Don’t Let The Bed Bugs Bite
I owe you fair warning that this post might give you the willies. It’s a horror story from my renter days that I wanted to share in hopes that it may help someone experiencing something similar.
When I made my post-graduation move to New York City in June 2004, I rented a two-bedroom apartment in Astoria, Queens with a college roommate. It was less than nice, but my roomie and I were just happy to find a place with big bedrooms with cheap rent. All in all, it seemed like the perfect place to cram with my seen-better-days IKEA furniture, “decorate” with cheap posters and kick off life as an adult. Little did I know I’d actually end up living like this:
But let’s start at the beginning. I randomly woke up in the middle of one August night and headed to the kitchen for some water. I turned on the light and immediately noticed a small, brown bug sitting on my shoulder. As I turned my head to flick it away I saw several more crawling down my back. Naturally, I got some major heebie-jeebies and ripped my shirt off so fast you would’ve thought it was on fire.
I darted back to my room, figuring I’d accidentally left my window cracked and let some flies or gnats creep in. When I turned on the light I saw two things: (1) closed windows and (2) several dozen bugs swarming my bed and the surrounding walls. Gross, gross, gross.
I started to kill the ones I could catch, but quickly realized they were appearing faster than I could squash them. I turned to my next best defense: the Internet. Some quick Googling revealed that I had a bed bug infestation (I know what you’re thinking – those things are real?!)
Bed bugs are very real. They’re small (pencil eraser sized) flat insects that are nocturnal and feed on warm-blooded creatures, which certainly explains their love of sleeping humans. It’s rare that you catch them in action like I did, so most people detect an infestation from the bites they find on their skin. Both my roommate and I had lots of those (she even had one on her eyelid) but made the common mistake of assuming they were just mosquito bites. You can also look for stains on your bedding: both their droppings (small black dots usually at the edges of your mattress) and blood stains (when you roll over and “pop” one that just drank). Gross, I know.
So how did we get bed bugs? They’ve been making a resurgence in the US lately, especially in big, transient cities like New York. Despite popular belief, an infestation isn’t an indication of filth, but rather a a result of increased international travel (frequently found in hotels, bed bugs come home on your suitcases and clothes) and decreased use of DDT in pesticides (assuming they were mostly gone, people stopped making chemicals to kill them). How they made it to our apartment? No one really knows- except that our wall-to-wall carpet surely didn’t help.
Unfortunately, bed bugs are notoriously hard to get rid of. We were told it often requires multiple applications of a pesticide to ensure the problem is gone. Our (somewhat shady) landlord was too cheap to call a professional, so he hired a friend to spray our place with some mystery chemical in all the cracks and crevices around our apartment (this involved dismantling all of our IKEA furniture- bed bugs love dowel holes!).
In addition to the pesticide treatment (which I will admit wasn’t very green at all- but we were getting eaten by bugs at night and our landlord wore the pants), my roommate and I had to take several steps to help ensure that we quarantined any of the bugs that miraculously escaped the chemical treatment. This involved washing all fabrics in hot water (keep in mind this meant lugging ALL of our clothes, sheets, and towels two blocks to a laundromat) and then storing them in plastic for 2 months. Bed bugs apparently have trouble walking on slick surfaces like plastic or metal, so keeping everything in trash bags helped keep them from stowing away anywhere new. So that’s why my closet looked like this for 8 weeks:
And since the bugs could still be living deep inside our mattresses, we were advised to buy plastic mattress covers (with zippers!) and leave them on until we could afford new beds. And since checking for bite marks in the morning was the the only way to tell if the problem was solved, we had several unsettling nights where we basically “sacrificed” our bodies to be sucked on for the sake of seeing if they were gone. Here’s a pic of me before bed one night on my sheet-less, plastic-covered bed. Despite it being summer, I covered myself in as much clothing as possible to limit my bite count. Oh, and that annoyed look is 100% intentional too.
After a couple of weeks of biteless nights, we officially declared ourselves in the clear. In the end, it had been about a 12 week ordeal. I’m usually not one to freak out about bugs, but these suckers (literally) caused an insane amount of distress – from arguing with our landlord over who was responsible for treatment to eventually replacing every piece of furniture I owned (not ’til I moved out, mind you). I truly wouldn’t wish bed bugs on anyone.
But bed bugs aren’t the end of the world. If you find yourself infested, do your research, rely on professionals and brace yourself for a few weeks of uncomfortable living. Hopefully in the 4+ years since my ordeal their treatment methods have improved. The best treatment for bed bugs is obviously prevention. When traveling, check hotel mattresses for stains and keep your suitcase off the floor. At home, keep your carpets vacuumed and if you think you’re at risk for an infestation (lots of globetrotting guests, for instance) think about coating the feet of your bed in Vaseline or sitting them in a tin can so the bugs can’t travel from the floor to the mattress (bed bugs can’t fly, so as long as things are slippery they won’t be able to bridge that gap).
