I am in a particular situation — I am living in university dorms right now in Japan and recently picked up a tatami bug infestation from a hotel I visited. Multiple people in the hotel room felt them biting, but there was no evidence of bedbugs so I’m pretty sure they’re tatami bugs. I have tried every home remedy (insecticide, washing/drying at high heat, vacuuming, etc etc) with not much success. My dorm manager doesn’t believe me and hasn’t helped me.
I am moving out in a week and will be traveling, and I don’t want to carry them with me while traveling and when I head back home (the US). I figure since I have a just a few suitcases worth of stuff maybe there is a way to get rid of them once I move out — a service that could clean/treat my stuff? Any advice is welcome — I don’t want to spread them to my future roommates or to the people I will be traveling with.
3 comments
For your own stuff, take it to a coin laundry and run it through a cycle of hot water washing, then through the drier. The heat will kill any live ones and cook any eggs.
I have older tatami and got an infestation. I used a spray from Kohnan. It’s kind of a needle gun and you go around the room pumping it in every 30cm in a big grid pattern. Worked great. No more bites the very next day. Washed everything of course.
Chances are you ll never get rid of them, and pass them generation to generation til the end of times