Body lice. Ways to eliminate parasites using improvised means.

Body louse is a rather unpleasant thing. Everyone who has encountered it in one way or another inevitably asked the question: how and by what means to get rid of this misunderstanding at home?

These parasites hide from the human eye and prefer not to appear in plain sight. They live in hard-to-reach places such as: folds in bed linen, mattresses, pillowcases, pillows, seams of human clothing, sewn pockets.

Body lice are similar to head lice, but they can be differentiated by their size. The female body louse reaches a size of approximately 4-5 millimeters, males are slightly smaller. There is an opinion that the body louse is nothing more than an evolved type of head louse.

It is quite easy to pick up these parasites. They are transferred from the body of a sick person to the body of a healthy one. The greatest likelihood of catching linen lice is in places such as:

• all types of public transport;
• fitting rooms in stores;
• hotel rooms;
• dressing rooms, when storing already contaminated items in them;
• swimming pools.

Body lice are very hardy and reproduce fairly quickly. They can survive in tissues without feeding with human epidermis from 7 days to 2 weeks.

It is not difficult to spot parasites. A louse bite is accompanied by unpleasant itching and inflammation, similar to a mosquito bite. Lice most often bite in places where the skin touches the seams of clothing:

• armpits;
• back;
• neck.

Less commonly, wounds appear on the thighs, knees and abdomen.

If you scratch the affected area vigorously, a small scar may remain after healing. Lice bites carry the risk of contracting infections that they carry. The main diseases transmitted by lice are pediculosis, typhus, and some types of fever. Immediately at the time of the bite, the person does not become infected, but viruses remain on the skin, provoking a relapse of the infection. The person himself starts the process of starting the disease by scratching the affected area, thereby introducing the infection into the blood. If the symptoms of these diseases are not detected in time, a seemingly harmless bite can lead to extremely serious consequences.

How to get rid of it using improvised means?

If you find lice and their larvae on your clothes, you need to start eliminating them as soon as possible, because they multiply quite quickly. So, what does it take?

First way. Clothing that you think is infected must be washed at a temperature of 40 degrees Celsius (if the type of fabric allows it) and dried in the sun. If such drying is not possible, then you can go over the item of clothing with a hot iron. After such procedures, the item should be placed in a sealed package and not worn for at least a week, after which the initial set of procedures should be repeated.

Second way. There is a popular recipe for eliminating lice by treating fabric with kerosene. To do this, clothes or bedding (depending on where the source of infection is found) should be soaked in a 15-25% solution with laundry soap and kerosene for about half an hour.After this procedure, the laundry must be thoroughly washed in boiling water, dried naturally (in the sun and wind) and ironed with a very hot iron.

Third way. This method is less expensive, requires virtually no effort (besides the usual mechanical actions) and is quite effective at the early stage of detecting an infection. There are situations when things cannot be washed in hot water, or there is no way to dry them in the sun and wind, you can put contaminated clothes in sealed packaging in the freezer, and in winter simply leave them in the cold for 3-5 days. All parasites will freeze and be killed.

Fourth method. It happens that people are faced with a situation where some item can be infected with body lice - a wardrobe item, for example. To solve the problem, it is important to carry out deep heat treatment of this item, or, in simpler terms, boil it thoroughly. After the sun has dried us, we can be put back into widespread use.

Human body treatment

Despite the fact that the body louse is hidden in clothing, it can lay eggs on human skin. Therefore, in order for the effect of fighting these parasites to be greater, it is necessary to approach the process comprehensively, that is, treat not only clothes, bedding and bed, but also your body, first of all.

To disinfect your body, you need to take a shower as hot as possible. You need to wash not with ordinary scented shower products, but better if it is laundry or tar soap.Since the composition of these products does not contain any chemicals or other harmful substances, this method is suitable for absolutely everyone, even children and nursing or pregnant women.

You can take a hot bath with infusions of any of the herbs:

• sagebrush;
• parsley;
• mint and lemon balm;
• beet juice.

To ensure complete destruction of parasites, you can add to the water procedures the use of pharmaceutical products for body lice.

Folk remedies in the fight against body louse

There are also “grandmother’s” means of combating body lice. They have long been used to remove various insects from houses, but even now these products have not lost any of their properties.

• acetic acid - capable of killing louses, but not so strong to destroy eggs;
• cranberry juice – has a destructive effect due to its high acid content;
• turpentine - useful for processing wooden things; you can use it on beds and cabinets;
• tansy decoction - used for rinsing clothes and linen;
• milkweed leaves - grandma's decoction is not recommended to be used because of its ability to leave streaks, but a handful of herbs in a bag can be placed in the corners of wardrobes;
• aromatic oil of tea tree or lavender are multifunctional products that can repel parasites in this situation. You can put the jars in the closet, or you can apply it to the body;
• fern flower - lice cannot tolerate this plant.

Method of processing an apartment. Expelling lice

However, you should not rely only on the listed methods of combating lice. In most cases, no matter how carefully cleaning, washing, drying and ironing is carried out, you have to resort to more radical methods.

When, it would seem, all the means have already been used, but lice are no-no and appear in plain sight, it is necessary to disinfect the living space.

Steam treatment with herbal decoctions is famous for its greatest effectiveness. To achieve the best result, you need to go through every millimeter of your apartment or house, all the furniture, walls, floor. Large items that cannot be washed at home should be dry cleaned. After steam cleaning, you can wash the room with water and decoctions of pharmaceutical herbs, and then spread the remaining bunches in the corners of the house and cabinets.

Prevention of infection

In order not to think about how to get rid of nits, you need to prevent their appearance. Follow the simple rules and life will go smoothly without unnecessary guests.

• try under no circumstances to come into contact with antisocial individuals and avoid being in premises where there is unsanitary conditions;
• When buying used clothes, wash them at the highest possible temperature before wearing them;
• After long trips or staying in hotels, take a hot shower and wash all the clothes that were with you.

Following these simple rules will protect your home, linen, clothes and save your life from the troubles called “body lice.”