This is topic Mites in fabric in forum Ground Level at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.


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Posted by Ram Melegrito (Member # 8652) on 08-04-2015, 11:12 PM:
 
Hi guys, have any of you experienced dust mite infestations in your seat fabric? We have a slight issue in some of our seats. We tried vacuuming and steaming the seats but the problem keeps coming back.
 

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Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 08-09-2015, 01:11 AM:
 
I fear that the only effective solution is to have a professional contractor fumigate the whole auditorium with some seriously gnarly gas. We had a bedbug issue in some seats back in the spring, and ended up having to do this. The contractor gave instructions that the whole building had to be vacated for four hours after he gassed it. It was expensive and disruptive, but it worked - the gas nuked the little gits and they haven't been back since.

Bug infestations can be a serious problem. During the very hot summer of 2011, British Airways had to ground two jumbo jets and fumigate them at huge expense after they became bug-ridden. I'm surprised (and grateful) that it doesn't happen in theaters more often, especially as you have no control over your customers' personal hygiene standards.
 

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Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 08-09-2015, 10:03 AM:
 
Remember the life-cycle of some pests requires multiple gassings.
 

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Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 08-09-2015, 03:48 PM:
 
Dust mites? Are you sure? Dust mites are microscopic and they are in every rug and every bed on the planet. In most circumstances, they are usually undetectable. They are NOT parasitic and don't burrow under the skin like other lice-type parasites like head lice or scabies. Their only harm to humans is over the long term to those who have asthma as it can exacerbate it. If you have an infestation of some bug that you can see and is causing bites to patrons, then you don't have dust mites.

BED BUGS, on the other hand...that's a completely different animal altogether...er parasite altogether. It is one you can see and one that can bite. Dust mites rarely need extermination; the BB parasite however, as Leo and Lewis have indicated, can bring down entire kingdoms if let unchecked. Ask AMC on Times Square in Manhattan. It took them nearly a week of repeated fumigation treatments and the resultant lost ticket income to get rid of their BB infestation problem.

These incredible creatures are uber tenacious little buggers (no pun intended) and have survived since the dinosaurs roamed the planet and probably will be here long after we our inevitable extinction. We ALMOST eradicated them with DDT, but then someone got the idea that it wasn't a good idea for us to be drinking DDT in our tap water or eating it in our food stuffs, so it was banned and Bed Bugs all over the world though a party. It's a problem that now pops up fairly often, with the USA being the epicenter and the NY/East Coast, Chicago and LA with the most incidents.
Google BB Map



Poor East Coast (Manhattan and Brooklyn especially), Chicago, San Fran and LA


As you can see, infestations are not based in the poorer locations where one would assume lack of sanitation and hygiene would be the cause (no BB on entire continents a lot poorer than the US). It really seems to have to do with affluence and the ability for humans to travel as the parasites follow people from place to place.

Unfortunately, for a theatre operator, the only way to get rid of the bed bug parasites once they take hold, if indeed this is what you have, is with a professional fumigation program. Trying to do battle using homemade remedies by yourself, just like fighting the Borg, is futile.

If you can collect a sample of the critters -- scoop a few up in a container and bring them to the Biology Department at your closest university and have them definitively identify what you are dealing with -- then you can call a professional to deal with it.
 

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Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 08-09-2015, 07:25 PM:
 

quote: Frank Angel

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We ALMOST eradicated them with DDT, but then someone got the idea that it wasn't a good idea for us to be drinking DDT in our tap water or eating it in our food stuffs, so it was banned and Bed Bugs all over the world though a party.

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