Bed Bugs and your unit

[Basementdweller]

Because of the youth I serve....Over the past couple of year I have had to deal with boy who brought bed bugs to meetings and outings.

 

Well when we notified the family of the scouts from prior incidents, they are embarrassed and have to the person said they were aware and that they were in the process of treating their home.

 

 

Currently we have a scout who has an on going issue, leadership speculates at least since may. The parents are aware and either chose to do nothing about it or are unable. The last outing the bugs transferred to another scout and to the van.....After spending hours cleaning the van and heating it.....I am satisfied that they are dead....

 

We notified everyone on our return, most weren't happy about it.

 

So prevention.......

 

 

My initial reaction is to suspend the lad till his family gets its act together.....But then I don't like punishing the the boy for a failure on his parents part.

 

There seems to be no policy I can find....the local schools make the kids bring freshly laundered cloths to school in a sealed bag and the children change into them at school. The local Y camp now cooks everything coming into camp to prevent them from spreading.

 

What are your thoughts first as a parent and second as a leader?

[st0ut717]

My wife and i had the misfortune of having an infested hotel room in which she was biten. It turns out that I seem to be unaffected b bed bugs where as she was highly allergic. She required several rounds of medical procedures and is still terrified of bedbugs. the psychologial factor is sometimes more that the physical. My luggage and clothes from that vacation stayed in plastics bags until winter and luckily we had a harsh one.

 

Depending on your environment and location if the neighbor house of this lad is infected there is nothing the boy or is family can do. dont be too rash. these things are damn near impossible to eradicate. Chemicals are becoming useless on them.

 

I think your Y may be onto something.

 

[RememberSchiff]

My unit has had to occasionally deal with head lice. We excluded the scout, as the school did, until his parents corrected the issue and the school nurse verified.

 

As a leader, when it is a health and safety issue, you can't look at these measures as punishing anyone rather as protecting everyone. Quarantines are not punishment. Anyway, that was how we explained it to the scouts and their families.

 

As a parent, I send my son to activities only if he is a healthy scout. I expect other parents to do the same as I expect my son to return a healthy scout. I expect adult leaders to send unhealthy scouts home.

 

I have had no experience with bed bugs and scouts but I imagine the situation is much, much worse.

 

My $0.000001 for being no help

[packsaddle]

Interesting. We've never encountered the problem. And I've been just waiting for an infestation to occur on campus somewhere...so far, so good. I think the heat treatment is a good prophylactic method but you need to remove the chocolate bars first, lol. All insects (and most other arthropods) kick the bucket somewhere around 160 degrees F. It's one of the reasons you see piles of dead wasps and flies nestled in the corner of the back window of the car. Their death is fascinating. A wasp will flutter in vain evidently trying to escape through the glass and then suddenly it will stop, fold its wings backwards, and extend its stinger as if in a last vain stab at whatever was killing it.

 

 

 

Now for head lice, as the old joke goes, you shave one side, douse the other side with lighter fluid and set it on fire. When the lice run out of the fire you stab them with an ice pick.

 

When I was a teen we loved that joke. (Don't try this at home)

[Basementdweller]

My wife and i had the misfortune of having an infested hotel room in which she was biten. It turns out that I seem to be unaffected b bed bugs where as she was highly allergic. She required several rounds of medical procedures and is still terrified of bedbugs. the psychologial factor is sometimes more that the physical. My luggage and clothes from that vacation stayed in plastics bags until winter and luckily we had a harsh one.

 

Depending on your environment and location if the neighbor house of this lad is infected there is nothing the boy or is family can do. dont be too rash. these things are damn near impossible to eradicate. Chemicals are becoming useless on them.

 

I think your Y may be onto something.

You are incorrect on eradication......You just need to pay the exterminator. Heat....locally they will pull a big furnace up to the house and raise internal temp to the kill temp.....or they bring in a guy with a nitrogen tank and he sprays the base boards and the flash freeze kills them.....most of the local companys use trained dogs to locate the pests and take care of them.

 

My gear from the last outing has not been brought into the house. My cloths were taken to a laundry mate and dried on high heat for 30 minutes.

[Basementdweller]

The joys of living in a large urban area.

[kari_cardi]

Perhaps you could offer to work with the family by helping the scout put together a kit of bedbug-free gear and clothing that stays in your garage or at the home of another leader or friend. Then for outings, he stops there first, stores his clothes and shoes in a tote, changes into his stored clothes and attends the outing. On return, reverse the procedure. I think it would be very fair to offer that solution or the alternative to stop participating until the problem is resolved.

 

[Basementdweller]

Perhaps you could offer to work with the family by helping the scout put together a kit of bedbug-free gear and clothing that stays in your garage or at the home of another leader or friend. Then for outings, he stops there first, stores his clothes and shoes in a tote, changes into his stored clothes and attends the outing. On return, reverse the procedure. I think it would be very fair to offer that solution or the alternative to stop participating until the problem is resolved.

The problem with your suggestion is that someone has to take his infested gear home and then deal with it between outings.....

 

Are you going to the laundry mat and deal with his gear for a couple of hours before you go home after an outing?????

 

Then what are you going to do with the infested clothing he changed out of?????

 

Then how do you transport him?????? They are in the hair like lice.......

[Scouter99]

Uhhhh, bed bugs don't stay in people's hair. If they're that thick, call social services.

[Basementdweller]

Uhhhh, bed bugs don't stay in people's hair. If they're that thick, call social services.

They are in the collars of his shirt, brim of his hat,

 

Locally social services does not consider it a neglect or abuse issue, I already looked into it to cover my butt, and I called council to make sure I wasn't being negligent by not reporting suspected abuse......Cause sorry in my book it is abuse.

[packsaddle]

Uhhhh, bed bugs don't stay in people's hair. If they're that thick, call social services.

Brim of hat is still pretty thick. Is there any chance that I could get some preserved specimens, if I sent you the vials with formalin or alcohol?

 

But infestations can happen to anyone and therein lies part of the problem. Bed bugs have evolved to be almost perfect parasites. They proliferate without killing or even causing much harm to their hosts. I'm just glad that HIV isn't transmitted that way - yet. Nor, evidently much of anything else. If they were too small or obscure to be seen easily (as with some other nasties that we try to put out of our minds) we'd probably not be so alarmed.

[Basementdweller]

Heheh. tell ya what.....next meeting I will ask the SPL to keep an eye on the fellow..... The one we pulled off the other scout was as big as my pinky nail

[Basementdweller]

Posted prematurely...might I ask your interest????? I can send one.....just need to wait for another one to fall off him. Kinda award asking a family to root around their house looking for the Godzilla of bed bugs

[Scouter99]

Uhhhh, bed bugs don't stay in people's hair. If they're that thick, call social services.

Yeah, wow.

[packsaddle]

Posted prematurely...might I ask your interest????? I can send one.....just need to wait for another one to fall off him. Kinda award asking a family to root around their house looking for the Godzilla of bed bugs

Specimens for the entomology collection. If you can give me the date collected and a fairly good location (like a street address, doesn't need to be a specific house) the specimens would be archived into a university reference collection. I understand the need for discretion. No sense of urgency, only curiosity.