North Ranch | Ewing & Associates

Bed bugs are creepin’

By: Sher Hann

As we all march into the malls buying gifts and throwing them in our closets until the special day, here is a word to the wise. Bed bugs are on the move!

Two years ago year my son suffered an infestation in his apartment in San Francisco. “There’s one on the dust ruffle!” he screamed into the phone at 11:30 one night. Thus began an expensive ordeal and two months of his sleeping in his living room.

The advice below came across my desk from a friend, and even if you don’t believe it, it offers an easy precaution:

“We have friends here in our community and one of their sons is an entomologist (insect expert) who travels all over the country as an advisor to many of stores. He is telling them that there is an epidemic of bed bugs now occurring in America. Recently, several stores in New York City have had to close due to bed bug problems, as well as a complete mall in New Jersey.

“He says that since much of our clothing, sheets, towels, etc. now comes from companies outside of America, even the most expensive stores sell foreign clothing from China, Indonesia, etc. The bed bugs are coming in on the clothing as these countries do not consider them a problem. He recommends that if you buy any new clothing, even underwear and socks, sheets and towels, bring them into the house and put them in your clothes dryer for at least 20 minutes. The heat will kill them and their eggs.

“DO NOT PURCHASE CLOTHES AND HANG THEM IN THE CLOSET FIRST. It does not matter what the price range is of the clothing, or if the outfit comes from the most expensive store known in the U.S. They still get shipments from these countries and the bugs can come in a box of scarves or anything else for that matter. That is the reason so many stores, many of them clothing stores, have had to shut down in New York and other places. All you need is to bring one item into the house that has bugs or eggs and your live will change forever in an expensive way as you try to get rid of them.”

EwingSIR does not guarantee information contained in this blog, readers are encouraged not to rely solely on this information and to do their own independent research of facts contained herein. Blog information was obtained from independent sources that we do not endorse, and we do not investigate this information for accuracy.

#37 to the Rescue! Your fire station serving North Ranch

Photo by Bob Roper, Ventura County Fire Chief

By: Sher Hann

In 1975, the North Ranch area was being planned and developed. However, there was a caveat. A fire station was required in order to safely service the North Ranch Community. Although the agreed upon location eventually became a park, North Ranch was erected.

At the time, the city of Thousand Oaks wanted to save the Wildwood Mesa on the west end of Avenida de los Arboles as open space, so the city reached an agreement with the owners of Wildwood Mesa. Wildwood mesa agreed to allow homes to be built in the North Ranch area. As part of the agreement, Conejo Recreation and Park District would agree with the city and Mesa owners only if they could have the original fire station site to add to their park site. Therefore, a second fire station site was agreed upon, which is the northeast corner of Kanan Road and Upper Ranch Road. This is the site of today’s fire station. Fire station 37.

I thought this would be interesting information as we are in full fledged fire season. It’s comforting to know that North Ranch has a great fire station ready to service our area if we need help. And by the way, this stations doubles as a polling center on Election Days.

Information retrieved from: North Ranch Living, October 2010.