We both have several bites on our torso areas… I think perhaps they followed us home from Hawaii as we’ve never had this type of problem.
Online info I found says to call in a professional exterminator ASAP. What does the collective wisdom of ST have to say?
To top it off, I think our dog broke his foot yesterday. He’s at the vet getting checked along with one of the cats who had all of his teeth pulled last month and is in for a follow up to get a stabilizing wire removed from his little kitty jaw.
When lice went through my kids school, I read if they don’t have a host, they die off in a matter of days. If this is true of bed bugs, could you move out to a friends house for a few days? Then you just make sure they’re not on you when you leave your house.
We’ll it may just be one or two at the moment so you could at least first try just cleaning/treating your bedding. I’ve read they like to hide in mattress creases so after you strip off the sheets and pads (run through the hot cycle in the washing machine), take the mattress outside and hit it with an aerosol bug spray, let it air out for 24 hours, and see if that works.
Ozonate your house. It will also remove other pests, molds, and odors. Don’t leave anything that you want to live in your house though. Including plants.
Living in NYC I have been through the BB experience and it is not something I ever want to repeat.
The buggers hide - and hide well - and can live up to 18 months without feeding.
Be careful with drug store bug treatments. A lot of them just force the BB to hide deeper rather than actually kill them off. This is one instance where it is worth seeking the assistance of a pest control expert rather than trying the DIY route.
I so don’t want to deal with this. I’ve been scratching all day, I truly think it’s psychosomatic. Well, that and the fact that I have about 15 bites on me.
AND, the dog’s foot is broken. AND the cat’s jaw isn’t healing. AND it’s raining when it is historically sunny and very hot this time of year.
Good news of the day: I harvested some radishes I planted this spring. They’re yummy. I should have planted vodka.
One of the most common ways to get bedbugs is to bring them home with you from a hotel room,
so that’s prob where they came from. They are tough to get rid of. You have to be careful when
you are exterminating them because they will hide not only in the matress, but they will also slip
into tiny cracks in the bed frame.
Bedbugs are visible to the naked eye so you should look carefully to see if they are there. Also, they will leave behind a red smear I believe so check your sheets.
We thought we had them a few weeks ago (started getting bites as well) and we washed everything in piping hot water plus vacuumed the mattress and stopped getting bites. You might want to try that first and see if the bites go away. It can also be mites/scabies/fleas or something less than bedbugs.
A few years ago I was undergoing renovations in my house. About the same time, I started to wake up to huge welts across my torso and saw some reddish-brown bugs here and there. Turns out they were Bat Bugs, which is very close to a Bed Bug. I had bats nesting in my attic spaces, and the renovation brought the bugs (which live on and around bats) into the house. The exterminator had to study them under a microscope to see the difference. The good news was that he sprayed and we closed off the attic to the bats and the problem was solved.
The only proven way to kill them is to use heat. Your home gets tightly sealed and they crank up super sized heaters up to about 140 degrees for two days. Don’t think that spraying and washing everything is going to work, it won’t. You can see them if you strip your bed and turn off the light, leaving it dark for about 20 minutes. then quietly entering the room and turning on the light you should see them scurry for cover. Have fun!
Seek professional help immediately. As others have mentioned these things are hard to kill and they also multiply rapidly. Talk to a few professional exterminators and see how they kill the bugs, go with the most aggressive plan you can handle. I have heard horror stories of people spending thousands of dollars and months of their lives trying to eradicate these little pests, do not hesitate!
I believe you can get a bed bug proof mattress cover/bag, put it over your mattress and bugs on it can’t get out and bugs off it can’t find anywhere to hide in it. We had (still have?) an outbreak in Vancouver and that was one of the possible solutions the media reported. Not cheap but better than chucking your mattress and buying a new one.
THe two people who’ve given you the best advice seem to come from NYC and sadly I’ll be the third.
Don’t mess around with any store bought repellant or treatment. Do as much research as you can on the most professional exterminator in your area, hire them asap and go to war.
My cousins in law live down the road here in Brooklyn and had the time and willingness to do it themselves but it took almost two months and cost a lot of money. It is not uncommon for professional treatments in NYC to run 5 figures - part of that’s just NYC but part of it is just a reflection on people’s tendency to leave this problem too long.
They basically had everything that could go in a washing machine on constant hot cycles. A relative moved down from Chicago to help and did 85 loads of laundry in a week (for a couple with one infant child). Everything that couldn’t be washed but could be baked (books, toys etc), were heat treated in a special oven you can get on amazon for c.$150 - it kills the eggs. Their other big takeaway was to get one area cleaned and then keep it sterile - move the bed off the wall and insulate the feet etc. until you have completely cleaned an adjacent area.
Really sorry you have to go through this but comitting now will save you money down the road.
Mattress & pillow encasement is a good start but it is not a magic bullet. Bed Bugs don’t just live in mattresses - they will take up residence in the bed frame, in floorboard cracks, couches, light switches, in and around electrical sockets … basically anywhere they can feel snug and enclosed.
They are drawn out of hiding when they are hungry and they detect a food source - something still that is exhaling carbon dioxide. And despite what a previous poster said, they are very hard to spot. If they can be seen scurring around that easily, there is a HUGE infestation. Not the level our OP is likely dealing with (if she has them at all).
To the original OP - I know dealing with potential BB can seem overwhelming especially with the other stuff you have going on BUT the quicker you take action the easier BB are to deal with. I was one of the unlucky ones that does not react to BB bites and as a result did not know I had them until I had a pretty bad infestation (my tipping point was seeing one of the buggers). It is not something I would wish on my worst enemy (if I had enemies!). Pure emotional & mental torture. Please, for your own sake, resist the temptation to stick your head in the sand and approach this one front on.
