Share your creepy bedbug stories with us

I'm having them now. My apartment has been bombed three times, but I found three in a book yesterday. And I itch so much, my doctor is treating me for scabies, too, "just in case."

I bet Dracula liked bedbugs.

Why can't they be eradicated? This has been going on for 13 years and has made traveling a nightmare. I don't understand why the problem isn't taken more seriously.

I lived in a shitty rental apartment in Oslo. The bed was infested with bed bugs. It was disgusting. I noticed because I had red marks on my arms. My landlord had to call in an exterminator. Thankfully it worked. I moved and haven't seen any signs of bedbugs since then, it was 4 years ago.

Some critters in my apartment keep biting me and I can’t tell if it’s fleas, mosquitoes, or bedbugs. When it when I get a bite it’s very itchy. My sister said bedbug bites tend to be linear in may be in groups of three. I’ve even looked up photos online and I can’t tell what kind of bug is biting me. I travel quite a bit so I am super paranoid about bringing them home with me! What to do?

The insecticide DDT has been outlawed in the US. According to what an elderly aunt told me, the last time the US saw bedbugs was sometime in the 1950s. Then DDT was banned in the 1970s.

When air travel became much cheaper, we started seeing bedbugs again in the US. No one seem to taking the infestation seriously, why should they when so many pest control companies are making so much money with their bedbug sniffing dogs and 'freeze' methods of eradicating the bedbugs, which are costly. It's not as if if you can buy a can of Raid! It can cost in the thousands to get rid of bedbugs.

Yeah, we had them in our place once. We got rid of them using the diatomaceous earth, which is probably the cheapest though not the quickest solution. It felt horrible to spend two months living in a place entirely covered in white dust - I felt like I was living on a construction site or something. But luckily it worked.

I rarely visit hostels these days but when I do I always keep my backpack in a large plastic garbage bag, so nothing can crawl in. And when I get home I always wash my clothes immediately and put other stuff into the freezer for a few weeks.

I always explain to my hostel roomates what the garbage bag is for (so they wouldn't think I'm some sort of a freak) and what amazes me is that many of them don't even know what bedbugs are.

So fuggin gross

R5- You could be getting bit by no-see-ums. For me, the bites usually are around my feet and ankles, sometimes higher up on the body. The bite is just a red bump that itches l8ke a mother fucker for a few days and nothing stops the itch. It seems they’re particular who they bite, I end up an itchy mess and my partner doesn’t get bit at all. I will add that it’s always when I’m in Florida that I get bit.

The only way to permanently get rid of bedbugs is to burn your house down. 😁

STOP POSTING DISGUSTING PICTURES ON THE FRONT PAGE, ASSHOLE

F/F this troll, so sick of the scat and crabs in our faces. It's all a relentless campaign to trash Datalounge.

I lived in a studio in Hell’s Kitchen 10 years ago paying just $650 a month. Even the cheap rent couldn’t keep me there the third time there was a bedbug infestation. I literally saw one crawl under the front door one day. I moved out into a freshly renovated apartment in the same building and STILL got them.

I developed a psychosis even months after I moved out, anytime I felt itchy or had a rash I thought they’d come back. Buy a mattress sleeve for new mattresses and check for telltale markings that look like pencil marks. Do away with wood, particle board and paper books near or under your bed. We kept getting them because there were elderly tenants that weren’t as fastidious about them and I wound up giving up the lease because of them.

Bedbugs have a very distinctive odor. If you catch one, squish it on your hand and take a sniff. If it smells like decaying wood, call an exterminator.

Some folks have come up with a theory that the spread of bed bugs correlates with the expansion of IKEA.

All that particle board. It's the perfect delivery system for bedbug eggs.

Yeah it's time to bring back DDT in a targeted regulated way. India and South Africa still use it.

This stops the bites from itching. It's good for any insect bites and I keep a small spray bottle of it handy in the summer.

i

Didn't bedbugs become immune to DDT in the last few decades?

There's some money to be made here.

DDT is now banned in the U.S. because it was causing bald eagles’ eggshells to become so thin the mother was crushing the eggs by sitting on them.

Bald eagles became endangered for years and had to be carefully and painstakingly brought back. This applied to some other birds too. Maybe the California condor was one, I don’t remember.

In WWII, people who were rescued from concentration camps had DDT sprayed down their shirts to kill the lice.

