Important: Safety Warning
This page recommends pest-control substances such as arsenic compounds, strychnine, or cyanide — in some cases applied to food crops. These substances are lethal to humans and animals, and their use is now banned or strictly controlled.
This page describes practices involving highly flammable materials in ways that create a serious risk of fire or explosion.
This page directs the use of hazardous substances — such as benzine, gasoline, lye, or strong acids — for household tasks. These materials are highly flammable, corrosive, or poisonous, and the practices described have caused fires, burns, and poisonings.
This information has been left in for historical purposes but should not be acted upon.
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Household and Garden Pests: Poisons
Poisons for Bedbugs. - Poisons recommended for exterminating bedbugs are hydrocyanic-acid gas, sulphurousacid gas, kerosene and other petroleum products, gasoline, benzine, naphtha, etc.; hot water, with or without alum, chloride of zinc; turpentine, camphor, corrosive sublimate dissolved in alcohol, and various combinations of these.
To thoroughly exterminate bedbugs, fumigate with hydrocyanic-acid gas or sulphurous-acid gas. This is the quickest and most effective method. Or, if this is not convenient and the pests are numerous, take the paper off the walls, wash down the walls with boiling water containing sal soda and alum, apply one or more of the following eradicators, and repaper the walls. Take all bedding out of doors, beat and clean mattresses and other ticks, and apply gasoline to them freely with a sponge, cloth, or brush. Apply suitable poisons to all cracks in bedsteads and other furniture. Replace, if possible, wooden bedsteads with brass or iron ones, and carpet or matting with rugs.
Next to fumigation the best exterminator is kerosene or other petroleum products, as gasoline, benzine, or naphtha. Take down the bedsteads, dust the joints with a brush, and wash with soap and hot water. Boil cedar leaves in the water. While their scent lasts bedbugs will stay away. Thoroughly oil all joints and cracks with kerosene, benzine, or gasoline from a spring-bottom oil can or with a small paint brush or long feather. Gasoline and benzine do not leave any stains.