Speaker 1: I am Scott and I'm Then and we're from Car Stuff.
Speaker 1: We're the podcast that covers everything that flutes, flies, swims,
Speaker 1: or drives, adventures, thrills, chills, literally, planes, trains and automobiles.
Speaker 1: That's right. And you can find all of our episodes
Speaker 1: on Google Play, Spotify, iTunes and really anywhere else you
Speaker 1: get your podcast. Hey, everybody, if you're like me, there
Speaker 1: are constantly things that make you curious about the world.
Speaker 1: That's why I do the show. I'm sure it's why
Speaker 1: you're listening. So that's why I want to recommend The
Speaker 1: Great Courses Plus to you, and I keep encouraging you
Speaker 1: to sign up for it. The Great Courses Plus offers
Speaker 1: a huge library of engaging video lectures presented by award
Speaker 1: winning professors and experts in their fields. Learn more about
Speaker 1: whatever interests you. They've got everything on there. You can
Speaker 1: search for specific topics like black holes or maybe World
Speaker 1: War two, or you can browse by category. They've got science, history, health,
Speaker 1: even travel or photography. There's hundreds of these fascinating courses,
Speaker 1: with new ones that are being added all the time,
Speaker 1: and you get unlimited access to all of them. You
Speaker 1: can stream them anytime anywhere from any device. So the
Speaker 1: course I want to recommend to you today is called
Speaker 1: the Intelligent Brain and it's this really interesting look at
Speaker 1: research behind intelligence, using brain imaging technology to explore the
Speaker 1: workings of human intelligence and and learning how to make
Speaker 1: ourselves smarter. It sounds like the perfect topic for people
Speaker 1: who would be into brain stuff. So we want you
Speaker 1: to sign up for the Great Courses Plus today, And
Speaker 1: we made a deal with them and they said, okay,
Speaker 1: how about this. How about if brain Stuff listeners get
Speaker 1: a special offer, they will get an entire month of
Speaker 1: unlimited access to all of the Great Courses Plus lectures
Speaker 1: for free. So start your free month today. Go to
Speaker 1: the Great Courses Plus dot com slash brain Stuff and
Speaker 1: remember that is the Great Courses Plus dot com slash
Speaker 1: brain Stuff. Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works.
Speaker 1: Good morning, brain Stuff. I'm Christian Seger. You've just woken up.
Speaker 1: Something smells musty and sweet. When you open your eyes,
Speaker 1: your bed has a trail of molted insects, shells, rust
Speaker 1: colored stains, and tiny smears of excrement. Just saying this
Speaker 1: makes me feel itchy. So imagine actually finding these traces
Speaker 1: of bed bugs in your home. We thought these little
Speaker 1: vampires were taken care of after we bombed them to
Speaker 1: hell with d d T in the nineteen eighties, but
Speaker 1: they are back, and d d T was outlawed in
Speaker 1: ninety two, so we can't nooke them from orbit. Just
Speaker 1: to be sure anymore, So arm yourself with knowledge, because
Speaker 1: here's what bed bugs are, where they live, and how
Speaker 1: to get rid of them. The official name for bed
Speaker 1: bugs is cimex lectlarius, and they are parasites that feed
Speaker 1: off of their sleeping hosts blood. The largest they get
Speaker 1: is only a quarter of an inch and they're flat,
Speaker 1: so they're easy to miss. Their brownish wingless with six
Speaker 1: shiny legs, and their syringe like mouthbeak is what they
Speaker 1: use to pierce your skin and suck your blood. Now.
Speaker 1: Unlike nos ferratu, these guys rarely wake their victims while feeding,
Speaker 1: and they can even take three to ten minutes to
Speaker 1: gorge on your blood. Now, while drinking, they actually release
Speaker 1: their own saliva into your broken skin, which can eventually
Speaker 1: cause an allergic reaction. Luckily, they don't spread disease, but
Speaker 1: the bites can swell and itch. Except for thirty percent
Speaker 1: of people who have no reaction to these bugs at all.
Speaker 1: Even still, they probably won't drain you dry. It actually
Speaker 1: would take one hundred thousand bedbugs feeding on you for
Speaker 1: at least a week to make you anemic. Now, let's
Speaker 1: put one misconception to rest. Though bedbugs aren't a sign
Speaker 1: of poor hygiene. Even immaculate mansions can get them. It
Speaker 1: only takes on to ride on in and infect your
Speaker 1: whole home. But the messier the domicile, the more places
Speaker 1: they have to hide. Here is a short list of
Speaker 1: spots that they can conceal themselves. Sofa seems, bed frame cracks,
Speaker 1: torn wall paper, backpacks, light switches, television's, clocks, phones, rugs, baseboards, curtains, clothing, towels,
Speaker 1: or even pillows. Basically, anywhere that's dark and protected is
Speaker 1: up for grabs. One way to tell you've got them
Speaker 1: is from the coriander like odor that they release when
Speaker 1: they are alarmed. The worst part is they can live
Speaker 1: up to a year without eating, so even if you
Speaker 1: move into a totally vacant residence, they could still be
Speaker 1: there waiting. So then how do we kill them? Well,
Speaker 1: like with any vampire, you should hire a professional. They
Speaker 1: must be exterminated. They're incredibly tenacious critters, and to successfully
Speaker 1: eradicate at them sometimes takes up to four different treatments.
Speaker 1: There's dry ice sprays, steam, vacuuming, fumigation, and insecticides. Sustained
Speaker 1: exposure to temperatures over a hundred and twenty degrees fahrenheit
Speaker 1: will also kill them, which is why you'll need to
Speaker 1: wash all of your linen's and blast them in a
Speaker 1: hot dryer. And remember what I said about messy clutter, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you've got to clean all that up so they won't
Speaker 1: have any place to hide again. Some people also use
Speaker 1: plastic encasings around their mattress, box, spring and pillows to
Speaker 1: keep them from ever returning again. Check out the brainstuf
Speaker 1: channel on YouTube, and for more on this and thousands
Speaker 1: of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com