Bedbugs, Any Thoughts?

[John]

Here is an interesting topic that I don’t think has come up before. If you have to fumigate your house or apartment for bedbugs, how do you both disinfect and protect your Windstone pieces? It is not known if the fumigation could cause problems with the paint, so the pieces should probably be disinfected and boxed up. Anybody got any thoughts as to how to handle this? How to clean the pads? The paint?

[drag0nfeathers]

I didn’t have to fumigate for bed bugs, but when we first moved into our house we did have to for fleas. We took all the animals out of the house and had to stay out for 24 hours. I don’t know if that is the equivalant to fumigation or not. I got plastic sheets (similar to what you would use to cover your windows with in the winter for additional insulation) and I taped off all of my shelves to protect them with blue painters tape. I know bedbugs are resilliant, but fleas are too and I had no problems since then and it’s been several years now. There’s nowhere for them to “nest” in a Windstone collection as far as I know so I wouldn’t think they would need to be exposed to the fumigation process.

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[Mary]

They have some new technology that uses heat to eliminate bed bugs. I had to have it done to a condo that I rent out in ski resort town. It’s very costly (approx. $1000 to do a 700 sq ft condo), but avoids the problems with fumigating with pesticides. But, I think collectibles might be susceptible to the high heat that they use to treat for bed bugs.

[Mercury Star]

Bedbugs don’t have a reason to penetrate gypsum figurines, and while I can’t say with 100% certainty, I don’t really see them getting into the felt on the bottom. There are probably choicer cracks in furniture and walls, carpeting, and soft goods for them to move into than the felt. So moving them out of the residence is always an option, unless a collection is too massive to move out of the place needing to be fumigated or heat treated. If they are moveable, care should be taken with boxes and packing materials, as bedbugs can and will get into that stuff. If they aren’t moveable, I am not sure what kind of options would be available.

I haven’t had a bedbug problem, only a flea issue like Drag0n, in my case they arrived here in packing material sent from a home that happened to have them. My Windstones came through it all fine, but then I didn’t fumigate, I went and hit the nasties with salt and borax (I only had a bedroom to deal with, thankfully). Can’t say it would work on bedbugs, but it sure killed all the other creepy crawlies along with the fleas. Since I knew the bugs wouldn’t bother my collection, I just moved the pieces out of the area, as salt and borax probably isn’t the greatest thing to get on Windstones either, not to mention getting it off would be a hassle. As it is, I still find spots where some residue remains after all these years. Never got all of it out of the joints on my futon, either.

(Kind of funny I just saw this topic, I had a dream last night where I had some strange bugs attacking my house, and I killed them all with salt. XD)

[Kiera]

I have had to deal with numerous pest infestations. Goes with being a breeder/rescue/many animal owner. The hardest to get rid of were mites. Fleas were easy by comparison, mites are tougher. Haven’t had to deal with bed bugs directly, but I wouldn’t bother with fumigating. The little buggers like to live in and our beds, right? Carpets and the like. I would go out, buy some PERMETHRIN and treat all the soft surfaces with that. Cheap, easy to get, non toxic to humans (keep away from cats and anything cold blooded), and has a 15 day residual effect. Easily available in Raid spray (get the red can, don’t confuse Permethrin with Pyrethrin, Permethrin is stronger). Hard surfaces don’t usually appeal to bugs as a living space, but Lysol would probably do the job. Bedding I would launder, then spray, and repeat every day/couple of days until the problem is resolved.

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