THE BEDBUG To Keep Down Bedbugs. — Each week on cleaning day air the mat tresses and turn them. Use, if possi ble, metal beds rather than wooden ones. Take down the bedsteads three or four times a year, especially at spring and fall house cleaning, and oil the joints with a mixture of kero sene and turpentine. At spring house cleaning in March or April apply bed bug exterminators thoroughly to kill the eggs that are laid at this time. Keep bedsteads dusted and cracks cleaned out at least once a week. Go over the bedstead inside and out with a cloth moistened in kerosene. Scat ter wild thyme about the mattress and in the vicinity of the bed. The odor drives them away. Do not depend upon Persian insect powder.
Poisons for Bedbugs.—Poisons rec ommended for exterminating bedbugs are hydrocyanic-acid gas, sulphurous acid gas, kerosene and other pe troleum products, gasoline, benzine, naphtha, etc.; hot water, with or with out alum, chloride of zinc; turpentine, camphor, corrosive sublimate dissolved in alcohol, and various combinations of these.
To thoroughly exterminate bedbugs, fumigate with hydrocyanic-acid gas or sulphurous-acid gas. This is the quick est and most effective method.
Or, if this is not convenient and the pests are numerous, take the paper off the walls, wash down the walls with boiling water containing sal soda and alum, apply one or more of the following eradicators, and repaper the walls. Take all bedding out of doors, beat and clean mattresses and other ticks, and apply gasoline to them free ly with a sponge, cloth, or brush. Ap ply suitable poisons to all cracks in bedsteads and other furniture. Re place, if possible, wooden bedsteads with brass or iron ones, and carpet or matting with rugs.
Next to fumigation the best exter minator is kerosene or other petroleum products, as gasoline, benzine, or naphtha. Take down the bedsteads, dust the joints with a brush, and wash with soap and hot water. Boil cedar leaves in the water. While their scent
lasts bedbugs will stay away. Thor oughly oil all joints and cracks with kerosene, benzine, or gasoline from a spring-bottom oil can or with a small paint brush or long feather. Gasoline and benzine do not leave any stains. Hence use these freely about base boards and on bedsteads where kero sene might stain carpets or bedding, but remember that they are highly in flammable. Use them only during day light, and before introducing a lamp or lighted match, air the room until all odor disappears.
Kerosene is less dangerous, and its stains will evaporate with time or may be taken up by such absorbents as whiting, prepared chalk, starch, and the like.
Or use an equal mixture of turpen tine and kerosene.
Or fill all cracks after oiling with hard yellow soap or putty.
Or with a soft, small brush go over the bedstead, springs, and woodwork with a generous coating of hard oil varnish. Work this into all cracks and crevices, and your bedbug troubles will be over.
Or dissolve 2 pounds of alum in 3 or 4 quarts of boiling water, and ap ply hot from an oil can or with a brush to all crevices in furniture, walls, or floors where bedbugs harbor.
Or apply a weak solution of chloride of zinc.
Or apply with a brush equal parts of blue ointment and kerosene oil.
Or apply a mixture of 1 pint of benzine and ounce of corrosive sub limate. Apply from oil can or with a brush.
Or ounce of corrosive sublimate and pint of alcohol.
Or ounce of corrosive sublimate and pint of turpentine.
Or 1 ounce of corrosive sublimate, 1 ounce of camphor, 4 ounces of spir its of turpentine, and pint of wood alcohol. Apply from an oil can or with a brush.
But remember that corrosive sub limate is a deadly poison.
Enemies of Bedbugs.—The common house cockroach is an enemy of bed bugs, and the little red house ants also kill and eat them; but most per sons would consider that to encourage such bedbug exterminators would prove a remedy as bad as the disease.