Drywall in a caulking gun sealing out bed bugs?

Question by Feelin’ Good:
Drywall in a caulking gun sealing out bed bugs?

I have bedbugs and I’m going to seal every real and imagined crack and hole in the apartment. Caulking is too expensive, but I had the seemingly genius idea to find an old caulking tube, mix up drywall powder, and fill the caulking tube and just do everything with that stuff.

Before I spend the work to aquire this and do this for the gigantic 9 room apartment

-is this a stupid idea?
-is this a genius idea?
-is there a better idea?

Thanks

Best answer:

Answer by thewrangler_sw
Kudo’s for thinking outside the box, however, using drywall mix is problematic. The difference between caulk and drywall mix, is that the caulk will flex with movement – the drywall mix won’t. That’s the most obvious problem with this approach, but there is another also – the drywall mix, if applied in about a 1/4″ or larger bead, is going to shrink and crack as it dries. You’ll be surprised at how much movement there is, in a building, between the flooring, ceiling and wall covering (drywall), etc.

Between the shrinkage and the flexing, I think you would find that using drywall mix isn’t the solution you hope it will be. Neither would it eliminate the bedbugs, which can travel from location to location by luggage, or even hitching a ride on the people who come through your apartment.

There is a ‘heat treatment’ method to kill the bedbugs – a service company comes and uses a portable heating system to bring the temperature up in the dwelling high enough to kill the bedbugs, you may wish to check on that. Then I’d consider using something like Ortho’s Home Defense, or a professional exterminator’s product, to be applied along the floor/wall edges, etc.

Good Luck

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Tagged as: bugs, caulking, Drywall, genius idea, idea, professional exterminator, sealing

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