Fuuuuuuck! Bedbugs!

I sometimes lie in his bed at night and watch tv and just started noticing very itchy bites. I remembered about two weeks ago he showed me what looked like shingles (itchy bumps inside of red rash) and I made him go to the dr. The dr said it was allergic dermatitis. I knew it wasn’t dermatitis and I asked my husband, “You’re sure you haven’t brought any bedbugs home with you from your moms house, right?” And he got all pissy. Of course not! So I was sitting on his bed today, scratching like crazy and saw more bites popping up. That’s when I pulled back the covers and saw the first bedbug. I’mmm soooo pissseed! I found more bedbugs and disgustingly found bedbug poop, which is tiny streaks of black, dried hemolyzed blood all over his pillowcases.

I have diatomaceous earth and a duster. I’ve started using it on the rugs and pictures on the wall. I’ll have t9 wait until Friday when he’s off work for him to help me break down his bed, since I have a bad back/neck/shoulder injury. Then I’ll throw all bedding away and squirt that diatomaceous earth everywhere.

The old man in the apartment below me had home health aides assisting him, one of whom brought in bed bugs. The landlady really got on the situation and took care of it quickly. Luckily, I and my friend in the apartment below the old man's never go them....and then the old man died.

What’s really disgusting is squishing a bedbug and seeing all that blood.

I’ve ordered some insecticide powder farmers use in chicken coops. I’m going to mix it with the diatomaceous earth and dust with it.

How does one find out if there are bed bugs in the bedding?

OP, you need to treat your whole place, not just the other bedroom -- the bed bugs will simply move from room to room. And if you're in an apartment or condo, you should notify property management so they can ensure the bugs don't spread to your neighbors.

And find a professional company that specializes in this type of pest control. A DIY fix won't work with bed bugs.

Diatomaceous earth works. It sticks to everything. Silica works too. I will go room by room and dust. I got rid of a silverfish infestation with DE and insecticide. Took about a week to do the whole house.

OP, I suspect that the bed bugs are being brought in by your husband's boyfriend. It could even be on purpose to get you to move out.

I had bedbugs in one of my old apartments. I got them from my downstairs neighbors who got them from their downstairs neighbors who also spread them to the other side of the building... it was a mess that lasted two years (one tenant had them twice!). The bedbugs kept reappearing because out landlord was too cheap to treat all apartments at once (even a bedbug free apartment if linked to an infested apartment should be treated), so the bedbugs just moved from one area of the building to next. I am pretty sure the landlord did this on purpose to make tenants move out. Not only was our building infested, the adjacent building got them as well (same landlord).

I am one of those people who don't show the bites, so I didn’t know I had them until one night I fell asleep with my lights on. I woke up at 2:30am and saw a bedbug or two crawling on my sheets. I hit the fucking roof. Luckily I had them around the bed and in the bathroom (their entry point was a heat pipe that connected with the apartment downstairs), but nowhere else. All of my books were in the living room and I checked every single one of them before storing them all in plastic bags.

I was angry with my landlord, but also with the moron living below me who refused to have his apartment inspected, let alone treated.

An exterminator came twice, sprayed everything. I washed everything, I washed all of my clothing, drycleaned the rest. Put stuff in plastic bags and took the bags to the roof to bake in the sun.

This was years ago and I still have a fear of waking up at night and seeing a bedbug crawl on my sheets.

Disgusting. Both bedbugs and negligent neighbors.

GET NUVAN PROSTRIPS!

[quote]Kill Bed Bug Safely And Effectively In Confined Areas Treat electronics, shoes, handbags, clothing, toys sealed in an airtight bag with Nuvan ProStrips. Fortunately there is now a product that kills bed bug in difficult to treat items such as electronics. Nuvan Pro-Strips penetrate deep into items treated leaving no place for bed bugs to hide.

I bought some silica online. I'll mix it with powdered insecticide and use a duster I already have.

