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Bedbugs are horrible and gross and nothing that anyone should have to deal with. That said, it's probably not a great idea to douse your mattress with gasoline in order to repel the critters. The FDNY has found a number of Queens residents who have taken to soaking their mattresses with gasoline - even children's mattresses - as a foolproof way of getting rid of bedbugs. Or even wiping it on themselves. Battalion Chief Robert Turner tells the Post, "Gasoline is very explosive - even static electricity from a rug can ignite it." Point taken, but we understand the desperation to get rid of the bugs.
The NYC Department of Health bedbug fact sheet and the Bedbug Blog, plus Gothamist on bedbugs.
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I am not one to say such things about people who are obviously less fortunate than others, but holy sweet crap, if this technique doesn't scream "DARWIN AWARD CANDIDATE IN THE MAKING" I don't know what does.
Potential Darwin Award winners?
Hope we don't read about any Fires...
hehe. Yeah, so it does seem obvious, apparently.
Too Funny! We put nearly identical thoughts at the same time...
;)
Oh, queens.
I have a bug problem in my kitchen. I've never thought of dousing my food in gasoline-- Should go home and try that.
It may sound like a dumb idea, but when your apartment is infested with millions of little bugs that just won't die no matter what you do, you get a little desperate. When my place had bedbugs I got to the point where I was ready to try almost anything to kill those things. I did drench my baseboards in Lysol daily, since that seemed to be a favorite hiding place for the bugs.
i was a big fan of 90% rubbing alcohol myself. when the exterminator came, that was their recommendation.
I spent a summer in Botswana in Southern Africa. During my stay in a rural village, my bed became infested with bedbugs. To get rid of them, my host mother took a rag doused in paraffin and scrubbed above and below the cording along the perimeter of the mattress. Apparently, that is the part of the mattress where they congregate most heavily.
All I can say is that killed a significant portion of the bedbugs, allowing me to sleep in peace after having been eaten alive.
I acknowledge that this is probably not the best method of eliminating bedbugs, but it is not a purely-irrational response either.
For a chemical-free alternative, my host mother also told me that exposing the mattress / sheets / whatever to direct sunlight should kill the bedbugs. However, I am not sure how feasible that is here in the city.
Note: By no means am I advocating dousing an entire mattress -- or covering oneself -- with gasoline or kerosene / paraffin oil.
Too late, G.D.H., we all took your advice and perished horribly. You'll be hearing from our lawyers.
no need to knock Queens, bedbugs are found in every neighborhood in the city and probably are dealt with just as irrationally by residents in every borough.
Don't smoke in bed!
Yeah D, here in Manhattan the problem is even worse. Just last week Donald Trump decided it was worthwhile falling asleep to the smell of gasoline rather than have another bug bite him. How about clean living?
Those workers blew up their bakery to rid it of roaches last week, so self immolation seems reasonable for bed bugs. Trump won't even shake hands with people, so I'm sure he's clean, except for all the skanky hos he marries.