Good way to clean insect drawers (Psocidae frass)?

[nomihoudai]

Hi, I have a rather unusual question to the community, or at least I haven't seen it yet on here.

The first Psocidae rampage has moved through my drawers, and I was deep freezing everything. (Nothing too serious happened, just a few common bugs lost their bodies).

Now the problem is that there is a lot of frass in my drawers, which have a plastazoate bottom. The plastazoate has a very rough surface, and whenever I try to clean the frass off, I just produce huge stains. Does anybody have a good idea of how to properly clean it?

Thanks.

[wollastoni]

I would remove the specimens and use a vacuum cleaner (small portative one if you have)

I confirm that "manual removing" won't be efficient or may stain plastazoate.

[nomihoudai]

Same reply in insectnet: I tried the vacuum cleaner, I'm also doing something wrong there in handling it. I scratch the surface of the plastazoate with it and this is visible too. Maybe I have to try it again and be much more careful in handling it.

I don't have one of the small portable ones, just one of the bigger ones for cleaning a room.

[deliasfanatic]

You can wrap a piece of tape, sticky side out, around your finger, then dab it on the fragments lightly. Rotate the tape as each area becomes full, and repeat if necessary.

[Paul K]

I do same as Denny.
Remove specimens and use any tape ( clear, wide works the best as it doesn't leave glue ) and just stick to the bottom. It will remove all dirt without damage the surface.

Paul

[mcheki]

Sticky side of a self adhesive label works too.

[nomihoudai]

Hi all, the adhesive thing is something I didn't think about and I will try it out once I have time! Thank you very much.

Paul, I moved my collection from my parents place, to my apartment in Germany this year. I never put any pest control or poison, I always relied on airtight containers and regular inspection and in 8 years not much happened except this small incident now. The thing is in Luxembourg the climate is too dry for Psocidae, but the place that I am living now has a very humid microclimate. I am just 5 minutes from the Rhein river, and it really has its own microclimate. I am not yet sure what to do next. My wooden drawers have been completely airtight and only drawers were affected where I added new material that had been mounted in my apartment. I will probably use the new freezer for freezing anything before I add it into the wooden drawers. The local museum also works with freezing only, and has no further pest controls.

[africaone]

Aug 30, 2016 12:00:29 GMT nomihoudai said:

Same reply in insectnet: I tried the vacuum cleaner, I'm also doing something wrong there in handling it. I scratch the surface of the plastazoate with it and this is visible too. Maybe I have to try it again and be much more careful in handling it.

I don't have one of the small portable ones, just one of the bigger ones for cleaning a room.

i use this method but with care and small power or in hard case with a brush at the tip

[nomihoudai]

I tried to refrain from using the company's name, because as an entomological equipment supplier you never want your name to pop up in a thread about insect infestations. The drawers are airtight and they have saved me from much bigger havoc. I really don't know what you didn't understand in:

Aug 31, 2016 16:31:19 GMT nomihoudai said:

My wooden drawers have been completely airtight and only drawers were affected where I added new material that had been mounted in my apartment

I have 20 drawers, into 10 of these I added material that had been mounted while in my new apartment, into the others not. I could only find Psocidae in these 10 drawers, with the frass even centered around the newly added specimens. The other drawers have not been affected, despite even finding the Psocidae on books, walls, and any cardboard box I keep around in my apartment. The apartment has some serious humidity problems due to the very special local climate, and I have to find a way to fix it, or move.

The same must have happened in your case. Furthermore it's just a piece of wood, it's hard keeping these buggers out when the overall humidity is over 60%. Adam Cotton is using dehumidifiers in his collection rooms as far as I know.

[Adam Cotton]

I agree that low humidity is very important in preventing Psocid infestation. My collection is kept in a windowless airconditioned room at 25C. The important point here is that the temperature inside the collection room needs to be a few degrees lower than the outside temperature in order to effectively remove much of the humidity from the air. Of course where I live that is relatively easy to achieve without having to lower the temperature to an uncomfortable level.

The temperature outside is normally higher than 25C at night, and well over 30C in the daytime. Now, in the rainy season the humidity outside is very high, and there are lots of Psocids about, but none come into my collection room where the humidity is about 20%.

I seem to remember that the highest humidity that is acceptable for general safe maintenance of a collection (prevention of mould, pests and physical problems such as specimens 'springing') is ~45%, so I do think you need to try to reduce the humidity in your collection room if possible. Note that even though your draws are airtight, humidity can enter directly through the wood.

I also agree that it certainly looks like the infestation is via additions to the draws, at least in most cases, and I recommend freezing everything immediately prior to putting the specimens in the draws.

Adam.