The Moving Process Preventing BedBugs

not a shill for this site, but it's where I bought from after my last encounter with the little bastard bedbugs.

http://www.domyownpestcontrol.com/sterifab-16-oz-p-270.html

It's called Steri-Fab. It helped me out a lot. This stuff kills not only buggies, but bedbug eggs as well. So what you do is, you vacuum/sweep out the truck, and then spray the entire interior down with this stuff. You can also use it to treat your furniture after you get it off the truck (esp. the underside of the couches and box spring mattresses). That should keep you mostly clean. Nothing is 100%, but preventative actions like this should keep you clean. Good luck.

caaahyoko wrote: You mean I have to worry about getting bedbugs from the U-Haul truck?! :shock:

Only if you sleep in it!

daver wrote: This stuff: Mover's stretch plastic wrap
You can get a 20" by 1000', and you get done moving it is great fun to secure your friends and family with too!

That's $21.80 plus tax. Wouldn't that money be better spent as a downpayment on a giant plastic bubble? Doubles as a nifty party game too (just watch out for the stairs).

Oooh! I want bubble! Screw biking!

Good point about the mover's wrap, daver. I actually think I have a roll of it lying around.

And thanks, brooklynleather, about mentioning the mover's blankets. Definitely won't be renting those this time :shock:

caaahyoko wrote: I heard about that! I would have to cheat, though, and get an electric bike. We have really heavy chairs!!

Your chairs can't weigh more than a refrigerator, can they?

caaahyoko wrote: Though, I did see this guy and girl with a bakfiet. The girl was pedaling with him in the cargo bin! Of course, the guy looked too scrawny to move even a mountain bike.

Yeah, I like those dutch style cargo bikes. I saw a pretty cool work bike in action a few weeks back. The community garden i'm part of got a bunch of compost material deliveries by bike from the Ft Greene green mkt. Probably hauling 300+ pounds at a time. It turns out the bikes are made in Queens. Oh, and just to prove the Queens _is_ cool, they also make these.

Dude, I actually sent you a PM about this Brooklynleather, did you get it?

I sent it a few days ago because I knew you would worry about this

Basically, the best thing to do is have a licensed and skilled PCO pre-treat the apartment you are moving into with an up-to-date bug-killer that is a pyrethrin and also he/she should fill the electrical outlets with Diatomaceous earth. Additionally, you can go yourself (wearing a dust mask) and sweep food-grade DE all over your new place before it's full of your stuff. Sprinkle and then sweep it into the floor, the cracks, the baseboards, etc. Then, seal all of these that you can! Seal, seal, seal with caulk.

Moving Van:
-pay a reputable PCO to spray the van! People have to stay away from the poison for at least an hour, so what I did was have the movers help with the last minute packing and wrapping the furniture in plastic while we waited for the van to air out. We bought a great mattress plastic cover thing from the UPS website (they have an online packing materials store where we got all of our packing materials delivered for cheap within 2 days).
-do not let the movers wrap your belongings in those old dirty moving blankets that they use. Tell them to leave them out of the truck. NO BLANKETS! Using those blankets is probably the worst thing you can do in terms of bugs and moving.

Between the pre-treating, the spraying the van and the DE sweeping, a lot of my worry was diminished.