Q: I recently took a trip and stayed at a major chain hotel. I was careful to inspect the room for bedbugs before I accepted the room, checking behind the headboards, under the dust ruffles, along the mattress seams and in and around the bedside tables. I saw no evidence of bedbugs, so I accepted the room and stayed for three nights. On my last day there, I saw a bedbug crawling across the wall. What should I do with my luggage to be sure no hitchhikers came along? For the time being, I put the luggage in a black plastic bag. I washed all the clothing I took on the trip in hot water and dried the load in the hottest drier setting I could use.
A: Good for you for doing a thorough inspection of the room at check-in. Some people prefer not to look for bedbugs, with a “head in the sand” approach. However, I have heard many nightmare stories about people bringing bedbugs home from infested hotel rooms, then incurring the expense and anxiety of trying to rid the home of bedbugs. Wouldn’t you rather know in the first hour of your visit, so you can be moved to a room in a separate wing, or check in to another hotel?
Since you saw a bedbug in your room, it’s smart to be cautious about how you treat your clothes and luggage. Washing and drying all clothing on the hottest setting possible should destroy any live bugs or eggs that might have been in your clothing.
Depending on the style of luggage, bags can be brushed and cleaned thoroughly on the exterior. First, use a stiff brush to carefully brush all surfaces, seams and pockets. Do this out of doors to avoid the risk of brushing eggs into a living space or garage. Wash all surfaces with hot, soapy water at the hottest temperatures the fabrics will allow. Another option is to heat the luggage to a core temperature of 120 degrees for at least two hours to kill all life stages of bedbugs. Deep freezing at 23 degrees or colder for at least five days will also kill all life stages. Check your deep freezer temperature to make sure the temperature is 23 degrees or lower.
Some people mistakenly believe that they can bag up luggage and “outwait” bedbugs. Adult bedbugs have been known to survive for over a year without feeding, so that’s not a realistic option.
Maintain high levels of cleanliness at home (such as frequent vacuuming), and periodically inspect mattresses to be sure your home remains bedbug free. See the following question for tips on treating clothing.
Q: I hear so much about bedbugs these days. I like to shop thrift stores to buy clothing and antique furniture, but now I’m rethinking this practice. What do you recommend?
A: Bedbugs are a growing problem in Ohio, particularly in the southern reaches of the state, where populations have been well established for several years. Many hotels are infested with bedbugs, allowing for rapid spread of this blood-sucking pest from city to city.
Once established in the home, bedbugs are notoriously difficult to control because they can survive for months without feeding, can readily disperse into hard-to-reach locations, and are a problem in both tidy and messy homes. Bedbugs must be controlled by professional pest control companies, since home remedies may only worsen the problem.
Prevention is key when it comes to keeping bedbugs out of the home. Bedbugs can be introduced in used clothing and furniture, including bedding, pillows and stuffed animals. They can also be brought home in new apparel that was returned to the store from infested dwellings.
Dr. Susan Jones, Associate Professor of Entomology at OSU, offers these suggestions for shoppers of new and used goods:
• Inspect items at the time of purchase to rule out any signs of bedbugs.
• Launder new clothing immediately after it is purchased to remove chemicals from the manufacture process, but also to kill bedbugs.
• Place dry new or used items in the clothes dryer on high for 30 minutes to de-bug them. Sustained temperatures of 120 degrees will kill all bedbug life stages (eggs, nymphs and adults). If you launder second-hand clothes after purchase, be sure to run the dryer an additional 30 minutes on high once the clothes are dry.
According to Dr. Jones, “the bedbug problem in the U.S. is not going away anytime soon. Being educated and proactive are two tools to reduce the risk of bringing home unwanted house guests.”
Q: My roses had little green slugs on the leaves last year, and the leaves looked terrible. How can I prevent these from causing problems this year?
A: Sounds like the pest known as the roseslug found its way to your garden. This creature is an insect not a slug. It resembles a caterpillar, but it is actually a sawfly larvae — an insect more closely related to bees and wasps.
In summer, the adults emerge and the females lay eggs on rose leaves. Small larvae hatch out of the eggs and begin to feed on the lower leaf surfaces. The light green larvae create a “window pane” effect when young, because they can’t chew completely through the leaf tissue. As they mature they eat the leaf tissue in between the veins, causing damage known as skeletonization. There is only one generation per year.
There is another kind of rose pest known as the bristly roseslug that can produce multiple generations; these are sometimes noticed in autumn.
Keep on the lookout for damage to the leaves in summer. Once damage is seen, roseslugs can be controlled by handpicking, or by targeting them with a spray of water to the undersides of leaves. They can also be controlled with insecticidal soap or horticultural oil.
Q: I’ve started to compost this year, and I want to know what is and is not safe to add to the pile. My neighbor wants to add the waste from his dog to my pile, but I’m not sure this is a good idea. Can I add the bedding from my guinea pig?
A: You should not let your neighbor add dog or cat waste to the compost pile. The general rule of thumb is that waste from any meat-eating animal is not safe to add to a compost pile, since pathogens and parasites can be passed from the waste to humans, especially pregnant women. Also avoid adding fatty foods and meat scraps or bones to the pile.
Adding bedding and waste from non-meat eating animals is fine, and should speed up the composting process. This would include bedding and waste from guinea pigs, rabbits, chickens, hamsters and other small animals.
Denise Ellsworth directs the honeybee and native pollinator education program for the Ohio State University. If you have questions about caring for your garden, contact her at 330-263-3700 or click on the Ask Denise link on her blog at www.osugarden.com.