SOME TROUBLESOME INVADERS 383 



the lower sheet and the upper surface of the mattress 

 almost alive with the insects. To use her own language : 

 'A pin-point could not have been put down without 

 touching one or more of the bugs.' Further search 

 showed a very unpleasant state of affairs. The walls of 

 the room were so covered with the insects that a sweep of 

 the hand removed them by the thousand, and the other 

 rooms in the house were almost as badly infested. The 

 bureau drawers were swarming with them. They were 

 behind the pictures and between the pictures and the glass 

 in crawling cohorts. They were under everything and 

 in everything. To say that the neat housekeeper was 

 beside herself is putting it mildly indeed. 



( The mattress was removed and examined. Without 

 exaggeration, it contained millions. Then came the house- 

 cleaning. The walls and floors were washed with a solu- 

 tion of borax and corrosive sublimate. Pyrethrum 

 powder was freely used. All the carpets were sent to 

 the steam cleaners. The furniture was beaten, cleaned, 

 and varnished. The struggle was continued for a year 

 with all the persistence of an extraordinarily neat house- 

 keeper. The insects had the best of it and held possession 

 in undiminished numbers. The family then removed 

 to a hotel, while for days the closed house was fumigated 

 by burning sulfur and the scrubbing processes were 

 afterwards repeated. The insects were again diminished, 

 but the least relaxation in the struggle was soon followed 

 by an increase of the enemy. Again the house was vacated 

 and the closed rooms were subjected to the vapor of ben- 

 zine, basins and pans being filled and the fluid left to 

 evaporate. The scrubbing processes were again re- 

 peated and the lady began to hope that the benzine had 