My husband doesn't believe me. When I showed him the black spots all over his pillowcases he said, "I'll have to take your word for it that this somehow means there are some kind of bugs."

Uh, no shithead. You don't have to take my word for it. Here are hundreds of photos of bedbug droppings online.

Then he tells me a friend of his is coming to stay next week, for 3 days. I said, "You need to tell him we have bedbugs before he comes here. And I will be sure to tell him as soon as he walks in the door, just in case you forget. Because you don't invite house guests when you have bed bugs."

He also tried to blame me for them. "There are cat food crumbs in the bed." One of my cats loves dry treats and he refuses to eat any crumbs he drops. So I brush them off the bed. He was insinuating that bed bugs were attracted to the food crumbs. Yeah Einstein, bedbugs wander around outside and enter your house looking for crumbs. Even though they eat and drink one thing only - warm blood.

You have a bigger problem than vermin. Your relationship is toxic.

I've even seen bedbugs in daylight. They're not exclusively seen at night.

Your husband is an idiot.

Dump the motherfucker.

And, call a professional. Bedbugs are VERY hard to get rid of. And, get one who specializes in bedbugs. Good ones have trained dogs who sniff them out. That way you can find out WHERE the bugs are in the house.

[quote] I am one of those people who don't show the bites, so I didn’t know I had them until one night I fell asleep with my lights on.

That's the scariest part about bedbugs and other vermin - you can have them for years and not even know it. Luckily I'm not one of those people - when strange bitemarks arranaged in a line that itched like hell started appearing on my body a week after I returned from some trip a few years ago I immediately knew what was going on and went into action. I managed to get rid of them pretty fast, since I discovered the infestation so early.

Get these. once he sees the fuckers he will get a clue.

1/10

As my grandmother used to say, "Don't let the bedbugs bite!"

You'll need to burn the apartment and all your possessions. I would consider burning the husband as well.

But what is on the bedbugs' iPod?

Traveling home from a long weekend several years ago, I stopped at a motel for the night. I woke up the next morning with red welts on my legs that looked like bite marks. I FLIPPED THE FUCK OUT. When I got home I threw my suitcase and all the clothes in it in the garbage bin (which was outside), stripped naked in my garage, threw the clothes I was wearing in the bin, and took a long hot shower. Maybe I was paranoid and going to extremes but I didn't give a fuck. Anything was better than having bedbugs in my house.

I don't know if it's been mentioned, but "breakfast, lunch and dinner" is characteristic of bedbug bites. You'll see three bites either close together or in a "line." That's breakfast, lunch and dinner.

I read War and Peace in less time it took to get through this story.

1,2,3,

Don’t use bedskirts, especially the ruffled kind. Bedbug paradise in between all those pleats, baby

Fuck, now I have tendonitis in my right hand from using that duster to spread Silica around. I can barely use it and I have soooo much more I need to do. I haven’t steamed the floors yet. I bought a new vacuum cleaner that has too many toggles on it and they were stiff, so I further hurt my hand trying to wrestle with it.

You should look into the heat treatment.

You sound like an asshole, OP.

You probably deserve such pestilence.

Actually, I haven't seen any or been bitten since I first discovered them. It's been a month. But they say you have to wait a few months before you can say you're BB free

I just found out we have bed bugs in our building. The landlord sent an exterminator here yesterday morning who was going from apartment to apartment with a specialty dog to inspect each place. He said mine was in the clear, but I'm still a bit on edge. I've never to my knowledge have ever had bed bugs and don't want to start now.

I only have two months left on my lease and they just sent me the renewal. I've only been here a year but now don't know if I should renew. In some ways I feel like why bother leaving because bed bugs are a problem all over the city (the next place you move to could get them also), but at the same time it creeps me out and I don't want to stay here and give them a chance to migrate from my neighbor's apartment to mine. Decisions, decisions.

Is it strange, that I have never had bedbugs? Even, during my time in college.

Heat treatment is the only thing that really works. There are chemical treatments but reoccurrence is very possible.

