Bubbles in Prague Poludnie
Source: ATTENTION! It doesn’t matter if the apartment is clean or dirty, in a new building or in an apartment building – everywhere there are insects, especially worms. Their population has increased since the pandemic. This problem is increasing not only in Warsaw.
Beata woke up in the morning in a rented apartment in the center of Warsaw with painful bite marks and a swollen eyelid. Paulina noticed bedbugs crawling around in a short-term rental apartment. Veronica found “strange bites” on her body. Two months after she moved to her new home. Kasia found “nets” on the couch she bought from her friend. It turned out that it was drops. The furniture went straight to the trash. These are just a few of the stories shared by members of one of the Facebook groups “Recognize the Flying Mothers”, whose patron – as they call her – is the queen of insects, the cat. The bite is painful and the offender is difficult to remove.
Why do we hear more and more about them? Where do they come from and what kind of environment do they like? We talked about it with pest control specialist Maciej Wargocki from Rentokil Polska. First of all, it dispels the myth that insects can only be found in neglected homes or dirty hotels. – Sanitation determines whether it is widely maintained to promote the development of insect populations, such as bedbugs, cockroaches, or ants. However, it is a myth that they are found only in dirty objects. If the environment is kept in good condition, bedbugs and other insects will also thrive. In fact, we, humans, are their hosts, so they travel with us and do not need many opportunities and special conditions to spread and reproduce, he says.
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Insects travel with us
According to an expert, after the pandemic, we all started traveling and with us… insects too. – I have heard opinions that it was brought to Poland from the Far East, this is a stereotype. At first, the beds were found in hotels, I believe they were most likely “imported” by flight attendants and travelers from other European countries. Then they traveled with us to houses and offices, cinemas and vehicles, – says our interlocutor.
Vargotsky also believes that this problem has become very common in the last two to three years. – It is interesting that this topic has been appearing in European countries for several years, and somehow it passed through Poland. At first, the issue was strictly related to accommodation facilities, but now we also receive orders from administrative buildings, hospitals, restaurants and public transport, – he enumerates. He adds: – We noticed the first signs of “invasion” of bedbugs in Poland only about 10 years ago, and these were unusual events. In the following years, if this problem mainly affected hotels, it was not so common and disturbing, but now in many cities it is affecting our apartments, apartment blocks and even residential areas.
The expert also reminds that pests often travel with people. This was the case with rats, mice and cockroaches. – Currently, bedbugs are becoming more common and we are more and more exposed to contact with them, – he says.
They only come out of hiding when they sense us
Is it possible to get rid of the “queen” of insects and is it easy? – When it comes to the fight against cataracts, it is a very difficult process. If we have access to them, we can use chemical means – contact. The fact is that they live in hard-to-find places: in mattresses, furniture, paintings, electrical installations, curtains, carpets. They only come out of hiding when we smell our body, especially the carbon dioxide emitted by humans. Therefore, spraying the house and furniture is not very effective. Bedbugs nest in the structural elements of the bed, in places where the spray does not come into direct contact with the insects. And the cat should have direct contact with the drug, walk on it or rub oneself on it to get infected – explains Vargotsky.
As the expert points out, therefore, heat control methods are more effective. – Because while we can use chemicals to deal with the adults we have access to, they will not willingly come into contact with them in hiding. In addition, insect eggs are a control problem. They are like a “time capsule” surrounded by a hard chitinous armor. Chemicals cannot destroy them, which means that even after a very thorough treatment, a new generation of hungry people will emerge. A female can lay about 200-300 eggs, he says.
In addition, moth bites are often confused with rashes, allergies, or mosquito bites.
According to Wargotsky, nestlings tend to nest near furniture and soft beds, where we spend most of our time. In this way, insects have easy access to the host. On social networks, you can often find warnings about possible pests as free items when buying furniture. Is it possible? – The probability of buying furniture in a store with bedbugs is very low, because these are insects that live next to people and do not have access to food in a warehouse or factory. The absence of a host limits their ability to thrive and survive. I don’t want furniture stores to appear in our houses and apartments. In homes and hotel rooms, beds are also hidden in electronic devices, televisions, sockets and picture frames. They can be placed under carpets or lamps. They avoid light and activate only when it is dark and they sense the host – explains the expert.
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They move from installation to apartment
It is also known that the problem of beds in residential houses is similar to the attack of ants, cockroaches or cockroaches. Cockroaches – like cockroaches – can come to us from another house. These insects, for example, travel through electrical devices. Sometimes the problem is due to a neighbor who does not want to treat and, for example, does not care about the hygiene of the apartment. As the population increases, the insects start looking for more space and new habitat.
– Prussians move from apartment to apartment, like insects. Apartments in residential buildings where there were once garbage dumps and made of large slabs are vulnerable to the migration of insects. Through this type of construction, insects are brought to a new level – the “path to paradise”, and at the same time, a lot of food is provided. They also have plumbing and central heating. Cockroaches and German cockroaches have access to water, although there is enough condensation in the pipes. Therefore, all central heating and water nodes are the natural place of their existence, – explains our interlocutor.
It happens that in residential houses, a “problem” inhabitant who takes away waste creates problems for the whole area. We have already reported on this case on tvnwarszawa.pl. This was the case with a resident of one of the residential houses in Ochota who, despite being evicted, is returning there. He also collected the garbage that reached the ceiling. Neighbors complained not only about the bad smell, but also about insects, which had favorable conditions for their survival.
Garbage to the ceiling in an apartment in Alejë Jerozolimskie
This is what the interior of the apartment looks like
Source: tvnwarszawa.pl
This is what the interior of the apartment looks like
Source: tvnwarszawa.pl
This is what the interior of the apartment looks like
Source: tvnwarszawa.pl
This is what the interior of the apartment looks like
Source: tvnwarszawa.pl
– Failure to pay attention to proper sanitary conditions means that Prussians do not have food and conditions for breeding. They can be so numerous that at some point they wander through the vents and all our holes in the ceiling. In this way, they are looking for new areas to settle. It’s the same with bedbugs, except that they are much more difficult to deal with. The songbird does not live inside our mattress or chair, it prefers warm places with access to water and food. Man is the host of the beetle, so it nests near us, – says the expert.
How to get rid of them?
Vargotsky also advises that in order to fight bed bugs, you need to raise the temperature of the room and reach 50 degrees in a specific piece of furniture. – It is not easy and takes several hours, and the heating process must be properly controlled so that everything in the room does not get damaged or damaged. This technology is not popular in Poland, although it is the only effective way to fight against bedbugs, he notes.
However, the new environmental protection rules of the European Union do not help in the fight against these insects. As Wargotsky explains, in the past products containing DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, an insecticide) were effective against insects, but these substances were removed many years ago as a result of environmental policy, and the problem is returning. – Insects that come with us from other countries are often exposed to chemicals and have become resistant to them among the population, which makes their eradication even more difficult. Today, the pest control substances available and approved in Poland and the European Union are becoming weaker, which on the one hand protects our consumers, but on the other hand does not facilitate the fight against pests. So, taking care of the environment and wanting to be effective at the same time, we should look for physical or thermal measures, do not forget about prevention and prophylaxis, – he concludes.
Author: Katarzina Kedra
Source: tvnwarszawa.pl
Main image source: Shutterstock
