I never saw these bed bugs when I was a kid, but I imagined them as mythical creatures living between the bed sheets. It wasn’t until I was much older that I realised they were actually a real thing. At medical school my professor recounted tales of bed bug infestations, where tiny insects forced hotels to close their doors and businesses to become bankrupt. Pest controllers have kept the bugs at bay for decades, but our treatments are failing and these nocturnal insects are becoming an even greater threat to sound sleepers across Australia. BED BUGS ARE BECOMING RESISTANT Insecticide used in the 1950s successfully killed off the vast majority of bed bugs, but the toughest ones survived. Pest controllers now need to use a variety of different chemicals and much higher doses to effectively eradicate them. We’ve been wondering for decades how they’ve been getting around our treatments. Suggestions have been made that they’re producing complex enzymes to metabolise insecticide more quickly — but the actual answer may be a lot more simple. The outer surface of a bed bug is called a ‘cuticle’ and Australian entomologists recently measured the cuticles of treatment-resistant bugs compared to bugs that were… Read full this story
- Man disgusted after waking in hotel 'covered head to toe in bed bugs'
- Beetle mania alive and well as young Queenslanders bond over love of bugs
- ‘Just like that’: The homemade solution that gets rid of cockroaches in your home for good
- How to get rid of ants from your house and garden 'before they’ve even had a chance'
- Greg Gutfeld: What’s with all the people eating bugs?
- I’m a mum and this simple hack will keep flies and bugs out of your paddling pool
- Here’s my annual Love Island quiz – be thoroughly ashamed if you get them all right
- Are You a Night Owl Trying to Be a Morning Person? Science Says Stop, Because You May (Literally) Be Killing Yourself
- You can tell how good a man is in bed by his personality type, scientists reveal
- Evil dad Chris Watts reveals shocking truth behind killing family in sickening letters
Prepare for the bed bug apocalypse: They’re getting harder to kill have 354 words, post on www.news.com.au at June 8, 2016. This is cached page on wBlogs. If you want remove this page, please contact us.