R3, no kidding. I travel a lot and every trip, my shoes stay in the bathroom and clothes go straight into a plastic bag when I take them off at the hotel. The luggage stays in the bathtub. And I get home and wash everything. It has ruined my enjoyment of travel.

When I was a kid, my dad and I would take road trips and stay in the cheapest places with no worry. Even Motel 6, which is probably a hotbed of bedbugs by now. Now I have to look for Expedia reviews for every hotel I consider. One bedbug review and I won’t stay there. And most of them have bedbugs in the reviews. I’ve learned to avoid hotels near the airport, near Disneyland or other international tourist spots, and go for hotels out in the suburbs in the nicest neighborhoods I can find. And I’m not the only one.

Hotels book very early now, sometimes a week in advance or more for clean ones, while even the bedbuggy places sell out a day or two before the weekend. I’m guessing there’s a reason for this. California is becoming Bedbug Central and very overcrowded. Most hotels are really old and have been updated but not enlarged in the last 40 years. There appears to be a shortage of rooms and people will put up with anything to have a roof over their heads. There’s a lot of rundown 1960s and 1970s hotels in Southern California. And they’re now updating old ‘60s motels cheaply and calling them “hotels.”

Yes, bedbugs are sneaky.

I found one in my paperback book, like another poster mentioned.

Just because you don't see any signs of them thru black excrement or shell castings, the baby ones are clear and almost microscopic? The adult ones I've seen look almost like an apple seed. And they can go more than a year without a feeding. Just because they haven't been seen in an apartment in awhile, they'll stikk be back if not treated.

Plus, I read they can crawl up to the ceiling or ceiling fan -- then drop down onto you! No wonder people don't see them, so think they have no issue. They hide well.

DE powder seems effective as one poster said but it can take months to fully work? I heard to apply it with a mask, and try not to breathe in. That's hard when you're sleeping in a room with it applied in crevices and baseboards for a couple of months?

.

CALL FUCKING ORKIN AND GET RID OF THEM!

I had to get rid of my bed and a chair.

They will go away for a few weeks. Then they come back. Just squashed one at four this morning. I have some Ortho and have to spray my bedroom once a month. That dio whatever stuff is useless.

Did you get rid of any furniture, r22?

Mattress and pillow protectors absolutely do work. Don't let blankets or sheets dangle on the floor. They love upholstered furniture and curtains, too.

I have scars on both ankles from bedbug bites, and I do live in an apartment, so I'm constantly on the lookout for them.

I had decided to "treat" myself to a real newspaper on a lark, and after settling into my bed with my coffee, there was one in there. I almost panicked at first thinking it was a tick, but then calmly realised what it was, and that I needed to get this thing immedIately. Flushed it, and thankfully have not seen another. I no longer buy newspapers. When I had lived in NYC, I knew several people who refused to date anyone from Brooklyn because of the infestations there.

I was bitten by something this summer -- either bed bugs or chiggers. Could have been either: the bites were mostly on one arm. I had both laid in wild grass and returned from a trip to China within the six days before the bites appeared. If they were bed bug bites, I didn't carry them home with me.

They also took a long time to go away.

Also, when I thought I might have chigger bites, I Googled "chigger bite" and was led to pictures of skin infected with the jigger parasite.

NO WORDS.

Take it from a former Peace Corps volunteer. You need to do a modern version of "scalding." Buy a large roll of black plastic sheeting. Wait for a sunny day with no rain the the forcast. Remove everything (furniture/ pictures/ books etc) and put in south facing part of yard. cover each piece furniture and area of misc stuff with black plastic. Cloths/linens into plastic trash bags that are tied completely shut. If bed or furniture is too big to move outside push them off wall into center of room allowing access to walls and furniture.

Back inside start with shop vac with bag liner(easier cleanup). get on ladder and work from top down. vaccum every inch. Using stuff brush and crevice tool vaccum every inch of mattress and box spring. Encase mattresses in zippered mattress covers. Personally i would dispose of shops vac bag into one of those giant ziplock bags and toss. Put the shop vac and parts in plastic bag and add to other stuff in sun. Get a bucket and make a hot soapy solution of dawn and hot water ( boil water and add to hot water to get it really hot). wipe eavery inch of wall, ceiling and floor. If you have a steam cleaner that will work to. Inwoukd use microfiber clothes to wipe because they will be better at dislodging eggs. Change water frequently. Follow up with a pyrethrin based bed bug spray. After it dries get out the diamaticious earth use a mask because fine dust can irritate lungs. Using paint brush to apply to all baseboard and trim, edges of outlets/ light swithches etc, corners of walls and joint where two walls meet, edge of lights, shelving, etc. add new bag to shop vac outside and vaccum, ( and if safe to get wet, clean and spray). Keep pair of shoes at door to put on and take off to not track stuff back inside. For stuff that cannot get wet consider bagging. Bring them out for another day if sun to be sure.

