Isolation Phase. Iterative and Incremental. Part 2

Tools are what you need to do more with less, at least in the long run.

 

 

Get ready all your gadgets? If not, please flash back to Part 1 before continue reading this.

 

 

 

A quick review here about the assumptions made. Our context here is only dealing with only THE BED BUGS infested bed room, say your master bed room and none of other bed rooms are occupied by human.

 

Now,

 

Before you start to tear your bed room apart, you need to clean up the clutters in the room first.

 

* Get ready insectide sprays.

You will want to spray directly on THE BED BUGS anytime you saw them

 

 

Clean up the Clutters

 

Begin with your clothes laying around on the floor or hanging in the closet. Put them into plastic bags that you bought, tied them up and transport them to your designated spaces/washing machines to perform heat treatment. Once you piled them all at the same place, you can start your heat treatment.

Boiling water is the best.

 

* DON'T reuse the plastic bags above, throw them far away or burn them up. This is because you wouldn't want any bed bugs nymphs, eggs or anything nasty possibly coming out from them.

 

Anything else you want to move out from this room must be sterilized completely in-and-out using the alcohol (more than 70% concentration) you bought. The sprayer is of good use here.

 

 

Initiate First Demarcation

 

Let's pretend that your room is a square.

 

 

 

You need to form a trap zone around this square, specifically to kill THE BED BUGS crossing over.

 

Use the Dust Applicator to apply a thin layer of Food Grade Diatomaceous Earth around your room, including window edges and wall joints.

 

Also, spray some DE into power outlets or around it, behind hanging wall pictures, teared wallpapers, surrounding your closet, dressing tables, side tables and around your bed.

 

Don't forget to spray some DE around the wall/door edges of other rooms too. This is to kill any of THE BED BUGS attempts to flee to these places.

 

One golden rule when you apply DE. It gotta be a very thin layer else THE BED BUGS would not crawl over it which also means their exoskeleton or so wouldn't be damaged by the DE. Use Dust Applicator if possible. If not, use a powder puffer you can get from any hypermarket.

 

The whole objective of this step is to reduce the survivalship of  run-on-rampant THE BED BUGS when you start to shatter their "nests", e.g. boxspring/mattress.

 

Later on, you will need to repeat this step in Initiate Second Demarcation for another objective.

 

 

 That's it. The next phase would be the Killing Phase.

 

 

Until then, enjoy the following:

 

 

 

 

Isolation Phase. Iterative and Incremental. Part 1

You gotta completed the Scan Phase first. Go and read my previous posts about the Scan Phase before continue with this Isolation Phase.

The whole idea of this Isolation Phase is to prevent THE BED BUGS from spreading further and thus making your infestation elimination efforts harder, much harder.

I will put a simple assumption here that you only got one bed room infested by THE BED BUGS and other bed rooms are vacant with no living occupants.

Firstly, you have to remember that the only major food source of THE BED BUGS is HUMAN BLOOD which means they will cluster around the food source, which also means if the food source moved, THE BED BUGS will probably moved too. This is bad since you are making THE BED BUGS a moving target which you gotta be crazy try to eliminate all of THE BED BUGS, unless probably you can get the president approval to NUKE the damned area.

So, DO NOT attempt to move out from your usual sleeping zone during this war period, UNLESS you have medical condition or strong justification. Well, the bottomline is you can sleep at other houses/hotels for a day or two until you managed to get your hands on the needed KILLING/ISOLATION tools.

Ok, this list is what I suggest you to get:

• Pillow/Mattress Encasement
• Check your mattress size!
• Buy a good one such as Protect-A-Bed distributed by KingKoil if it in Malaysia
• Boxspring Encasement
• Check your boxspring size!
• No need to buy this if your boxspring/divan comes with wheel.
• I think it's hard to find the right encasement in Malaysia. No idea about the price.
• Steam Cleaner
• Karcher Steam Cleaner is a good choice
• Can get it from Ace Hardware Shop in Malaysia
• Not cheap.
• Large Plastic Bags
• Any large trash plastic bags would do
• Few bottles of Insecticide Sprays
• In Malaysia, you can get the common brands such as Ridsect, ShieldTox and so.
• 500mg of Food Grade Diatomaceous Earth a.k.a DE
• If you are from Malaysia, I can help in supplying this
• DE Applicator a.k.a Dust Applicator or Powder Puffer.
• 500ml Isopropyl Alcohol (At least 70%) a.k.a rubbing alcohol
• If you are from Malaysia/Klang Valley, I can help in supplying this
• Sprayer bottle
• Can get from any pharmacy/hypermarkets/online sites
• Few meters of wide size double sided tape. 30mm width would do
• Not easy to find this. You can try order from online sites
• .
• Washing machine/Bath tub/Buckets to do heat treatments
• Use your washing machine if got heating feature (at least 45d celcius)
• Kettle to boil water
• No need if your washing machine got heating feature (at least 45d celcius)
• Else you will boil few ten liters of hot water to treat your clothes/fabrics

The most expensive of all will be the Steam Cleaner and Pillow/Mattress Encasement. I actually spent nearly MYR1,700.00 (approx. USD 500) for items in the list.

If you think it's too much for you to spend, stop reading

and find an affordable pest control company.

But,

If  THE BED BUGS is perceived to be a likely repetitive problem and you have spent few thousand bucks on your precious pillow/mattress, you are actually making good economic sense doing this purchasing decision.

Or,

If THE BED BUGS is already an out-of-control matter that you think can't be solved by yourself. Call Professional.

Now,



Oh boy, this starts to sound interesting ya?

DO NOT move anything in the bed room until you completed the collection of the item in the list.

*Moving your mattress out to expose under the sun is a bad idea as it probably will drop  THE BED BUGS along the course of the movement and spread to other areas *

*Get ready to throw away your boxspring if it is too tough to reach some of its internal structure and if it is attached with wheels. *

<End of Part 1> Please enjoy the following.