60 PRINCIPAL HOUSEHOLD INSECTS. 



and long-continued measures will eradicate it. The practice of annual 

 house cleaning, so often carelessly and hurriedly performed, is, as we 

 have shown above, peculiarly favorable to the development of the 

 insect. Two house cleanings would be better than one, and if but one, 

 it would be better to undertake it in midsummer than at any other time 

 of the year. Where convenience or conservatism demands an adher- 

 ence to the old custom, however, we have simply to insist upon extreme 

 thoroughness and a slight variation in the customary methods. The 

 rooms should be attended to one or two at a time. The carpets should 

 be taken up, thoroughly beaten, and sprayed out of doors with ben- 

 zine, and allowed to air for several hours. The rooms themselves should 

 be thoroughly swept and dusted, the floors washed down with hot water, 

 the cracks carefully cleaned out, and kerosene or benzine poured into 

 the cracks and sprayed under the baseboards. The extreme inflamma- 

 bility of benzine, and even its vapor when confined, should be remem- 

 bered and fire carefully guarded against. Where the floors are poorly 

 constructed and the cracks are wide it will be a good idea to fill the 

 cracks with plaster of paris in a liquid state; this will afterwards set 

 and lessen the number of harboring places for the insect. Before relay- 

 ing the carpet tarred roofing paper should be laid upon the floor, at 

 least around the edges, but preferably over the entire surface, and when 

 the carpet is relaid it will be well to tack it down rather lightly, so that 

 it can be occasionally lifted at the edges and exauiined for the presence 

 of the insect. Later in the season, if such an examination shows the 

 insect to have made its appearance, a good though somewhat laborious 

 remedy consists in laying a damp cloth smoothly over the suspected 

 spot of the carpet and ironing it with a hot iron. The steam thus gen- 

 erated will pass through the carpet and kill the insects immediately 

 beneath it. 



The measures used in the care of furs, rugs, and woolen goods gen- 

 erally to prevent the work of this insect during the summer are prac- 

 tically identical with those recommended for the clothes moths, 

 elsewhere mentioned. The most perfect and simplest is storage at a 

 temperature of from 40 to 42° F. For the cheaper methods the reader 

 is referred to the chapter on clothes moths. 



These strenuous measures, if persisted in, are the only hope of the 

 good housekeeper, so long as the system of heavy carpets covering the 

 entire floor surface is adhered to. Good housekeepers are conservative 

 people, but we expect eventually to see a more general adoption of the 

 rug or of the square of carpet, which may at all times be readily exam- 

 ined and treated if found necessary. Where the floors are bad the 

 practice of laying straw mattings under the rugs produces a sightly 

 appearance, and, while not as cleanly as a bare floor, affords still fewer 

 harboring places for this insect. 



L. O. H. 



