Reptile & Amphibian Forums

So the other day, we got a notice under our apartment door saying that an apartment near ours had been treated for bedbugs and that as a preventative measure, they were going to treat ours as well. Spraying pesticides all over our apartment is obviously not good, but it doesn't sound like it's possible for us to opt out of it.

We've got somewhere our geckos can live temporarily (thankfully my GF's parents are willing to take them in for a while), but we don't really know when it'll be safe to bring them back. We're doubly concerned about our leo's crickets, as it's reasonable to assume that whatever pesticide they use to kill bedbugs will kill crickets pretty effectively as well.

Does anyone have any experience with something like this? If so, how long did you keep your animals away and how did it work out?

Thanks for any info you can provide - we're both kind of freaking out about this, so even a little tiny bit of reassurance would be nice.
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0.1 Albino Leopard Gecko - Tigger
0.1 Crested Gecko - Pooh-Bear

I've had to do this before. As soon as it's safe for you to go back into your home, it's safe for your gecko(s) as well. And as for the crickets, getting them out of the house would be the best way to go, if possible. If not, you may have to start over on the whole cricket collection.
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-Patrick

>>I've had to do this before. As soon as it's safe for you to go back into your home, it's safe for your gecko(s) as well. And as for the crickets, getting them out of the house would be the best way to go, if possible. If not, you may have to start over on the whole cricket collection.
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>>-Patrick

Well, the crickets get "started over" about every 2 weeks anyway; it's not like we breed them or anything. As far as the geckos go, we'll probably keep them away a bit longer than that just to be absolutely sure, but good to know it's not absolutely necessary.
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0.1 Albino Leopard Gecko - Tigger
0.1 Crested Gecko - Pooh-Bear

I have had something similar happen to me. I did not have to get the house tented but I had to use one of those bug bombs in my reptile room. I am not sure what bug it was but it was a tiny flea or something. I took my leos out of the room & since I couldnt figure if the "fleas" were in my cricket holder I left them in and counted it as a loss. I double bombed the room then when that was done I opened the door to the room and the window in the room and had a couple fans blowing the air out the room. I let the room air out for 48 hours then I went in and cleaned the cages with hot water that had a tiny bit of bleach mixed in. After that they were wiped down again with just water. Once a cage was cleaned I put a leo back in it. My leos did not show any signs of any effects so I figured they were ok. I normaly order my crickets online and they only ship once a week so I had to get some crickets from the local petshop. I put them in a cleaned out container and noticed many of them were not dead but sickly acting. It took about another 48 hours before they stoped reacting like that. If they acted sickly I threw them out because I wasnt sure & didnt want to risk feeding them to my leos. I think the crickets will react to anything leftover before and to a greater degree than your leos. You can kind of use them as a test. The canary in the mineshaft type idea.

Re: crickets in the mineshaft, I was already planning on it, but thanks for the idea nonetheless.

Thankfully they ended up just kind of spraying the baseboards along the walls throughout most of the apartment, so at least it wasn't a bug bomb type situation. Still going to keep the animals away for at least a week because it just tears me up to lose one, and I don't want to take any risks with their health. At that point, I'll get a small number of crickets and see how they do. If they don't die off at an above-average rate, I'll assume I'm good to go.
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0.1 Albino Leopard Gecko - Tigger
0.1 Crested Gecko - Pooh-Bear