We had them at work once and they even fired the person they said brought them into the building.

This is a troll thread.

-10,000/10

What caused bedbugs to come back in the US? Bedbugs weren't a problem for 50 or 60 years and then all of a sudden they were back.

OP... this is for you!

R29, MOVE!

OP, DIVORCE / MOVE!

R34, bed bugs started coming back when DDT was withdrawn from the market.

The balance of this post is not for OP. He has his Diatomaceous earth and thinks he is all set.

But for the rest of you... Bed bugs live in the walls of buildings. They only come out at night to feed. You may also find them, or their waste, in the seams of your mattress and/or mattress cover. Dark, secluded. The bed bugs love places like that.

To prevent being bitten, make sure you do not have sheets or blankets that touch the floor. That's how the bugs travel into the bed. Secure the sheets and/or blankets up off the floor. Cover the legs of your bed with two-sided adhesive tape. If the bugs try to crawl across it, they won't make it.

But, hell yes. For bed bugs... call an exterminator. Sooner rather than later. There are several new generations of bed bugs each year. From egg stage to a mature bug laying its own eggs... just a few months. Call a pro. Immediately.

[quote]Diatomaceous earth works. It sticks to everything.

That works for roaches, which have soft underbellies that are sensitive to powder and dehydrate. Bedbugs are a whole different kind of beast.

The bedbugs in our apartment seemed deathly afraid of my tea tree oil/rosemary oil spray and stayed out of sight as long as we sprayed it around the edges of the carpets and steamed the carpets surfaces with it. After forgetting to use my spray in her room for a week, my roommate instead sprayed some sort of toxic bugbomb shit on a few, which trudged right on through it. She sprayed tea tree on the wall and they veered around it. It won't get rid of them, but at least it repels them for a while.

My roommate kept a bedbag in a plastic ziploc baggie and swears it was still alive a year later, despite not having fed. They are hardy little things.

^ carpets' surfaces

[quote]Diatomaceous earth works. It sticks to everything.

[quote]>> That works for roaches, which have soft underbellies that are sensitive to powder and dehydrate. Bedbugs are a whole different kind of beast.

R38, you're a shithead.

Diatomaceous earth (DE) kills [bold]all[/bold] bugs that have an exoskeleton, including both cockroaches and bedbugs. These bugs don't have "soft underbellies", you fucking retard: they're covered in a waxy exoskeleton which is vulnerable to DE because it's made of tiny crystals, which slices them open so they dehydrate and die. (Btw, that waxy coating is the same reason that bedbugs are vulnerable to heat: it literally melts away!)

But yes, bedbugs can survive up to 18 months without food. They basically go into hibernation until they're awakened by either carbon dioxide or mammalian bodyheat.

OP has bigger issues, apparently he is married to a bedbug. I got bedbugs from a used book I bought at a library book sale. Thankfully I found out immediately (the night after I got it) and I had a steamer, so I steamed bed frame before getting one of those bedbug mattress covers. I threw the book out and wrapped all the others in saran wrap, and then I slept on the couch for a week. It's been years since then and happily it worked, but like others here, I am extremely paranoid about getting them again, what a hellish experience.

[quote] I had a steamer, so I steamed bed frame

Show us your steamer, please.

You can get bedbugs from books? Ok, now I'm paranoid.

I lived in a building mixed with low income housing and several units became infested. The exterminator came several times over a year, but the source (a druggie with homeless friends) refused to let anyone in to his apartment. I just moved out and threw away my furniture/bedding. That was more than 10 years ago, and I am still nervous about sitting in theaters, air planes, etc and always check the underside of mattresses in hotel rooms. I also never put my luggage on the floor of the hotel room or on anything upholstered- only on hard surfaces.

NEVER put your luggage on the floor in a hotel. There is no faster way to take them home with you.

[quote]You can get bedbugs from books?

Yup. Just Google "library book bedbug" and have at it.

