Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio. Hey brain Stuff, Lauren vog Obam here with a classic episode from erstwhile host Christian Sager. Today's is pretty gross, but if you're like me and find insects and vampires fascinating, it's pretty interesting. Good morning, brain Stuff, I'm Christian Sager. You've just woken up. Something smells musty and sweet. When you open your eyes, your bed has a trail of molted insects, shells, rust
colored stains, and tiny smears of excrement. Just saying this makes me feel itchy, So imagine actually finding these traces of bed bugs in your home. We thought these little vampires were taken care of after we bombed them to hell with d d T in the nineteen eighties, but they are back, and d d T was outlawed in nineteen seventy two, so we can't nooke them from orbit. Just to be sure anymore. So arm yourself with knowledge, because here's what bed bugs are, where they live, and
how to get rid of them. The official name for bed bugs is cimex lectilarious, and they are parasites that feed off of their sleeping hosts blood. The largest they get is only a quarter of an inch and they're flat, so they're easy to miss. Their brownish wingless with six shiny legs, and their syringe like mouthbeak is what they use to pierce your skin and suck your blood. Now, unlike nos ferratu, these guys rarely wake their victims while feeding, and they can even take three to ten minutes to
gorge on your blood. Now, while drinking, they actually release their own saliva into your broken skin, which can eventually cause an allergic reaction. Luckily, they don't spread disease, but the bites can swell and itch, except for thirty percent of people who have no reaction to these bugs at all. Even still, they probably won't drain you dry. It actually would take one hundred thousand bedbugs feeding on you for at least a week to make you anemic. Now, let's
put one misconception to rest. Though bedbugs aren't a sign of poor hygiene, even immaculate mansions can get them. It only takes one to ride on in and infect your whole home. But the messier the domicile, the more places they have to hide. Here is a short list of spots that they can conceal themselves, sofa seems, bed frame cracks, torn wall paper, backpacks, light switches, televisions, clocks, phones, rugs, baseboards, curtains, clothing, towels,
or even pillows. Basically, anywhere that's dark and protected is up for grabs. One way to tell you've got them is from the coriander like odor that they release when they are alarmed. The worst part is they can live up to a year without eating, so even if you move into a totally vacant residence, they could still be there waiting. So then how do we kill them? Well,
like with any vampire, you should hire a professional. They must be exterminated their incredibly tenacious critters, and to successfully eradicate them sometimes takes up to four different treatments. There's dry ice sprays, steam, vacuuming, fumigation, and insecticides. Sustained exposure to temperatures over a hundred and twenty degrees fahrenheit will also kill them, which is why you'll need to wash all of your linen's and blast them in a hot dryer.
And remember what I said about messy clutter, Yeah, you've got to clean all that up so they won't have any place to hide again. Some people also use plastic encasings around their mattress, box spring, and pillows to keep them from ever returning again. Today's episode was written by Christian and produced by Tyler Clang. For more on this lots of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com.
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