“so convenient, so safe because the DDT is fixed to the paper”
Boing Boing has a picture of a “Disney-logoed DDT-impregnated wallpaper for the kids’ room” c. 1947. No. words. Enjoy.
Category: History
Old timey bed bug news
Sometimes it is postulated that people were more tolerant of bed bugs in the past. And yet if you actually look what you find is quite resonant with what has been happening to us. What follows is mostly from the … Continue reading
“The kind of thing your eye slides over, registering nothing”
The Road to Wigan Pier: House in Peel Street. Back to back, two up, two down and large cellar. [...] Distance to lavatory 70 yards. Four beds in house for eight people—two old parents, two adult girls (the eldest aged … Continue reading
Of considerable tact and other incongruities
1982 A.G. Wheeler, Jr. (1982) Somebody’s Been Sleeping in My Bed! A Comprehensive Look at the Infamous Bed Bug, a Pest that has Plagued Man Since the Beginning of Civilization. Pest Control Technology 10(2): 38-44 [article is a revised excerpt … Continue reading
The vermin in the walls is wicked
One of the landmarks of British documentary film, the short film Housing Problems (1935) depicts the plight of people living in overcrowded and dilapidated housing. It is a slum clearance propaganda film and one worth thinking about. (It was funded … Continue reading
Millard’s Intercepting Trench Trap for Bugs
Millard invented a trap, should I have told you about that first? He named his trap the “Leicester Intercepting Trench Trap”: It depends for its action upon the habits of the insect as described above, and the principle of it … Continue reading
Anti-bug conscience
How did they do it? The numbers of bed bug infestations fell significantly in the inter-war years in Britain. Well before DDT. The answer, it turns out, is in the wholesale reorganization of housing for the poor.
“They are also able to withstand chilling, thawing, rechilling and again thawing”
So I have apparently lied for here I have for your amusement, whether you want to or not, Bacot’s outhouse. Bacot, A.W. (1914). The influence of temperature, submersion and burial on the survival of eggs and larvae of Cimex lectularius. … Continue reading
You have been on a Dundee tram, I perceive
Kinnear, J. (1948) Epidemic of bullous erythema on legs due to bed-bugs The Lancet, Volume 252, Issue 6515, Page 55 doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(48)90447-4
Serious social stigma (c. 1980)
“Minerva” of the British Medical Journal, July 1980: Council estates are becoming more popular with rats, cockroaches, and bedbugs, reports “Roof,” SHELTER’s housing magazine (14 July 1980). This is apparently due to early occupation by the vermin, which move in … Continue reading