Bed Bugs
Bed Bugs breed in the cracks of walls, floors, woodwork, furniture, and beds, laying 200 eggs which become adult in about 6 weeks. They are blood-sucking insects and can live for months without food, travelling in the wall spaces between rooms of the house. The adult is flat, oval, and brown, dark red after feeding, and produces an oily secretion which causes a characteristic unpleasant smell. They come out at night to suck blood, and cause great irritation and loss of sleep or restlessness at night in children who should be sleeping soundly.
Prevention and control of bed bugs may be carried out by filling up cracks in the wall with mud mixed with DDT. Clean all furniture, and dust insecticide into joints. Burn bug-infested material if possible. Also check servants' quarters periodically if they are living in a separate building. Fumigation may be required if the house is badly infested with bed bugs.
Soft Ticks
The soft tick hides in cracks in the walls and comes out to suck blood at night rather like the bed bug. It transmits a spirochaete which causes relapsing fever. It can also feed on small mammals. When the ticks are found in houses they should be killed with an insecticide such as BHC and the cracks in walls or floors where they live should then be filled in with some permanent materials such as cement.
Flies
The flea is of public health importance because it is the link between rat and man and can transmit plague and murine typhus. In favourable conditions fleas may live a long time. The life-cycle of the flea from egg through larval stages, pupa to adult, lasts from 2 to 3 weeks and is undergone in the habitat of the animal it bites - rat fleas develop in rat burrows, human fleas on the floors of dirty unswept houses. Fleas can be controlled in houses by the use of DDT or BHC especially if there is an outbreak of disease. However, under ordinary circumstances most house fleas are caused by lack of hygiene and the presence of domestic animals, so domestic cleanliness is the best preventive measure of fleas.
Another type of flea which causes trouble is the jigger flea (Tunga penetrans). The females are fixed parasites which burrow in the skin, particularly of the feet, and cause a small itching papule. This should be carefully dissected out and burnt as it is the distended flea full of eggs. If thrown on the floor such eggs will hatch out. Again, DDT and cleanliness are useful methods to control fleas.
Congo Floor Maggots
In some parts of Africa where people sleep on the floor the larval stage of a certain fly comes out at night and sucks blood. These maggots live in cracks in the floor and come out and suck blood like bed bugs. They have even been found in the temporary houses used by relatives of hospital patients in some parts of tropical Africa. Control of congo floor maggots may be carried out by spraying with an insecticide, or for long-term results by cementhog the floor of the house.
Ants
Ants are attracted by sugar and food that is left lying about. General cleanliness in the kitchen and dining-room is therefore essential. A safe for food can be stood in tins of water with a drop of oil added, and this will prevent the ants climbing up. Keep food in bins or tins if it is an attraction to ants.
Termites
The soft-bodied little termites do great harm because the attack wood and books, and even eat patients' medical records! Poles used for huts can be made termite-proof by boiling their ends in discarded motor oil.
