Someone told me about a new species of bed bug that has wings and buzzes about like a fly. It can only fly short distances, but its power of flight allows it to fly onto humans rather than simply crawling.
This person said he heard about it from someone else, so I'm taking this piece of news with a grain of salt.
Evolution usually occurs within a species as a survival mechanism. I'm thinking (if this is true!)the bed bugs evolved and grew wings in order to have easier access to their prey and to avoid any residual pesticides which may be on the floor or furniture.
Can anyone verify the existence of this mutant species? I really hope this is just some rumor.
Update: I don't feel comfortable sleeping in my room tonight. I've seen about a dozen bed bugs in one hour, plus I can smell their musky scent, something I haven't smelled in a long, long time.
Thursday, August 10, 2006
Mutant Bed Bugs?
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8 comments:
I heard there is a conenose bug that is bigger than your standard bed bug and has wings. Same thing. Blood suckers.
Did I mention that I'm itchy?????????
Hmmm.....flying bed bugs, now I'm really going to have nightmares!
12 bed bug sightings in an hour. Yikes! That's not good at all. I hate to break it to u but u have a reaally bad investation. Mine was bad before I moved and I still rarely saw any, and if I did it was mostly nyphms not moving that most people would assume are dirt. I probably saw one running around once a month and had a mosquito like bite about once month as well.
Since I moved with no furniture (except a metal and glass coffe table and side tables set) and all clothing in plastic and disinfected at the end of last year I have seen three running on my ceiling, one on the floor, one on the wall by my bathroom window (that one was about month ago). I find a few dead bed bugs a month on average, I have only had one mosquito like bite since I've moved as has my boyfriend. But I have had new little red dots appear since I've moved on my body.
I was wondering what you have done thus far for exterminating and or trying to create a less bed bug friendly environment. It sucks u live in NY cause I know how hard it is to find an apartment that's affordable, so I can imagine that moving might not be an option, and even if u do the new place could have bed bugs in it anyways, but if u can I would suggest moving and getting rid of anything u can't disinfect. That is the what I plan to do. Because It's nearly impossible to get rid of them especially if your neighbors have it too, which If u have a bad infestation they probably do and might not know it.
If you want to stay and fight the bugs I would highly suggest in addition to an extremely aggressive and frequent extermination plan you:
*wash all clothing in hot water and non chlorine bleach, (use kleen free as a precaution if u wish) and keep all your clothing in sealed plastic garbage bags at all times. I have been doing this since January of this year. Also seal your dirty laundry in a garbage bag.
*If you have any apholstered furniture such as a couch get rid of it I guarantee it's infestated even if you think it isn't. Get rid of any wooden furniture, they like porous surfaces such as paper, wood, and fabric. Metal, glass, and plastic furniture are your new friends.
I remember from your past blog that you threw away your bed that was a very good move. These sites that say to just apply pesticides to the bed and get a vinyl cover for the mattress have obviously not had to deal with this sitatution themselves. You might want to also buy a chaep mattress and box springs and place a plastic cover that zips completely around it of course putting it on the the mattress and box springs before bringing it into your apartment and then place sticky tape along the bed legs and baby glass jars with water on the ends, so that they have a hard time getting on to the bed. I would also spray the ceiling with suspend so that if they try to climb the ceiling and jump off onto your bed (I've heard they can do this) they will hopefully soon die. The plan is If they can't get to you that will obviously help control the situation. They breed after they feed.
* throw out your pillow buy new one and place it in a garbage bag tying it so nothing could get in or out of it. If you want as an extra precaution get a vinyl pillow case i got mine a target. I began doing all this after finding one on my pillow, i was worried about my bed that I forgot that my pillow would be a great place to nest. Yuck.
* take down any drapes permantely in your whole apartment not just the bedroom. I have never even put any up in this apartment.
* caulk any cracks. Any cracks on walls, inbetween baseboards and the floor, cabinets, door frames,windows, etc. If they can't hide you can kill them easier so be thorough. You might just even seal up a nest.
Hope this helps! Remember this is war...
I have been encouraged by a friend of mine to get into some discussion groups about the bed bug issue because, my company sells a nontoxic, well tried and true treatment and preventive product for the problem.
I had no idea bed bugs were such a problem for people nowadays. We've focused our attention on treatment and prevention of fleas and ticks so far and through doing that found out just how bad a situation exists with them too. People call us in crisis about these and other bugs that are driving them right out of their homes.
Standard extermination methods rely on toxic chemicals that eventually stop working because of natural selection, pointed out by Rachel Carlson, in here book "Silent Spring" released in 1961! There are always survivors from any chemical irradiation program, and those survivors have offspring that are immune to the chemical used to kill of the main population and those survivors have the genetic material to make "super bugs" that need
more and even stronger chemicals to kill them and then, those survivors make even stronger offspring. The same thing has happened to disease pathogens too, because of the over prescription of antibiotics.
Fortunately, for bugs, there is an alternative. Diatomaceous Earth has been around for a long, long time, and it works as a preventative measure and treatment. It's nontoxic and safe around people, pets and children. the pure form, Fossil shell flour is edible. In fact, grain farmers who previously were using synthetic chemicals to treat their grain storage bins are turning back to using diatomaceous earth, because, the chemicals they were having to use were getting highly toxic and finding their way into the food supply and
some bugs just weren't responding anymore.
Diatomaceous Earth works mechanically to kill bugs so the bugs can't become immune. It's a mineral and it won't evaporate and go away either so, treatment is prevention, all at the same time.
