Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 99, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 April 1916 — MEANS CERTAIN DEATH TO VERMIN [ARTICLE]

MEANS CERTAIN DEATH TO VERMIN

Use of Hydrocyanic Acid Gas Explained by Uncle Sam’s Experts. IS DEADLY IF MISHANDLED Those About to Move Into Country Homes, Rent Cottages or City Houses Are Given Excellent Method of Fumigating. Washington.— Those contemplating moving into a new house and especially those about to reoccupy country homes or rent summer cottages which may harbor vermin would do well, before they actually occupy these houses, to consider fumigating with hydrocyanic-acid gas to eradicate bedbugs and other pests. This gas, as well as the sodium cyanide from which it is made, however, is one of the most poisonous substances known and the inhalation of a few breaths of the gas will result in death unless the victim be promptly rescued. For this reason those contemplating its use should first read carefully Farmers’ Bulletin 699, Hydrocyanic-Acid Gas Against Household Insects, recently issued by the department. This bulletin, by L. O. Howard and C. H. Popence, describes in detail the manner in which the gas is manufactured and used and the precautions which must .be taken to.avoid accident, Hydrocyanic-acid gas, however, is one of the most efficacious agents in ridding households of such pests as bedbugs, fleas, cockroaches, ants, clothes moths, etc. Rats and mice, when exposed to its fumes, run out of their holes into the open and die there. There is thus no subsequent annoyance from dead rodents in the walls and under flooring. Even when only one room of a house is to be fumigated, the bulletin says, the entire house must be vacated and so closed and marked with signs that everyone is kept out. The windows in such a house must be equipped with ropes so that they can be opened from the outside when the fumigation is done. If the house is close to another, especially if its windows are below those in an adjoining house, care must be taken to protect neighbors.; This is especially necessary in the case of a house in a row, particularly if the partitions separating houses are not tight, or if its attic or roof air space communicates with those in the neighboring houses. .For these reasons, in the case of summer cottages at beaches, it is safest and easiest to fumigate before the family or neighbors have moved in, when there is plenty of time to air the house completely after it has been treated.