A Better Bedbug Trap Costs About $1

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – May 23, 2014 – A contraption from the University of Florida (UF) seems so simple, yet so clever, it's like something The Professor might have concocted on "Gilligan's Island."

Researchers at the University of Florida's Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences have devised a bedbug trap that can be built with household items. All you need are two disposable plastic containers, masking tape and glue, said Phil Koehler, UF/IFAS urban entomology professor. The traps catch and collect the bugs when they try to travel between people and the places where bedbugs hide, he said.

"This concept of trapping works for places where people sleep and need to be protected at those locations," Koehler said.

The traps rely on the bugs' poor ability to climb on smooth surfaces, he said. Instead, the traps have rough areas to let bedbugs enter easily, and a smooth-surfaced moat that keeps them from escaping.
Here's how to make one:

• Cut four pieces of rough-surfaced tape. Each piece should be at least as long as the wall of the smaller container is tall.
• Evenly space and firmly press the four pieces of tape vertically on the inside surface of the smaller container. The tape allows the bugs to escape the small container easily and fall into the space between the small and the large container wall, where they are trapped.
• Wrap tape around the exterior of the larger container from the base to its upper edge so the bedbugs can enter the trap easily.
• Glue the smaller container onto the center of the bottom of the larger container.
• Researchers estimate one would need about 50 traps for a typical three-bedroom home, enough to place one under each leg of furniture, including chairs, sofas and beds.

The traps work best if you apply talc, including baby powder, to the space between the small and large container walls to make it harder for the bugs to escape. Many people use incorrect methods to treat bedbugs. Koehler advises against using flammable liquids, mothballs, treating mattresses with pesticides and using bug bombs.

Koehler said the bedbug device is pretty foolproof and effective.

"It's really hard to mess this up to the point that you'd hurt anything," he said.

The trap is a stunningly easy solution for a vexing national problem.

An April 2013 survey by the National Pest Management Association showed that nearly every pest management professional, 99.6 percent, had encountered a bedbug infestation during the prior 12 months. Nearly half, 49 percent, said infestations occur mostly in the summer. Because more people tend to travel and relocate during the summer, it's possible more of them unknowingly bring bugs home or discover them soon after moving, according to the pest management group.

Entomologists say bedbugs are becoming more resistant to pesticides, exacerbating what is also an expensive problem.

Bedbug treatments can run $3,000 for a single-family home or $1,200 for a low-income apartment – something many can ill-afford.

So Koehler and his colleagues created their trap from about $1 worth of household items. The number of traps needed for any given dwelling depends on the number of places people sleep. The bedbug trap is the brainchild of Koehler; Benjamin Hottel, an entomology doctoral student; Rebecca Baldwin, assistant urban entomology professor; and Roberto Pereira, an associate research scientist in the UF entomology and nematology department.

A complete description of the bedbug traps, including photos, can be found on UF's website.






© 2014 Florida Realtors®

Reasons for Fewer Mortgages so far in 2014

Applications for mortgages to buy houses have been lagging so far this year – 16 percent below the pace for 2013.

Yet, for the first time since 2009, applications to purchase are exceeding deals to refinance mortgages.

The lower numbers for home-buying mortgages reflect continued weakness in the real estate market, even though the 30-year fixed rate fell Thursday to 4.21 percent – its low for the year so far.
There are many reasons, according to economist Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Analytics in West Chester.

Refinancing activity has dried up with higher mortgage rates, he said, and lending standards are tight, especially for first-time buyers.

"There is sticker shock due to a combination of higher rates and house prices," as well as "underlying reticence to purchase a home, given the housing bust," Zandi said, as evidenced by single-family rental being "real competition to buyers."

Mark Vinter, managing director and senior economist for Wells Fargo Securities in Charlotte, N.C., is, however, expecting to see conditions improve in the second quarter, with more traditional buyers coming back to the market and the percentage of home purchases financed with mortgages increasing.

Data from at least two sources, and some anecdotal evidence, show an increase in the number of all-cash, non-investor buyers in the first quarter of 2014.

There have always been cash purchases in the higher-end housing market. Toll Bros. CEO Douglas V. Yearley Jr. said just that in a meeting last week in New York when asked about the effects tighter lending was having on the luxury-home builder. Yearley said 20 percent of the Horsham-based company's buyers are all cash, while those who take out mortgages put down 30 percent.

"The rise in cash purchases appears to have been driven by a surge in overseas buyers and an increase in the proportion of retiree and second-home buyers purchasing homes with cash," Vinter said.
Realtors' chief economist Lawrence Yun said the findings "beg the question as to why we're seeing higher shares of cash purchases."

"Restrictive mortgage-lending standards are a factor, Yun said, "but the higher levels of cash sales may also come from the aging of the baby-boom generation, with more trade-down and retirement buyers paying cash with decades of equity accumulation."

Yet, BHHS Fox & Roach agent Kit Anstey, in West Chester, sees a different scenario. He said that buyers seem to have less cash because equity dropped substantially when the housing bubble burst.
Echoing what Zandi said, Anstey pointed out that some of these equity-poorer owners "are renting their home, not selling."

Tighter credit requirements haven't helped, said Jerome Scarpello, of Leo Mortgage in Ambler. "Lenders have been told that if a borrower's debt-to-income is over 43 percent, they lend at their own risk and do not have the safe-harbor protections of the agencies," Scarpello said.

There is a misconception among many first-time home buyers that they will not qualify for financing under the new credit guidelines, which is not the case, said Malcolm Hollensteiner, director of retail lending sales and production at TD Bank.

Mortgages today "are not one-size-fits-all," he said. "Lenders must look at each buyer's unique financial situation on an individual basis before allowing or denying financing."

One reason for the sluggish real estate market most often mention by Philadelphia-area agents and brokers is the shortage of inventory, which Zandi attributes to "a disconnect between potential buyers and sellers and the appropriate price."

All-cash, then, might be a negotiating tool in some cases.

RealtyTrac reported that, nationally, 42.7 percent of first-quarter sales were all-cash, compared with 19.1 percent in the same period a year ago, with Pennsylvania at 42.1 percent versus 21.8 percent in 2013, and New Jersey 40.6 percent versus 19.1 percent.

While agents here have had more than usual, it hasn't been overwhelming.






Copyright © 2014 The Philadelphia Inquirer, Alan J. Heavens. Distributed by MCT Information Services.