Bed Bugs are Crawling in a Home Near You
I would have totally ignored this story except for the fact that a friend, whom I haven’t seen in awhile, emailed me that her family had just come out of a mite infestation.
She had been waking up with itchy bites on her arms and legs and just assumed it was a mosquito (not quite the season, but we’ve had some warmer days). Eventually, she went to the doctor who assured her it was a virus. Then both of her girls and eventually her husband started getting the itchy bumps.
Finally, her 7-year-old spotted an itty-bitty gray insect — the size of a 10-point font period [this dot right here --> (.)] — moving across a bathroom tile.
Like all good diagnoses, she concluded it was a mite after a few minutes of Googling.
After doing a little Googling of my own, I have learned that mites are not bed bugs. And also? Bed bugs are worse, much worse, than mites, who are a party by comparison. They’re all bugs, in your bed, on your kids, ruining your life, and I can barely write any of this without reaching up to scratch my head. There. Oh, wait, now my neck.
Anyway, the U.S. and other western countries are experiencing a resurgence of bed bugs, which were once thought to be eradicated after World War II. International travel, immigration and a change in environmental policies of all conspired to bring back bed bugs. The EPA recently organized the first-ever National Bed Bug Summit
with landlords, hotel chain reps and housing authorities to figure out
a way to deal with these blood-thirsty pest, which are showing up in
super nice hotels and traveling around the world waiting for the right
time to get into your mattress.
From the BBC:
Researchers say one of the main problems is that there are few
chemicals approved for use on mattresses that are effective at killing
bed bugs.
The EPA has withdrawn many of the chemicals over the last 50 years because of health and environmental concerns.
My friend, with her mite party, wound up in a hotel for two nights after the exterminators took care of the problem. Wonder what it takes to get rid of bed bugs. (Can’t … stop … scratching!)
Want to share your bed bug story? (Wait, don’t. No … do. No, don’t!)
Photo: BBC.com
We had bedbugs – they invaded our apartment when my son was 5 weeks old. It cost us close to $10,000 in moving and exterminating costs (we had all of our remaining possessions – and our car- trucked, tented and fumigated with Vikane gas – same stuff used on termites). We lost almost everything we owned. We had to move. Last I heard, our old building is still completely infested in every unit, and the buildings on either side have become totally infested as well. Those infestations have been going on for over a year and a half. They were triggered by one tenant in our building who was a hoarded – he went around and took books, furniture, etc. off of the street on garbage day – he even took a bunch of our infested possession back into the building on the day we moved out!
Neighbors of our moved, but brought the bugs to their new building as well as to their offices. It took them a full year and thousands of dollars to finally get rid of them.
They can live in computers, clocks, books, DVD covers, furniture, clothing, etc. After we got our possessions back from fumigation, we found dead bedbugs in all of those things.
I also have permanent scars (physical and emotional!) from the bugs.
Bed bugs don’t actually live in your bed. They live in any little crack they can squeeze into (crown moldings, picture frames, books, under carpets). They can live in extreme temperatures and can survive without food for a very long time. Killing them requires very high heat (like a jet of steam or a trip through the clothes dryer) or very strong chemicals, which are illegal in America. I believe they could probably survive a nuclear war.
We dealt with a bed bug infestation in India for almost six months. The only bit me, not my husband, but I still have scars from the bites and subsequent staph infection. Nothing itches worse than a bed bug bite. I still wake up sometimes just to check that nothing is crawling on me at night, and it’s been months since we returned. The evil little monsters are damned hard to get rid of, too. We threw away almost all of our stuff and the rest went through the clothes dryer as soon as we got back. We had to just deal with them while we were overseas, though. We had no access to a washer and dryer, and our hotels’ way of dealing with the infestation was to occaisonally spray our beds down with some noxious chemicals, which did no good at all and will probably give us cancer. Honestly, the staph infected bites were a picnic compared to the non-infected itchiness. Getting dysentery and losing forty pounds in two weeks was a picnic compared to the bedbugs. They are awful.
I didn’t have bed bugs, but I did have fleas. We moved about a month and half ago, and everything was great. Then I started getting these bumps on my feet, and I first thought they were mosquito bites. but with the weather, it didnt make sense. So I entertained the thought of some other kind of bug. But I was the only one getting the bites, so i thought maybe I was allergic to something, I had just gotten new shoes, new sheets, new mattress. Then I saw the Flea on my daughters head. Just sitting there, not biting, like it owned the place.
And I found out they practically did. I am still mad that my fiance never got bitten, just me and my daughter.
Luckily I didnt have to go as far as the exterminator, there were not too many. So I managed to kill them off by pulling up area rugs, and sprinkling salt on all the carpets. As well as setting up flea traps (aka hanging a night light over a bowl of soapy water–i swear it works!).
It took a few weeks but they are now gone, although the scars from me constantly scratching, still remain.