely remove bedbugs from the home. Because bedbugs are so adept at hiding, and because any bugs you can target with a spray are going to just be the tip of the infestation, it really takes a professional exterminator to get rid of the bugs, she says.
Jones, the Ohio State University entomologist, is especially leery of "all-natural" products. "If you think that using these sprays is going to get rid of your bedbugs, you are sorely mistaken." Jones points out that pesticide-free products such as Bed Bug Bully or Rest Easy aren't required by the Environmental Protection Agency to prove that they are actually effective against bugs — all that matters is that they are considered safe.
And while d-phenothrin, the pesticide in Steri-Fab, definitely has some killing power, Jones says many populations of bedbugs are developing a resistance to that chemical.
Jones adds that even professional exterminators armed with industrial-strength chemicals generally need several hours to clean out an infestation. "If somebody goes in and out in 15 minutes, you just wasted your money."
Curious about a consumer health product? Send an e-mail to health@latimes.com.
Read more at latimes.com/skeptic.
Copyright © 2010, Los Angeles Times
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Get Into Nature: Crane flies mimic giant mosquitoes
Every summer about this time, I get calls and letters from readers terrified of "giant mosquitoes" they find under a porch light, or in the house trapped by window screens.
But they are not mosquitoes. They are crane flies, and they commonly visit illuminated porches. The adults are easy to recognize -- they really do look like giant mosquitoes.
But crane flies are harmless. Though some species of crane flies even have long, tubular mouthparts like a mosquito, they use them to drink nectar, not blood. And when they fly, they lack the mosquito's tell-tale whine.
With more than 1,400 species in this country alone, the crane fly family (Tipulidae) is the largest family of flies in the world. Most have extremely long, slender legs that break off easily. Some look like winged daddy longlegs. Their wings are generally large, clear and crisscrossed with a network of veins. The largest of the crane flies can attain a body length of more than 1 inch.
Mosquitoes, on the other hand, are much smaller. About 150 different species occur in North America, and most are less than 3/8 inch long. Notorious for their blood-sucking and disease-transmitting habits, mosquitoes deserve their bad reputation. Interestingly, however, it is only the females that drink blood, which they require for egg production. Before they can siphon up animal blood, they must dilute it with their saliva, which they deliver through their syringe-like, tubular proboscis. It is this saliva that causes intense itching and transmits diseases. Males drink plant nectar and juices.
Another difference between crane flies and mosquitoes is the impact each has on humans. Whereas the diseases transmitted by mosquitoes (malaria, yellow fever, encephalitis) cause serious illness and death, crane flies have little effect on us. The larvae of some crane fly species feed on living plant tissue and may account for minor crop damage.
While crane flies have not been thoroughly studied, we do know that the adults of some crane fly species drink flower nectar, while many others do not eat at all as adults. But none of them ever feasts on humans.
Scott Shalaway is a biologist and author. "Wildlife," his other Post-Gazette column, runs Sundays in Sports. Shalaway can be reached at scottshalaway.googlepages.com and RD 5, Cameron, WV 26033.
Sunday, August 15, 2010 By Scott Shalaway
For additional information on Mosquito Control goto www.TuxedoMosquitoControl.com
But they are not mosquitoes. They are crane flies, and they commonly visit illuminated porches. The adults are easy to recognize -- they really do look like giant mosquitoes.
But crane flies are harmless. Though some species of crane flies even have long, tubular mouthparts like a mosquito, they use them to drink nectar, not blood. And when they fly, they lack the mosquito's tell-tale whine.
With more than 1,400 species in this country alone, the crane fly family (Tipulidae) is the largest family of flies in the world. Most have extremely long, slender legs that break off easily. Some look like winged daddy longlegs. Their wings are generally large, clear and crisscrossed with a network of veins. The largest of the crane flies can attain a body length of more than 1 inch.
Mosquitoes, on the other hand, are much smaller. About 150 different species occur in North America, and most are less than 3/8 inch long. Notorious for their blood-sucking and disease-transmitting habits, mosquitoes deserve their bad reputation. Interestingly, however, it is only the females that drink blood, which they require for egg production. Before they can siphon up animal blood, they must dilute it with their saliva, which they deliver through their syringe-like, tubular proboscis. It is this saliva that causes intense itching and transmits diseases. Males drink plant nectar and juices.