Launder all linens with hot water. If you have lye bar soap shave thin pieces and add it to laundry water. Dry everything on high heat. Put in new clean trahs bags. Again if cannot get clothes wet, bag and set out for a second day of sun. when done put shop vac in trash bags and use sun treatments. Get some of those cups you put your bed feet in to prevent bed bugs from getting back on. Keed bed from diretly contacting wall Keep cleaning and vaccuming regularly. Same with diamaticious earth. You can leave stuff in bags so long as tied (sealed). in order to follow up with additional sun treatments or contain until you can clean or adter aleeady cleaned .

R28 Wow, those are some very thorough instructions. Just one minor correction: see-through garbage bags actually work better than black ones, because the inside of those gets hotter.

Ever since there were a few apartments in my building affected, I have wrapped my mattress in a bed-bug resistant cover. Hope it works

R28, Moving sounds easier

Good source of protein in this over-populated world

THANKS FOR ANOTHER GROSS-OUT PIC ON THE FRONT PAGE, TROLL!

You didn’t have to link another nasty disease photo in our faces, you fucking pig! This is why you don’t have any friends!!!!

Everybody Flame and Freak the OP.

MARY! r33

RE29 black absorbs all wavelenths of light generating the mist heat. Clear absorbs almost nothing. thus. the color of the contents would dictate the amount of heat absorbed. no individusl color absorbs more then black thus black trash bags are best to get temp to 120 for an hour and kill the bastards. some people prefers clear because you can see what is inside but i would prioritize maximizing temp.

No r23... I may get rid of the box spring...that seems to be where they’re coming from. I purchased it from one of those cheapie furniture warehouses.

[quote] Yeah it's time to bring back DDT

Why?

Bedbugs

Are

Resistant

To

DDT

So

Why

Bring

It

Back?

Did any of you with bed bugs actually research them? Takes all of 5 minutes to find out sprays and "bombs" are ineffective.

[quote] Pesticides alone are not the answer to bed bugs. Most of the commonly used pesticides today, including professional products and consumer products advertised for control of bed bugs, are at best moderately effective at controlling these pests. Pesticides must be used with care for safety and with attention to proper application to work well. Aerosol “bug bombs” or “fumigators” are also mostly ineffective in eliminating bed bugs. Aerosol insecticides mainly kill insects that are exposed, and out of their hiding places, not those hidden behind baseboards, in cracks and crevices of the bed, under carpet edging and in walls.

Oh yeah, and people who live in the northern hemisphere, especially in winter, will get little relief by bagging everything and putting it outside in the sun.

Medical Entomologist here (No, I'm not kidding). ALOT of bed bugs are resistant to pyrethroids- all those things that end in "..thrin" like deltamethrin etc. What works really well are heat treatments. There are some effective insecticides out there but people don't understand or can't prepare for the treatments properly. IT'S A SHITLOAD OF WORK to prepare for treatments. If you live in an apartment and wondering how you got bedbugs because you haven't traveled -it's probably from a neighbor, next to you, above or under you. Or have you had visitors lately? I always tell people to think of bedbugs like german roaches..they move about in the same manner from place to place. Also, even if you see ONE bedbug- you should NOT fuck around and ignore it- go ahead and get a full-blown treatment. Bed bugs go through several instars (stages) - the first two stages they are almost invisible because they are so small and they are white-ish at that point and not red or brown. Trust me, if you see ONE there are more somewhere on your bed. They are extremely cryptic and you can have 100 bugs on your bed and you may never see one until your place is thoroughly infested. Also, DO NOT play this "I don't think they're in all the bedrooms" bullshit... wherever people sleep is where the bugs are...SO if you only find 1 in your bedroom treat all the rooms. Don't be a cheap queen.

I am going on an extended trip next year. Can the traveller's posting here detail everything they do. I will have 2 hardcase suitcases.

What should I do when I get back? If I leave my luggage outside/garage and wash all clothes in hot and put through the dryer, is that sufficient?? What should I do with shoes?

Thank you!