Go to my web site at http://www.dirtworks.net and get to the DE page at http://www.dirtworks.net/Diatomaceous-Earth.html and read up on the stuff and, tell your friends in need.
Yes, this e-mail is a blatant act of self promotion but, I really think DE is the answer you are looking for and, I work hard every day to find and promote alternatives to the toxic gunk put out by uncaring and profit driven chemical companies. We have to make money too but, helping is our first motivation and I use my own products before selling them so, I know they work.
PEACE, John
PLEASE make an entry about how they prefer women to men and how men can be getting bitten and have no reaction. I found out yesterday that my apartment did indeed have bedbugs (I caught one of the fuckers and took it to PestAway.) It was weird that I was getting bitten and that of my two roomates, who are a couple in the next room over, only she was getting bitten and not him. (Or rather, he's probably getting bitten just shows no reaction.)
There's a ton of bed bug info at http://www.modernpest.com/commercial/programs/bedbugprep
and at http://www.modernpest.com/commercial/programs/bed-bugs.
I hope this helps. Bed bugs are a problem that you should think about calling in pros for.
I am 15 and ive found bed bugs. at first i saw little brown& red bugs and thought nothin of it. then when i saw the blood fed ones crawling around i freaked.then more of them start comming and finaly i threw the bed out and got a new one.i was vaccumin like crazy,washing the comferter and sheets threw the pillows out and sprayed! and it didnt even affect em.i sprayed one constantly that i found,a blood fed one,and it keep crawling.and the sad part is the we also shampood the carpet and i found one last night at 3:00am and i flipped.my mom saw them and saw that one last night and dont believe me and she thinks it ants or just bugs.which is crazy.so is it possible that the bugs came back with a new bed?
-BIANCA
I saw a bed bug walking on my ceiling probably because on the floor there is DE dust which seems to kind of work. Got on the bed, caught him. He was little bigger than usual, hard and had wings. As I was trying to spray steri-fab on him and squeeze him on the same time, he fluttered his wings and jumped few inches behind a table in the corner where I could not see or catch him. Did I kill him? Hard to sleep there now.So, I went to the internet to see whether anyone else had seen something like this and whether what I saw was a bed bug or a roach. I haven't seen a roach on my bedroom ceiling before, this looked like a bb and reading some of the posts in this blog, makes me pretty sure that this is the mutant bb!
lila
First and foremost, there ARE mutant flying bed bugs, and I have seen them with my own eyes! Even larger ones have gained the power of flight, and I have seen them fly several yards at a time, as well as orbit lights and computer monitors.
I live in Phoenix, Arizona, and I have for the last 45 years. Until this year I had NEVER seen a bed bug anywhere in Arizona, and I have been all over this state, from the forests of the Grand Canyon rim country to the Sonoran desert south of Tucson. Now they're all over the place and worse yet, they FLY! All the research I've read has stated bed bugs have wings, but they are rudimentary and useless...until now, that is. We are witnessing the result of a mutation, accelerated evolution, or more likely, a combination of the two. In John's response, he touts the effectiveness of diatomaceous earth, and he is entirely correct. Just because these new mutants fly, don't be discouraged from using diatomaceous earth, because sooner or later, the little buggers have to land. John also mentions the hazards of modern chemical insecticides, and these may figure into the mutation equation as well. We do know that for years, bed bugs all along the eastern seaboard of the United States have been becoming more resistant to insecticides, especially pyrethrin-based chemicals, both natural and synthetic. Having become hardier, they began their own western expansion, and they have figured out how to survive in the desert, even though sunlight and solar heat will still kill them rather quickly (these are among the very few life forms I take pleasure in watching die). One other potential factor in bed bug mutation may be effects of herbicides designed to work with genetically altered agricultural staples such as Monsanto's "Roundup-ready soybeans". They have genes from bacteria spliced into them which give them resistance to Monsanto's super-killer total vegetation eliminator, Roundup... the same defoliant responsible for the extinction of hundreds, if not thousands of species of aquatic wildlife in the Amazon watershed after being clandestinely utilized to eradicate coca plantations in the mountains of Colombia, Bolivia, and Peru. Roundup and all these dangerous chemicals, along with insecticides, have the potential to cause mutation in any life form that is lucky enough to survive initial exposure.
One can speculate further, delving even into the metaphysical...once a climate of fear is created, can insects then thrive upon the negative energy? There are passages in Revelations which paint a picture of Biblical plagues...was one of the Angel's vials filled with bed bugs? I tell you this, I was filled with a unique trepidation, a silent uneasiness that ran to the depth of my soul, the moment I confirmed what was flying in my parents' home was, in fact, a bed bug, just like the ones in all the pictures.
Bed bugs are bad enough when earth-bound, but much like viral pathogens, they become exponentially more dangerous when they gain the ability to become airborne. Remember also, these buggers are blood-suckers, and they can spread all blood-borne diseases, including, but not limited to, AIDS, ebola and her hemorrhagic fever sisters, and hepatitis. Again, don't give up on diatomaceous earth, as it is clearly the safest way to reduce populations of bed bugs, and it will be much more difficult for them to mutate new exoskeletal compositions which would resist the puncturing effect of crushed diatoms...it's like walking on shards of broken glass for the little buggers, scraping the waxy coating off their exoskeleton and allowing acute dehydration.
Keep talking about bed bugs, wherever you are, because if you haven't seen them before, it's likely soon you will...if they can survive a summer in Phoenix, they may be able to survive anywhere, and now THEY DEFINITELY CAN FLY.
Thank you kindly for your attention,
Paul
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