View report page

81
Three conclusions have been tentatively reached during the year:—
Firstly : Successful disinfestation is entirely a matter of detail in dealing with
several varying factors. It has to be thorough and it is in consequence expensive.
Secondly : People do not like their neighbours to know they have bugs. They
cannot help them knowing it, however, when such a scheme as outlined above is put
in force. The mere fact that one of the Council's disinfecting vans visits a house
where no ambulance has previously been, means in all probability that the house is
infested with bugs. The woman in the bug infested house is at once subject to a
considerable amount of comment by her neighbours, many of whom are not afraid of
expressing to her what they think about her, even though their houses may be in the
same state. I think, however, in addition to talking to her they try to get rid of
their own bugs, more or less successfully. It may be, therefore, that such a scheme
may have more far reaching consequences than the mere recapitulation of the work
indicates. It is safe to assume that the average housewife will pay more attention to
the eradication of bed bugs by the usual household methods, and her success or
failure will depend on the amount of adjacent infestation, the state of the property
and other similar factors. I do not think she can get rid of them when a house is
really infested, but she may be able to do so in milder cases.
A campaign, therefore, may lead to a change in public opinion with regard to
bugs, and it may mean that the same influences which brought about the diminution
of verminous conditions in school children may act once again in bringing about a
diminution of bug infested houses.
Thirdly: It used to be thought that bugs hibernated during the winter and that
nobody need worry about them then. This view is totally erroneous; we found bug
infested rooms easily enough during the winter and we found young bugs also, but
the numbers were much smaller than in the hot months of the year. It is a matter
for consideration, therefore, whether de-bugging should not be done systematically
from January to December. It is possible to get rid of bugs in a house in the winter
months, and in any event the number of infested houses is sufficient to keep a
disinfecting staff employed on this work throughout the whole year.
In these days of slum clearance and the building of new estates, the question
of de-bugging is a matter of very great importance, particularly with the removal of
tenants from bug infested houses to new houses. For this reason alone, if for
nothing else, research work on bug disinfestation is essential.