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Comment by lm28469 | Hacker News Reader

Might as well use this https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diatomaceous_earth

There are caveats to using diatomaceous earth. If inhaled, it'll do to your airways what it does to insects. You'd want to avoid disturbing it or placing any where airflow from heating ducts, fans, etc. might blow across it to prevent it from floating around in the air.

The reason to use fossilized diatoms instead of something synthesized is specifically so that you won't get silicosis from too much crystallized silica. But I agree, just sprinkling it liberally around your house as some kind of preventative measure sounds like way more exposure than I'd be comfortable with.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diatomaceous_earth#Safety_cons...

I can confirm, DE works. Just don't breathe the stuff, which you're supposed to puff onto surfaces. Once it's there, the bugs have to crawl across it so it'll cut them up like little razor blades, or a thousand paper cuts. So satisfying.

It's less like a thousand paper cuts, and more like it removes their stillsuit so they dry out.

https://dune.fandom.com/wiki/Stillsuit

Basically anything microscopic is increasingly found to be just horrible to inhale, but this blurb from Wikipedia says there are probably significantly worse things to handle for a one-time treatment.

   ...In a 1978 study of workers, those exposed to natural diatomaceous earth for over five years had no significant lung changes while 40% of those exposed to the calcined form had developed pneumoconiosis.[46] Today's common diatomaceous earth formulations are safer to use, as they are predominantly made up of amorphous silica and contain little or no crystalline silica.[47]

  The crystalline silica content of diatomaceous earth is regulated in the United States by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and there are guidelines from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health that set maximum amounts allowable in the product (1%) and in the air near the breathing zone of workers, with a recommended exposure limit at 6 mg/m3 over an 8-hour workday.[47] OSHA has set a permissible exposure limit for diatomaceous earth as 20 mppcf (80 mg/m3/%SiO2). At levels of 3,000 mg/m3, diatomaceous earth is immediately dangerous to life and health.

  In the 1930s, long-term occupational exposure among workers in the cristobalite diatomaceous earth industry who were exposed to high levels of airborne crystalline silica over decades were found to have an increased risk of silicosis.[49]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diatomaceous_earth

Yes I'm not saying it's going to cause long term damage to your lungs, it's probably pretty safe, but it doesn't feel great if you inhale it, and it's easy to avoid if you just put on a mask or spray and move away.

I fought bed bugs once with DE, heat, and dry ice traps or you can use a co2 fish tank pump to attract them into a trap. We also placed containers filled with oil at the bottom of each bed post.

It took a year but we were successful

Dry ice is an interesting idea. I want it to work, because it is just so deliciously different.

However, I assume the harsh reality says that it is nearly impossible to suffocate the entire infestation, and more than a few survivors or eggs would remain after the treatment.

The goal isn't to suffocate them, but to draw them into a trap--they're attracted to CO2 because we exhale it. Over time, the hope is you trap and kill the entire population.

I think it'd work for mild infestations, but for larger ones the heat method is really the only option.

I suppose that seems much more plausible, if significantly less cool, ahem, than making a low hanging CO2 bath.

Both heat and cold kill, it just takes a long time at certain temperatures.

Double sided tape trapped whole families :)

Interesting, so I could put this in a cup below each post.

But I hope we never have to try this.

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