Another difference between crane flies and mosquitoes is the impact each has on humans. Whereas the diseases transmitted by mosquitoes (malaria, yellow fever, encephalitis) cause serious illness and death, crane flies have little effect on us. The larvae of some crane fly species feed on living plant tissue and may account for minor crop damage.
While crane flies have not been thoroughly studied, we do know that the adults of some crane fly species drink flower nectar, while many others do not eat at all as adults. But none of them ever feasts on humans.
Scott Shalaway is a biologist and author. "Wildlife," his other Post-Gazette column, runs Sundays in Sports. Shalaway can be reached at scottshalaway.googlepages.com and RD 5, Cameron, WV 26033.
Sunday, August 15, 2010 By Scott Shalaway
For additional information on Mosquito Control goto www.TuxedoMosquitoControl.com
IMPORTANT - West Nile cases in Atlanta
IMPORTANT MESSAGE from Georgia Department of Public Health Entomologist - Just an FYI, We already have a West Nile case in Metro Atlanta some 2 - 3 months earlier than we usually see cases. With the wet winter and warm spring, the mosquito populations have gotten an early start, and both nuisance and vector species are likely to be a real problem. I am getting reports of high Cs melanure (EEE) numbers as well, an we are expecting it to be a bad EEE year.
Mosquitoes love beer drinkers
March 6, 4:28 AM
Birmingham Science News Examiner
Paul Hamaker
Scientists from France, Canada, and Africa have determined that the primary malaria insect carrier in Africa is more likely to bite people who drink beer. The research was reported at PLOS One on March 4, 2010.
A mosquito is the primary malaria carrier in Africa because the mosquito prefers to feed on humans. The mosquitoes are attracted by a variety of body odors including breath.
Fifty adult males aged between 20 and 43 years in good health and not using any medication volunteered for the experiment. One group drank the local beer and one drank water.
The beer drinkers attracted forty-seven to sixty-five percent more mosquitoes than the water drinkers in a statistically controlled experiment. The volunteers were not directly exposed to the possibility of being bitten by the mosquitoes.
The reason the mosquitoes were more highly attracted to beer drinkers is not clear.
Malaria is a potentially deadly disease in Africa.
According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC) the majority of malaria cases in the United States result from travel to countries where malaria is not controlled. Alabama even had 9 cases of malaria reported in 2007.
http://www.cdc.gov/Features/dsMalariaSurveillance/
Avoid drinking beer if you are traveling to a country where malaria is common. You can send the beer to me.
Prevent disease and reduce the number of alcoholic mosquitoes at the same time.
For additional Mosquito Control Information please visit www.Tuxedo MosquitoControl.com
Birmingham Science News Examiner
Paul Hamaker
Scientists from France, Canada, and Africa have determined that the primary malaria insect carrier in Africa is more likely to bite people who drink beer. The research was reported at PLOS One on March 4, 2010.
A mosquito is the primary malaria carrier in Africa because the mosquito prefers to feed on humans. The mosquitoes are attracted by a variety of body odors including breath.
Fifty adult males aged between 20 and 43 years in good health and not using any medication volunteered for the experiment. One group drank the local beer and one drank water.
The beer drinkers attracted forty-seven to sixty-five percent more mosquitoes than the water drinkers in a statistically controlled experiment. The volunteers were not directly exposed to the possibility of being bitten by the mosquitoes.
The reason the mosquitoes were more highly attracted to beer drinkers is not clear.
Malaria is a potentially deadly disease in Africa.
According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC) the majority of malaria cases in the United States result from travel to countries where malaria is not controlled. Alabama even had 9 cases of malaria reported in 2007.
http://www.cdc.gov/Features/dsMalariaSurveillance/
Avoid drinking beer if you are traveling to a country where malaria is common. You can send the beer to me.
Prevent disease and reduce the number of alcoholic mosquitoes at the same time.
