As we’ve seen worldwide, I’m not sure how well turning a public health problem into a political issue will work out. No matter your political slant, politicians just aren’t the solution to public health issues, as much as they’re needed to administer the legal solutions.
As well as the fact that bedbugs are spreading more and faster due to climate change since they thrive in warmer environments. This problem has been growing and will continue to grow. I worry about when it reaches my own city.
Solutions for such a wide outbreak are scarce, but viable solutions I think would come from the scientific community about effective treatments and long-term changes to keep them at bay. However, as we’ve seen with COVID, there will be a number who will resist efforts to control the pests as some form of social control, infringing on their right to be scruffy bastards, I suppose.
I do wish Paris the best in finding a long-term viable solution to this, it’s a terribly difficult problem to be facing. Especially with intent to host an Olympic games.
Unless you tent and fumigate the entirety of Paris or heat treat it, meaning bringing the temperature of Paris to ~118° for 90 minutes, the other options are…middling in effectiveness.
Also, neither of those treatments keep bedbugs from reinfesting a second after the treatment concludes. (There are no treatments that do. Zero. Ziltch.) And since bedbugs are hitchhikers that can also hide in the tiniest of cracks and crevices, such as fitting between your wall and socket cover, total and permanent eradication is unlikely. The only possibility is if a bait treatment similar to those used for roaches that alters the DNA of the next generation so they can’t reproduce is created and actually attracts bedbugs more than a nice blood filled human.
In dense population centers like Paris total elimination at this point in time is incredibly unlikely. They could with continuous effective treatments bring it under a semblance of control but they will always be there. The Olympics will almost certainly exacerbate the issue.
There’s no other solution than to treat them the way we did the first time — with DDT.
Bedbug populations are not necessarily increasing but returning to normal pre-DDT levels.
There’s btw no reason not to use DDT. The cancer fear was overblown. Obviously it’s not a substance that should be available over the counter, but there’s no reason why qualified and trained personell shouldn’t be able to use it.
What’s a “political row”?
Row (pronounced like wow) is another word for argument or disagreement. It’s most commonly used in the UK. A “political row” just means politicians are bickering with each other.
This is interesting because this word does get used in American English, but it’s pronounced like “row your boat” not like wow.
It’s most commonly used in the UK
Also common in Australia
Also Canada. Basically the US is the odd one out here.
Oh. That’s one of those words I’ve only ever read (generally in brit lit), and thought it was pronounced as row like row a boat. Thank you for the correct pronunciation!
Ah, “row” like “rowdy” not “row yer goddamn boat up the river.”
Thank god the olympics are coming or they may never have had such a push to have this solved. Kinda strikes me as a problem that should have been important before inviting the world over. Like, I had an apartment and we got the buggers. Sucks. So we got on top of it, and delt with it.
Didn’t wait until we invited people over to start worrying about it.
I’ll be honest, there are a lot of things I personally don’t deal with properly until I’m expecting company. But bedbugs should take priority 100% of the time.
Dude, totally. I have no shame in some ways until moments before company. Kinda live alone, so it happens.
But yeah. Bed bugs are one of those things that are an immediate situation. Some may call us picky, but yeah. Ew.
In hungary we have bedbug invasions in govermental hospitals… apart from missing plastering, toilets, toilet paper, food, and medical devices
So how lo g will it be before there’s a riot?