R41 Immediately wash all your clothes when you get back. Place clothes that are too sensitive for dryer and other stuff like books, shoes, wallets etc. inside a freezer for a few weeks. Put your suitcases into large garbage bags and leave them in there for some time (in the sun, if possible).

I often get bitten by bedbugs on my trips (since I mostly travel around third world countries and usually stay in hostels) but I've been following these precautions and I never had any problems back home so far.

Oh yes, and when you travel don't leave your clothes and bags lying around on the bed or on the ho(s)tel room floor because that's an invitation for those fuckers to crawl in and join you on the remainder of your trip.

I live in an apartment building that has at least two apartments with bedbugs (twice in the same apartment a couple years apart). Currently, a neighbor on the far side of building is dealing with them. He looks like he is about to drop from exhaustion. I said yes to giving him a ride a few weeks ago. I then started wondering if any hitchhiked into my car, so I left it parked out in the sun all day. I've spread diatomaceous earth around my apartment, and even sprinkle it the the hallways outside my apartment. I felt something crawling on me a couple of days ago, fortunately it was only a huge spider.

The disgusting thing about bed bugs - aside from them sucking your blood while you sleep - is that they're dirty. If you find a colony of ants, you'll basically see ants. Roaches are disgusting too, but they don't go through 4 or 5 instars like bed bugs do. Bed bugs shed their skin each time they go through an instar.. So they leave "shells" behind. They also poop prolifically. And they look different at each stage & depending on whether or not they've recently fed. A bed bug can be almost transparent when it's a nymph, but it can also be small and look like a tiny round dot where you can't even see its legs. Then there is the full grown bed bug, which can be quite big after feeding so if you find a "colony" you will find adult bugs, juveniles, nymphs and eggs. The bugs can be red, orange or brown, large or tiny and youll find tons of shed shells and poop along with the bugs. It's filthy and you have to fight the urge to pass out when you see them -- because youve got a lot to do once you find you've got them.

The pic below shows shells , bugs and black poop. I don't see any eggs, though.

NUVAN pro strips.

They work.

Bedbugs are not resistant to DDT. DDT would still be effective in controlling them in certain contained situations..

On the Camino Francés towards Santiago.

Some dipshit American couple brought in their unwashed PJs in Frómista and infected an entire hostal. I was there two days later and witnessed the carnage, and ended up sleeping on park benches with an awesome old Canadian elder lez, walking solo in her 70s, and a man from Korea we couldn't communicate with.

They jumped onto my pantyhose at the time I lived at Chelsea when I was fucking Dylan. The fuckers died after drinking my toxic blood...

R48 I've heard before that those pilgrims' hostels on Camino are a real treasury of bed bugs. That's one of the main reasons that's keeping me away from it.

[quote]Immediately wash all your clothes when you get back. Place clothes that are too sensitive for dryer and other stuff like books, shoes, wallets etc. inside a freezer for a few weeks. Put your suitcases into large garbage bags and leave them in there for some time (in the sun, if possible).

These suggestions about putting a lot of your clothing, shoes, books etc into freezers is absurd. A lot of travelers live in apartments. Who has the space for large food freezer which some people who own homes don't even have in their basements?! Let alone be able to leave a suitcase outside in the sun?! People who live in apartments in urban areas can't do any of this.

Large freezers are cheaper to buy than an exterminator, r51.

Spending lots of money is just one of the problems you'll face if you get bed bugs - you'll also became a nervous wreck. Night is supposed to be that part of the day when people unwind and relax but if you have bed bugs you start fearing sundown because that's when they come out.

A friend's high-rise building had a major bedbug problem. They hired a service who brought in dogs to scour each apartment in the building. They found that the units with the worst infestations were one's frequently rented out via Airbnb. (His building is close to Wrigley Field and popular with Airbnb'ers.) Unfortunately he lived adjacent to one of these apartments and the dogs found bugs coming through his electrical receptacles after they treated the neighbor's unit. His building subsequently banned residents doing Airbnb rentals but they are still dealing with the bugs 2 years later.

R44 Are you an entomologist too? :)

I got aligned bites in september on my back, they took forever to go away. It was still summer so I thought it was mosquitoes but the stings took too long to go. Since then I also got a weird red zit/spot on my face that is veeery slowly going away, and more "zits" on my torso. Then the other day more aligned dots on my back. They do not itch at all, and they take forever to go. I don't know what it is. I'm freaking out that it might be a bunch of bedbugs, especially since I've been working in a specialized store that has a large section of products against bedbugs, thus attracting hundreds of customers who have the problem. Fuck if I know.

