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Comment by _xerces_ | Hacker News Reader

Are you not worried about bedbugs buying furniture off Facebook?

I would worry about stuff like that if I was buying cloth furniture. I am not worried about it buying high-end leather furniture. It seems about as likely as getting bedbugs from a used car (which also happens! but nobody blinks about buying a used car). You're generally buying from people's houses. Maybe I'd be concerned about grabbing something from an apartment.

I think bedbugs are a regional problem.

I can't say I fully agree or disagree:

https://www.mattressclarity.com/blog/bed-bugs-by-state-city-...

It seems to be related to population density, at least in America, and only somewhat ameliorated by climate.

That’s just lazy lying with a map. They’re just literally mapping population. If you controlled for population the signal disappears utterly.

Look familiar?

https://xkcd.com/1138/

Do you have a link to an alternative site with information about bedbug density made since 2018 or so?

I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm saying that in lieu of additional information this is what I have to work with, so I will need a better source of data before I change my mind.

Just read the legend. It’s raw numbers, not per capita. It’s not even worth taking seriously.

It’s not showing rates at all, just raw case numbers.

NY has a lot. Alaska and Wyoming have almost none. Things happen where people live. News at 11.

That site is also obvious affiliate spam SEO bait.

Do you have a link to an alternative site with information about bedbug density made since 2018 or so?

No, but again, the map you linked doesn’t either. It says nothing about density of occurrence.

That map would report 75x more cases in California than Wyoming, even if actual frequency was identically.

Just put the sofa in the dryer. But seriously, I wonder if there's some heat treatment possible. surely it should be possible and put the sofa in a giant plastic bag and heat the air inside or something.

The critical temperature for killing bugs is 60 degrees centigrade, not many sofas are going to withstand that.

Bedbugs die much more easily than that, 45C for 90 minutes will do it. The most expensive extermination method for bed and bugs is to seal up the home similar to the way it's done when using pesticides, except they just blast heat into your home for like 8 hours. Kills the bed bug infestation inside completely, but because there's no residual poisons bedbugs from outside can start a new infestation easily. It works great for homes, not worth doing for apartments.

Put it in a Uhaul box for a day in summer heavy sun. It already hits 160f / 71c routinely in summer in a closed vehicle.

Ive done that when getting old wood furniture from facebook. We bake it for a day or 2 in a closed trailer. If there was anything living on or in it, it isn't after the bake.

And the temp doesnt damage what we do that to in any way.

My father went through a double bed bugs ordeal. The first try didn’t work and he ended up throwing out nearly everything he had to get rid of them. Kids toys for the grandkids, furniture, mattresses, clothing, and basically started over like his house on the inside burned down.

Or ghosts? I mean if the house it comes from is haunted maybe an evil spirit will migrate with it. You never know.

I got pesky moths from getting something used once.

It isn't worth the hassle.

For me it's the other way around: anything I might want that's of reasonable quality will take 1+ months to arrive (usually, it'll have to be constructed to order), where I'm only a couple clicks away from having the new thing the next day buying used.

I want to be clear that I'm not saying everything on Facebook Marketplace is great. Most of it is crap! You still have to be discriminating. But everybody is always unloading high-quality furniture, and, at least for now, Facebook is full of excellent deals.

https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/06/22/perfectly-reas...

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