Sleeping with the littlest enemy

Sun., Sept. 23, 2007

You are not alone. Right there, in the sanctuary of your home, any number of tiny uninvited guests have set up residence, with no plans of leaving any time soon.

In “A Field Guide to Household Bugs,” a paperback due in stores this month from Plume Books, authors Joshua Abarbanel and Jeff Swimmer bring this disgusting reality home with 115 pages of humorous factoids and skin-crawling photographs of earwigs, silverfish and other freeloading domestic varmints.

Abarbanel offers insights into the bug versus homeowner mismatch:

Question: What’s the most common household pest included in the book?

Answer: Dust mites. Flies and ants come and go, but dust mites are in for the long haul. Ten percent of the weight of a 2-year-old pillow may be composed of dead dust mites, molted exoskeletons and mite droppings. When you go to sleep at night, you’re sharing your bed with 100,000 to 10 million of these little critters.

Q: Which of the bugs are the toughest to control?

A: Bedbugs are getting a lot of press as infestations continue to pop up in cities across the U.S. and beyond. Just why they have come back is a mystery, but the suspected culprits are cheap global travel and the banning of powerful pesticides like DDT.

Bedbugs are essentially immune to the available pesticides, and they can hide in any crack along the floor or wall, not just in a mattress or bed frame. You would never think of a bug as being patient, but these guys can go a year without a blood meal, waiting for just the right moment to dine. It’s no wonder the word ” bug” comes from the Celtic word for a ghost or goblin, because bedbugs were considered terrors of the night.

Q: Where would we start a counteroffensive? Which room is most likely infested?

The place with the most action is probably the kitchen.

A: Of the bugs that actually snack upon us, the bedroom is a favorite playground, where the mild temperatures, soft bedding and huge, yummy, blood-filled hosts unknowingly offer free admission to an all-night buffet.

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