I looked thoroughly everywhere, saw or found nothing. Opened the mattress cover, saw nothing. My bed has a metal frame, I've put double sided adhesive on the feet of the bed, so far it's hasn't "caught" anything. I'm thinking that if I had been first bitten by bedbugs in september, why would it take three months to get bitten again ? The only insect I found near the floor of my bed was a little spider. But spiders don't bite unless defensively. I just don't know but let me tell you, I'm edgy as fuck.

I hate this.

[quote] Bedbugs are not resistant to DDT

Yes they are, dear

[quote] Some dipshit American couple brought in their unwashed PJs in Frómista and infected an entire hostal. I was there two days later and witnessed the carnage,

Ridiculous. It takes far more than 2 days to infest an entire hostel

Get a duster (for insecticide) and buy some silica dust. Squirt the dust inside and outside your suitcase. Not in piles. But in clouds. Wear glasses and a mask from home depot when you dust. Pay special attention to zippers & grommets, where bed bugs love to hide. Take a few plastic hangers with you when you travel and hang your clothes on the shower rod. Keep the rest of your clothes in your suitcase and keep your suitcase in the bathtub

Earlier this year, I took British Airways from Seattle to LHR. We checked our main bags and had small carry-ons with us in the Club World cabin. My companion and I were bitten sometime during the 10-hour overnight flight in our lie-flat seats. I had the iconic three bites in a line in several places on my legs, and my companion had bites around the torso. We're both very sensitive to insect bites and reacted badly to whatever those things have in their saliva.

I was concerned that we would carry bedbugs off the aircraft to our London accommodations, but we were never bitten again. I guess we were lucky, and the bugs retreated back into the seams of the Club World seats and didn't hitchhike on our clothes to our destination. When we finally returned home, I took steps to treat our luggage and clothing, just in case. It's been months now (much longer than the bedbug life cycle), and neither of us have been bitten again.

I've heard of people getting bitten in movie theaters and carrying the bugs home unwittingly. I work in a large public library system, and we've just been advised that bedbugs have been discovered in a number of our branches.

By now bedbugs live whitin me, I have the body of an old matress so it was to be expected...Hey! At least I have companion.

Bed bugs can live without food for a year.

The itch was unlike anything I'd ever experienced. I wanted to not just claw my skin off, but actually stab the affected areas to get under the skin.

If you are afflicted, buy anti-itching lotion immediately.

Bed bugs are no joke.

Use a combination of Crossfire and Apprehend.

Bed bug bites are very itchy. You can bruise your skin scratching because they itch so much and the reaction to the bites supposedly increases every time you’re bitten. It’s said that 30% of the population does not react to bed bug bites at all. No redness, no raised bumps, no itching.

Bed bug bites can scar and can itch long after they’re gone. People say they often feel itchy in the exact spots where the bugs bit them months before and feel that achiness under the skin, but there are no bites evident.

So .... I haven't seen any bugs or had a bite for 3 months. I put encasements around the mattresses & box springs & pillowcases. But I'm afraid to put linens on my bed. I just use a blanket over myself at night & I sleep atop the encasements.

I'm afraid if I put a bottom sheet on the mattress then bugs will hide underneath it. Especially the part that hooks around the bottom of the mattress. Or even a tucked in flat sheet.

My mattress encasement has a zip off top, so I can easily wash it but my husband refused to get a zip top and now he wants to put sheets on his bed. He's the only one in the house who had the bugs ... no one else had them. (I got bitten in his bed because I watched tv in his room at night when he works late. )

I'm the one who will be checking the sheets all the time, not him. He was completely indifferent to the situation and I had to do everything myself. Vacuuming, washing, streaming, dusting. He blew it off as "not important" and didn't understand why I was "hysterical" about some bugs in his bed. "So what? Just spray the bed." His family is disgusting - they had to get rid of all the furniture in their house due to the bugs. He still visits his mother and could bring more home with him for all I know.

I can't find anywhere whether or not bedbugs will thrive in sheets that are atop an encasement. The mattress will be safe, but the sheets...?

Bump

[quote] I bet Dracula liked bedbugs.

Nah, they are rivals

They can live up to a year without food so you can’t starve them

Is there anything that kills bed bugs? Do those bed bug sprays work or are they a fraud?

You have to drive a very small wooden stake through their hearts, r70. And who even knows where that is?