They travel well, and tuck themselves into books, DVD cases, clothing, furniture... the list goes on and on. I always do a quick check of library books (especially hardcover books w/ book jackets) before checking them out and taking them home. A librarian saw me once and asked what I was doing -- when I told her I was checking for bedbugs, she nodded in understanding.

And, like, R44, I always do a thorough CSI-level check of any hotel room before settling in. Luggage goes in the bathtub until I'm done and, after that, ALWAYS stays off the floor.

OP, there are many natural predators that will kill and eat bed bugs.

Scorpions, Fire Ants, many varieties of spider, cockroaches, lizards.

Arm yourself with these natural predators and your troubles are over.

You are a natural predator to bedbugs. Eat them.

Did you know bed bugs are an excellent high-protein addition to any fried rice?

It's a fact!

I haven’t seen or been bitten by a bedbug since the initial discovery. So it’s been almost 4 months. I used a strong vacuum cleaner, a puffer duster & silica dust (Make sure to put some silica dust on the floor and vacuum it up so any bedbugs you vacuum will die in the canister). If you use DE or silica, you must use a respirator mask & plastic safety glasses, both of which are readily available online and cheap. You can develop silicosis years later if you don’t take precautions. No other humans & no pets in the room while you’re dusting. Let the dust settle for a few hours before going back in. Don’t put silica where your pet may lie in it, like in a pet bed.

I bought white metal bed frames for our beds & only use white bed sheets so that any bugs/debris can be more clearly seen. All mattresses and pillows are in zippered encasements. If you have bedbugs or think you may have them, get rid of that dark comforter and dark sheets. Bedbugs favorite colors are red & black. They don’t like white, yellow or lighter green colors.

I put bed bug monitors under the bed frame legs. Bugs will get caught in them and you can tell if you still have a problem by the # of or lack of bugs caught.

Keep your bed AWAY from the wall. Bugs can easily climb the wall & transfer to your bed if you don’t. I pulled all bedroom furniture away from the wall after dusting, just as an extra precaution. Keep bed linens from touching the floor or wall.

Of course, washing clothes & linens in hot water for 60 minutes and drying them on high for 60 minutes is essential. Get a steamer for things you can’t put in the wash. They’re not too expensive (tho I bought an expensive one to help me clean bathrooms & kitchen). I feel bad for people in apt buildings who have to use a laundromat. It’s not easy & you don’t want to spread bugs to the laundry room.

I like the way my bedrooms look with lighter linens & furniture. They look “opened up.”

I pulled cushions off all furniture and vacuumed & turned the chairs/couch upside down & vacuumed.

I guess the most essential things were vacuum cleaner, silica dust (plus glasses & resp mask) and washing machine/dryer. Knock wood, I didn’t have to call a pest company (knock wood again). Vacuum, vacuum, vacuum.

I researched so much on bedbugs I feel like The Bed Bug Expert. Ask me any legitimate questions about bed bugs. Legitimate questions.

Bed bug monitors are good to put under your bed frame legs if you live in an apartment building. Just wipe any household dust from the monitors every now & then because the smoothness of the plastic is something the bugs can’t climb. You can put silica in the monitors, but household dust can eventually cover the silica , so clean & replace the silica when household dust accumulates.

Bed bugs aren’t real. Fictitious!

So you sprinkle dirt around to deal with repeated vermin infestations? OP, you sound very dirty. I feel like I need a shower just after reading your story.

[quote]Diatomaceous earth (DE) kills all bugs that have an exoskeleton, including both cockroaches and bedbugs.

It didn't do shit against our bedbugs, r40. If you have a differing opinion and facts to offer, by all means do so, but you don't need to call someone a "shithead" over the issue.

Diatomaceous Earth did nothing for me, either. Getting rid of furniture is what helped most. And lots of spraying.

Silica dust kills bed bugs within 24 hours of contact & it will kill as long as they walk through it while insecticides have to be sprayed directly on the bugs. Once the insecticide dries, it doesn't work.

I had such a bad problem 10 years ago I actually ended up moving.