(I thought this was DDT but the net now seems sure it was pyrethrum based)

Shortly after renting a cheap bedsit to attend Riversdale College my roomate and I were attacked by bedbugs (clearly identified by sight and spending their day where the top sheet was tucked under the end of the matress).

One pot of Keating’s was sufficient to clear them out.

I don’t know if Keating’s is still available but it was always kept in the medicine cupboard of my youth and used often for the trreatment of the cats for fleas.

I am surprised about the fear of chemical usage. Surely modern techniques can ensure the nastiest of ‘stuff’ is on site only during the extermination process leaving the bugless accommodation also free of residues.

In any hotel south of Channel my mother would insist that the rooms were sprayed with ‘Flit’, certainly DDT, and we slept is a light haze of the stuff. I have made 60 with out any apparent damage from this. My eggs have as fine a shell on them as you would wish!

Sigh. I don’t really understand if it’s because people don’t trust what scientists are telling us or there’s just a kind of desperation that has crossed a threshold of some kind.

What a total waste of energy and resources and time.

I wish people who give interviews to the media would use more caution and put the DDT background in context.