Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio. Hey brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren vog Obam here with a classic episode from erstwhile
Speaker 1: host Christian Sager. Today's is pretty gross, but if you're
Speaker 1: like me and find insects and vampires fascinating, it's pretty interesting.
Speaker 1: Good morning, brain Stuff, I'm Christian Sager. 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: nineteen seventy two, so we can't nooke them from orbit.
Speaker 1: Just to be sure anymore. So arm yourself with knowledge,
Speaker 1: because here's what bed bugs are, where they live, and
Speaker 1: how to get rid of them. The official name for
Speaker 1: bed bugs is cimex lectilarious, and they are parasites that
Speaker 1: feed off of their sleeping hosts blood. The largest they
Speaker 1: get 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 one 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, televisions, 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 their incredibly tenacious critters, and to successfully
Speaker 1: eradicate them sometimes takes up to four different treatments. There's
Speaker 1: dry ice sprays, steam, vacuuming, fumigation, and insecticides. Sustained exposure
Speaker 1: to temperatures over a hundred and twenty degrees fahrenheit will
Speaker 1: also kill them, which is why you'll need to wash
Speaker 1: all of your linen's and blast them in a hot dryer.
Speaker 1: And remember what I said about messy clutter, Yeah, you've
Speaker 1: got to clean all that up so they won't have
Speaker 1: any place to hide again. Some people also use plastic
Speaker 1: encasings around their mattress, box spring, and pillows to keep
Speaker 1: them from ever returning again. Today's episode was written by
Speaker 1: Christian and produced by Tyler Clang. For more on this
Speaker 1: lots of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com.
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