PAM - Am I doing this right?

[Emily Hubbard]

PAM finally arrived, and I read the instructions on the can three times, but I want advice from you all with experience using it. Tell me if I am on the right track.

My apartment is only 550 square feet with really two rooms: Bedroom, and living room/ kitchen area. My viv is in the living room, so I set my snake up in a 15qt tub in the bedroom with one of her hides and a heat pack, turned off the light and closed the bedroom door... Then I opened all of the living room windows, took the front glass off of my vision enclosure and removed EVERYTHING, turned off the heaters, starting from scratch. I sprayed PAM on the floor of the viv, and little shots on the sides. I don't wan't to go over board, it freaks me out.

Now, I am just letting it dry with the snake in the other room with the door closed while I guess I breath the fumes, though the windows are all open and I am FREEZING.

How long does it usually take to dry? It really scares me, I don't like the idea of shoving my snake in a thing treated with a noxious gas EVER, but I know that is what it is for and the mites were making her SO miserable. Should I wait til tomorrow? 4 hours, 6 hours? All advice appreciated.

[jason668]

Sorry for responding so late. Hopefully you got everything put back together now and are no longer in the cold. I recently had to treat my entire collection for mites and PAM was definitely the best. I treated all of the tubs outside or in my garage for ventilation but I could have done it in a spare room as well with the windows open.

Many people say that you just need to wait for the fumes to dissipate (15 min or so), but, like you, I am reluctant to rush my pets back into a gassed out home. After about 30 min or so I would check back and the fumes were gone. As well, there was nothing tacky left on the surfaces.

So far I have treated every tub twice in the last 3 months and haven't had any issues. Best of all, no more mites.

Additionally, you can use reptile relief spray to help comfort your snakes. I just sprayed a little on a paper towel then rubbed a light coat on my animals after a nice soaking.

Just my 2c. Take care and good luck.

[Kaidregon]

So sorry for your misfortune . Though I usually wait about an hour when gassing. I too am a nervous re-enter-er .

As a side note, I usually bleach my tubs/tanks once a month to help prevent a mite infestation, and durring one (though i've only had two so far *knock on wood*).

I hope everythings back in order now!

[Domepiece]

Sounds like you went a little overboard, but better safe than sorry I guess. All you needed to do was remove all the stuff from the enclosure clean it, put in new substrate and spray the substrate, then let it air out and dry, then put everything back in. You dont want to breath in PAM, it is a carcinogen. What I would do next time is take the amount of substrate you want in your enclosure, put in in a tub, take it outside, spray it, let it dry and air out for a half an hour, then bring it back inside and put in the enclosure. It should be fine at this point. Also it says on the directions not to spray directly onto the enclosure itself but onto a substrate, if sprayed onto the enclosure it leaves an oily residue and takes longer to dry. PAM works wonders just use it sparingly and correctly.Good Luck to you.