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(2) The home must be kept clean.
(3) If the walls are papered and the paper is loose, the loose paper
should be stripped, any holes in the walls filled and the walls
colour-washed or distempered.
(4) Care of beds, etc.—Keep a sharp look-out for bugs, wipe bedsteads,
especially joints where bugs can harbour, with paraffin
or fluid vermicide weekly. Wood frames of other articles of
furniture, picture frames, etc., may be treated in the same way.
(Do not use these preparations near a naked light.)
(5) A cheap and useful preparation for dealing with small infestations
is paraffin oil soap emulsion, which is prepared as follows:—
Dissolve four ounces (¼-lb.) of soft soap in one pint of hot
water, to which while still hot, three to four pints of paraffin
oil are added gradually, with much shaking and stirring.
The final mixture should be white and milky with no free
oil.
Do not add paraffin oil to soap solution near a fire or
naked light.
Three table-spoonfuls of this emulsion in a pint of water
should be forced into all cracks and crevices by use of a
hand-syringe or brush.
This treatment should be repeated at intervals of four or
five days.
(6) Fumigation of a single room can be carried out with sulphur,
using at least 3 to 4 lbs. for a room 10 feet wide, 12 feet long and
8 feet high. (For a larger room the amount of sulphur should
be proportionately increased.) The sulphur must be placed in
a pail, or similar receptacle, containing water so as to prevent
danger from fire. As the action of sulphur is most effective when
used in a moist atmosphere, water should also be sprinkled over
the floor, etc. All windows, fireplaces and crevices must be
sealed up before lighting the sulphur, the door must then be
closed and sealed, and the room left sealed for at least six hours.