For additional Mosquito Control Information please visit www.Tuxedo MosquitoControl.com
Dark clouds are filling the skies around South Georgia
By Jay Polk
DOUGHERTY COUNTY, GA (WALB) – Dark clouds are filling the skies around South Georgia and that can only mean one thing. The rain is coming - again. While the totals for the last couple of months won't be setting any records, they are impressive. In Albany, we've picked up 14.83".
Much higher than the normal total of 9.48"
All of this rain means that there's plenty of standing water. No matter where you're looking, eastside or westside. In town or in the country there's water everywhere. For most people it's only an inconvenience, but Donnell Mathis sees something else.
"I see a potential problem" he said.
It's his crew that makes sure that people in Dougherty County don't get bitten by mosquitoes. All of this rain means that they'll be busy over the next couple of months.
According to Mathis, "we will have problems with mosquitoes at the beginning of our season."
And if you think that the cold weather would have reduced the number of mosquitoes, think again.
"The weather that we've had has NOT been cold enough to kill the mosquito larvae," said Mathis.
To kill the mosquito larvae, the weather has to be below freezing all day long for two weeks. Since that didn't happen, residents will eventually see mosquitoes. When they do, they can call Mosquito Control and their trucks will spring into action.
"We'll come out and do a surveillance. We'll come out and look around the homes and try to figure out what's causing the problem," said Mathis.
But they're not just reactive, they're proactive too.
On a daily basis, Mosquito Control will go around and they'll put these things called dipping cups in the water. What they're looking for is mosquito larvae and when they find it, that's when they'll start treating.
When larvae are found chemicals are applied to take care of the problem.
It's important to keep the mosquitoes to a minimum, because they can carry some nasty diseases.
"West Nile Virus is one of the main factors here in Dougherty County.
Also they carry the Eastern Equine Encephalitis, Dengue, Yellow Fever,"
Mathis said.
And over the next few months, Public Works will try to make sure that you stay safe from the bite of the mosquito. And Mathis says that you can help them by emptying out any outdoor containers around your home that can hold water.
©2010 WALB News. All rights reserved.
For Additional Information on Mosquito Control
www.TuxedoMosquitoControl.com
DOUGHERTY COUNTY, GA (WALB) – Dark clouds are filling the skies around South Georgia and that can only mean one thing. The rain is coming - again. While the totals for the last couple of months won't be setting any records, they are impressive. In Albany, we've picked up 14.83".
Much higher than the normal total of 9.48"
All of this rain means that there's plenty of standing water. No matter where you're looking, eastside or westside. In town or in the country there's water everywhere. For most people it's only an inconvenience, but Donnell Mathis sees something else.
"I see a potential problem" he said.
It's his crew that makes sure that people in Dougherty County don't get bitten by mosquitoes. All of this rain means that they'll be busy over the next couple of months.
According to Mathis, "we will have problems with mosquitoes at the beginning of our season."
And if you think that the cold weather would have reduced the number of mosquitoes, think again.
"The weather that we've had has NOT been cold enough to kill the mosquito larvae," said Mathis.
To kill the mosquito larvae, the weather has to be below freezing all day long for two weeks. Since that didn't happen, residents will eventually see mosquitoes. When they do, they can call Mosquito Control and their trucks will spring into action.
"We'll come out and do a surveillance. We'll come out and look around the homes and try to figure out what's causing the problem," said Mathis.
But they're not just reactive, they're proactive too.
On a daily basis, Mosquito Control will go around and they'll put these things called dipping cups in the water. What they're looking for is mosquito larvae and when they find it, that's when they'll start treating.
When larvae are found chemicals are applied to take care of the problem.
It's important to keep the mosquitoes to a minimum, because they can carry some nasty diseases.
"West Nile Virus is one of the main factors here in Dougherty County.
Also they carry the Eastern Equine Encephalitis, Dengue, Yellow Fever,"
Mathis said.
And over the next few months, Public Works will try to make sure that you stay safe from the bite of the mosquito. And Mathis says that you can help them by emptying out any outdoor containers around your home that can hold water.
©2010 WALB News. All rights reserved.
For Additional Information on Mosquito Control
www.TuxedoMosquitoControl.com
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