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i live in west texas, i don't have any kind of bugs or roaches, i buy a gallon jug of home protection bug spray and i spray it on the outside all around the bottom portion of house and in the window sills outside. it's just a precautionary thing i do as i have a really trashy junky dirty family next door to me. and i never have any bugs

Quote:

Originally Posted by dojo36

Never had roaches until the people next door moved in! Use all kinds of bug killers and deterrants. Now we just see one every now and then. It is still bothersome and makes me feel dirty. . .

Will putting the fabrics from estate sale, Goodwill, thrift store (and now it seems regular stores) only in the DRYER work? That's what I've been doing because I don't like having to IRON all the fabric after washing it. Hmmmm.... now I'm rethinking because I buy fabric in those locations all the time. I bought sheets to use as quilt linings from Goodwill just yesterday. I haven't added it to my stash yet but it's on its way so I look forward to hearing from you.

I wonder if freezing would work as well for cotton fabrics as it does for the various insects that like protein fibres?

I'm a handspinner and learned to seal all fleece that comes into the house into the appropriately sized ziploc as soon as it comes into the house. It goes into the freezer for a week or until my husband says "Honey, is it time to take this wool out of here?" Then I take it out of the plastic and it joins the rest of my stash of spinning fibres.

Well, a quick google seems to indicate that three days at minus 26 degrees F (26 below zero) will kill bedbugs. If you really don't want to prewash, this might be an alternative.

Wow I feel all crawly now. But thanks for the heads up. Yukky.
I'm not a prewasher so I think I'll do the ziplock method. Don't want to take any chances. Not a bug fan.

Also, if you have paper bags, get them out of your house they carry roach eggs and they will hatch, we moved into a brand new mobile home a few years back, lived there a while and shopped at the Commissary on base, they put our food in paper bags and I saved them for trash and other things, then one day I notice small roaches on my kitchen cabinet and it was like where in the heck did they come from, so I opened all my cabinets and seen none except one cabinet where I keep the paper bags....come to find out we brought the roaches into the house from the bags. So now I use plastic or reusable bags…

Yes, do wash fabric especially that gotten from a garage or thrift sale. I brought some home a couple of weeks ago and put it down in my sewing room. The next day there were little red sugar ants in my carpet and most were near the fabric so there must of been a nest in one of the folded fabrics. I ended up washing every piece and putting out Terro ant killing traps. Thankfully they all disappeared within 3 days.

If you are having problems with field roaches I would treat my whole house inside and outside, windows and doors. If you have a basement do that too, if only a crawl space spray under the house. I live in TX and I have a professional spray company do mine twice a year. No bugs..

It's hard to wash fat quarters, but I've hear that if you snip just a titch off of the corners, they will ravel less or not at all. You can try one or two in with your regular laundry and see if it helps reduce or eliminate the shredding.

You can also launder them in those lingerie bags to reduce the loose thread issue of washing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SueSew

My lovely old New England farmhouse is now infested with the Field Cockroach, which is native to Southwest - TX AZ CA areas in particular. they are little brown things which don't mind the light and fly around everywhere.

They like to live outside, I have been told, but of course our house is not air conditioned except by opening windows and doors LOL so it is very like the outside inside.

The bug lady suggested they might have hopped a flight on some fabric I bought recently, as the first sighting was shortly after arrival of the fabric, and it was in my sewing room which is far from food, pets, plants and other live stuff and the windows don't open in there as we haven't put the screens in yet. At least two batches of fabric came from two separate shops in Texas.

So now I'm thinking, here's another good reason to PRE-WASH which of course I had just stopped doing, with great success LOL but the stuff I bought is all fat quarters. And of course I took it out of the plastic so it could 'breathe'.

Has anybody ever heard of this? UGH.
:) :) :)

Hi there, Everyone beware of any fabric we bring in from every where.. As I was checking out just yesterday at one of our 4 WM [which is about to get a makeover thank goodness] there was the biggest roach walking along the checkout belt. The poor cashier freaked out. My hubby tried to get it but it was too fast. I went straight to tell the Manager. They do Pest control but will do it again SOON! So really watch it.