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BEDBUGS!!!!!

DRTDEVL

DRTDEVL

Mothfukle
Joined
May 19, 2020
Member Number
78
Messages
768
Loc
Austin... TX? Nope. Minnesota!
Have a driver with these nasty critters. How long can they live without a host???


Backstory:

"Itchy Archie" came to us late 9/23. In 3/24, he complained about getting eaten alive in his truck. One look and we saw the problem; he and his dog were crawling with bugs.:barf:

Went through a whole ordeal washing (on hot) and bagging everything in his truck, transporting it all back to the yard in the bed of a pickup. He was then told to take a hot shower and toss all of the clothes he was wearing in the dumpster. He was moved into an older truck, and his truck went into quarantine in the back corner of the property.

Fast forward 3 weeks, and the next truck breaks down. He's moved to a third truck, and the second goes off for repair.

The Bug Guy comes out to evaluate the first truck and says its the worst infestation he's ever seen. 30 days quarantine with weekly spraying should do the trick. The second truck comes back from the shop and we have him inspect it; less than 10 seconds for him to open and close the door and say "yup, they're in there, too!"

Write up the offender and tell him he needs to fix his home problem as we now have 2 trucks in quarantine. getting sprayed weekly.

The first truck is done, and we send it to the detailer. They send video of live bugs and tell us to pick up the truck.

Now both begin a 30-day period of spraying. Upon completion, the first truck goes back to the detailer where it is partially cleaned, then sent back with more live bugs having been found. They are no longer interested in the bug trucks.

Another month goes by, and we get an independent detailer in there. He says its nasty, but he didn't find any live ones. The following week, we open it up to find more carcasses, so there was still activity.

We tried OTC bedbug bombs. Let it sit over the holiday weekend and half the next week. Inspected and found more carcasses, and I discovered a few live ones in the folds of a weatherstrip.

So now its been nearly 6 months for the first truck, and we're still seeing activity without hosts present. 5 months for the second truck, and its finally fit for use (he was in that one less than 3 weeks).

How much longer can these fuckers live?
 
DRTDEVL said:
Have a driver with these nasty critters. How long can they live without a host???


Backstory:

"Itchy Archie" came to us late 9/23. In 3/24, he complained about getting eaten alive in his truck. One look and we saw the problem; he and his dog were crawling with bugs.:barf:

Went through a whole ordeal washing (on hot) and bagging everything in his truck, transporting it all back to the yard in the bed of a pickup. He was then told to take a hot shower and toss all of the clothes he was wearing in the dumpster. He was moved into an older truck, and his truck went into quarantine in the back corner of the property.

Fast forward 3 weeks, and the next truck breaks down. He's moved to a third truck, and the second goes off for repair.

The Bug Guy comes out to evaluate the first truck and says its the worst infestation he's ever seen. 30 days quarantine with weekly spraying should do the trick. The second truck comes back from the shop and we have him inspect it; less than 10 seconds for him to open and close the door and say "yup, they're in there, too!"

Write up the offender and tell him he needs to fix his home problem as we now have 2 trucks in quarantine. getting sprayed weekly.

The first truck is done, and we send it to the detailer. They send video of live bugs and tell us to pick up the truck.

Now both begin a 30-day period of spraying. Upon completion, the first truck goes back to the detailer where it is partially cleaned, then sent back with more live bugs having been found. They are no longer interested in the bug trucks.

Another month goes by, and we get an independent detailer in there. He says its nasty, but he didn't find any live ones. The following week, we open it up to find more carcasses, so there was still activity.

We tried OTC bedbug bombs. Let it sit over the holiday weekend and half the next week. Inspected and found more carcasses, and I discovered a few live ones in the folds of a weatherstrip.

So now its been nearly 6 months for the first truck, and we're still seeing activity without host present. 5 months for the second truck, and its finally fit for use (he was in that one less than 3 weeks).

How much longer can these fuckers live?
Click to expand...

Itchy Archie needs to find another job, preferably with a competitor of yours.
 
Slander said:
I thought you bake them out? When we would get them in the airliners they would seal the openings, and pipe hot air into it and bake the plane for a few hours and that would kill them.
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The only company I could find that still does this is in the twin cities, and I haven't been able to get them to come this far out to do the job.

It still wouldn't get the ones in the weatherstripping on the exterior edge of the truck, as all they do is put the heaters inside for a few hours.
 
If you can wait a month, the Minnesota cold will take care of it. Be sure he parks outside.
 
