Part 4

The application is best made with a large sized atomizer, one holding a pint or more and working with a piston instead of a rubber bulb. * * * To obtain the best results, repeat the treatment after about two weeks. We have tried this mixture repeatedly, and with uniformly gratifying results. Usually one application, if thoroughly made, put a period to the complaints, about eight or ten ounces being required in an average sleeping-room. The odor remains some little time in a room, but is not disagreeable to the average person.

This remedy can be readily prepared by a pharmacist in any drug store.

Various bedbug remedies and mixtures are for sale, most of them containing one or another of the ingredients mentioned, and these are frequently of value. The great desideratum, however, in a case of this kind, is a daily inspection of beds and bedding, particularly the seams and tufting of mattresses, and of all crevices and locations about the premises where these vermin may have gone for concealment. A vigorous campaign should, in the course of a week or so at the outside, result in the extermination of this very obnoxious and embarrassing pest.

The possibility of temperature control is indicated in the discussion elsewhere of the effect of temperature on this insect, and it may be that if infested houses in cold climates could be opened up and allowed to remain at a temperature well below freezing for a week or more, the bedbug would be thoroughly exterminated. This method of control would be rarely practicable except perhaps in the case of summer houses which are left untenanted in winter.

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=Transcriber Note=

Illustrations move to prevent splitting paragraphs. Minor typos may have been corrected. Produced from files generously made available by USDA through The Internet Archive. All resultant materials are placed in the Public Domain.