Integrated Pest Management

As part of our pest management procedures, all new incoming
accessions and donations are inspected for insects and pests.
Because most of the materials that come into our collection come out
of family and collector closets, attics, and basements, insects are
commonly found in the textiles and organic material objects. In the
past low-oxygen chambers were constructed for groups of materials
using Marvelseal, oxygen scavengers, etc.

Currently the museum collection is taking in hundreds of new
collections per month, straining the resources for space to house
the chambers, supplies, and staff time. To alleviate the issue, we
would like to explore information on retrofitting fumigation bubbles
for the purpose of using nitrogen or argon gas to quickly treat
large quantities of collection materials. (Freezing is not an
option.)

I have hit dead ends with many companies including Rentokil who is
no longer supplying such bubbles. Erlich Distribution contacted
Rentokil on our behalf with the following reply:

   "The Rentokil Bubble is part of their past history.  This
    technology is hardly used worldwide anymore, and they haven't
    made any start up kits for quite some time.  They would not be
    able to run a startup kit for one Bubble. What was recommended
    to us at Ehrlich, was that a survey be done to determine if
    there's a market that would warrant distributing and/or
    servicing the Rentokil Bubbles."

If you have a vendor that your museum or institution has been
successful in obtaining such a bubble, could you kindly forward the
information? And, if you also would be interested in procuring a
bubble, could you please let me know so I can forward this to Erlich
and Rentokil. Does anyone have a bubble to donate?

Amber Tarnowski
Objects Conservator
US Army Heritage and Education Center
950 Soldiers Drive
Carlisle Barracks, PA  17013-5021
717-245-4930


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 20:14
                Distributed: Friday, September 15, 2006
                       Message Id: cdl-20-14-014
                                  ***