Wades_76_cj7 said:
my question is why is that nasty fucker still employed with you? took two trucks out of the line up that could be making money?
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Entirely possible it's not his fault. My brother went through this a few years ago and ended up moving over it. These things will move from house to house if they're close enough. It's especially bad in row houses, townhouses, apartments, etc. In my brother's case it was city row houses. Older hoarder lady down the block got them and they spread down the entire block. All it takes for them to stay around is one of those houses to not take it seriously and get rid of them before they embed themselves all over the damn house.
 
Motorcharge said:
Entirely possible it's not his fault. My brother went through this a few years ago and ended up moving over it. These things will move from house to house if they're close enough. It's especially bad in row houses, townhouses, apartments, etc. In my brother's case it was city row houses. Older hoarder lady down the block got them and they spread down the entire block. All it takes for them to stay around is one of those houses to not take it seriously and get rid of them before they embed themselves all over the damn house.
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damn that is rough..
 
Wades_76_cj7 said:
damn that is rough..
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Yeah it was a huge ordeal. He ended up getting rid of almost all of his shit just to make sure they didn't move with him. Luckily he didn't own all that much stuff since he was just renting a room so it wasn't too bad to replace his bed, clothes, etc.
 
DRTDEVL said:
Incorrect. Live bedbugs will go into hibernation in the cold weather and can last for over a year in that case.
Click to expand...
Freezing temperature
Bed bugs can die if exposed to temperatures of 0°F or below for at least four days.


Sounds like a Minnesota winter to me.
Click to expand...
 
Sounds like a Minnesota winter to me.
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Doesn't always work.
Temperatures must reach 0°F (-17.7°C) in order to be effective against all stages of the life cycle; however, this type of treatment may not always work as some bed bugs can survive low temperatures by entering a state known as diapause or hibernation until conditions become more favorable again.
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Spray truck down with brake cleaner. The good stuff that melts paint off better than paint stripper and makes you see the color 27. Not that pussy CRC shit.

If that doesn't do it, repeat after installing a fireplace in the sleeper. :laughing:
 
Agree with the cook them method if chemicals aren't working. We use the cook method for killing bugs in the pasta industry for organic products it's not as effective as real chemicals but it does get certain types of bugs better.

-ben
 
In our moving trucks, they're always a concern, every night we plug an ozone machine into each truck and set it to run approx 60 minutes. If the ozone doesn't kill them right away, it does drive them out of the compartment. Cases where we know there has been an exposure, bug bomb in the box, and one in the cab. Only one time was it bad enough were we did in fact tent the whole truck and bug bombed the ever loving fuck out of it.
 
My commercial landlord makes absolute bank getting rid of them in hotels. Basically he seals the rooms, runs a truck mounted heater on top of the ptac, and let's it cook for a while and moves to the next room. I don't know the exact temps, but IIRC its like 130*F for a while.
 
bad zuki said:
My commercial landlord makes absolute bank getting rid of them in hotels. Basically he seals the rooms, runs a truck mounted heater on top of the ptac, and let's it cook for a while and moves to the next room. I don't know the exact temps, but IIRC its like 130*F for a while.
Click to expand...

Or he could make Itchy drive that truck down here and park it in the DNC parking lot for a couple days. Supposed to get to 114* today, so with windows up and no sunshade, 130* is easily obtainable. Bonus if the little buggers escape and infect some Dems.
 
I forgot to add that I put our ozone generator in it running on "hold" for 24 hours on a hot sunny day with the bunk heater full hot and the a/c fans recirculating (no a/c) 2 different times in July to no avail.

My next thought is a large tarp over the driver's side to the ground with the driver's door and baggage doors open and using my 240,000 btu torpedo heater under it.
 
Baking the truck is your best option....
diatomaceous earth works good as well, not sure how affective it will be in a truck, but that kills them pretty quick as well and you dont have to direct apply, just apply in general areas and let it do it's job.

We got them 2 years ago from a friend of our daughter, and it was fucking hell to get rid of them. I went to 2 different pest control companies and one quoted me $4,800 to do my house and the other wouldn't do it at all.

I ended up doing it myself and it took about 6 months of treatments twice a week every week.... it was a nightmare! Bedbugs are a 4 letter word in our house. I had to remove base boards, tossed all the curtains, removed all blinds, everyone had to put their clothes in sealable toats, all un-used clothes were ran through a laundry service and bagged and kept at my parents house, every night we had to do laundry (no dirty clothes on the floor), all mattresses/ box springs were put in bedbug proof bags. Every Saturday I would flip all the mattresses and box springs and spray, I had to spray all around the bases of the walls (remember base boards were removed), I had to put sticky pads under the feet of every bed, couch, chair the process took about 4 hours, then on wednesdays I would do a quick spray everywhere.... it was miserable and felt like we were the sickly people..... I hope I never have to deal with that again!
 
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