Hopefully this long post hasn’t put you to sleep. But if it did, I’ll hope you slept tight and didn’t let the… well, you know the rest.
Learn more about bed bugs here and here. Images courtesy of Pestec and American Classic Online.
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Comments
HOPE!! It’s something I lost when I found bed bugs. But, I thought it was only appropriate to come back and give you an update. I THINK my terrorists (aka bed bugs) are gone. I THINK I have been bed bug free for almost three months WITHOUT SPENDING THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS. I have not been waking up with red marks that itch like hell. I’ll tell you though, I’m doing this for you all bc I’m starting to feel itchy just thinking of this! This was a nightmare that I thought would never end (and it was in a brand new condo I bought). I was fearful that the bugs would travel to the neighbors then back to me. Well, a lot of my stuff is still in garbage bags although I’m slowly starting to not do that. I sleep at night again (full nights sleep) and I actually feel okay having friends over again and comfortable to have a hook up again in my own bed. LOL. So, the point of all this is to give you HOPE that if you can’t move it can be treated. Be strong, but I know how much it sucks when it’s your reality. I feel for all of you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We managed an apartment complex that had an infestation in one of the rooms. It was a total nightmare!
): I hate bedbugs. I first started to get them in September of 2008. Then in November my landlord called an extirminator, and they were gone for about 7 months. She called a different extirminator this time, and after he came…I GOT MORE BITES. How is this possible?! This is causing me to loose sleep, I’m so grossed out and paranoid over this whole fiasco. I wish I could plain out move, sadly I’ am only 14 years old.
Our daughter loves the TV series Verminators and one woman was truly shocked at how her home had been infested by those pesky invaders.
Seems a Craigslist find was the culprit. Apparently the little buggers can migrate and by dragging the infested ‘bargain’ out, she’d potentially helped them to set up shop in her sofa, chairs and rugs.
Ick– so like you mentioned John, I’d suggest everyone look over their second hand finds for the tell-tell sign of bugs before letting them into their nest.
I dealt with bed bugs in an apartment I had a year ago. Besides the mattress covers, I found that my hair dyer helped solve the problem. Heat is one thing that kills bed bugs, so using a hair dryer all around your mattress helps kill not only the bugs, but the eggs that are in your mattress, box spring, etc. Just an extra tip: check your mattress covers frequently! As much as I tried to keep my cats out of my bedroom, they still managed to get in and tear holes in the covers.
For peace of mind (once an exterminator told me that the bugs were just in the bedroom) I took all of my clothes out and washed them as well as my blankets. I closed the door and put plastic underneath it in hopes of confining the bugs to one area. I bought a cheap cot from Dick’s Sporting Goods and slept on that for a few weeks (in my living room). Knowing the bugs couldn’t get up the legs of the cot helped me to sleep somewhat.
EEK! I am always paranoid of them when I travel and stay in hotels and on cruise ships, even if they are top-notch. I have never experienced them thankfully. The first thing I do before unpacking any bags is to check the mattress and headboard for any visible signs. At least this way you have a chance to flee relatively unscathed. While in Greece this summer I noticed a girl from the UK with bite marks all over her arms and legs and she was scratching them while at the beach. I wondered if she had stayed at a hostel or got them from a bad cruise ship. Poor girl!
My hubby was watching a program about them and second hand clothing stores and furniture are a big culprit. The show also mentioned how even hugging someone that has them on their clothing can allow them to be transferred to you. The whole thing creeps me out. I’m sorry you all had to endure that! How awful.
This post creeped me out! Now I’m going to be paranoid whenever I travel and will have to remember to check the mattresses! Eek!
I am so stressed out due to the chaos these bugs have caused me. I can’t sleep or eat. My place is a mess with plastic bags everywhere. I threw out most of my furniture. I don’t have enough time in the day to do amount of laundry that is involved for me and my kids.
Ok, so we don’t have bedbugs, but upon going into our new home (not new though- 60 years old) when we closed, my husband and I found FLEAS all over our clothes, just from sitting on the floor in the guest bedroom…how disgusting is that! These people were living in a house infested with fleas (and they only had 1 dog and 1 cat)! Now I have several little bites on my feet and ankles=(
How do we get rid of them? I am hoping ripping up all the carpet to refinish the hardwood floors will do the majority of that.
Hey Megan,
Yikes! We don’t have any experience with this, but instead of immediately using chemicals to bomb your house I would first rip up all the carpets you plan to remove since it stands to reason (from your experience with the clothes on the floor and your ankle bites) that they’re living in the carpets. Perhaps once you get the carpets up you can google “natural flea remedies” or “remove fleas naturally” to see if there’s some spray or soap you can create (maybe even with household supplies like vinegar or baking soda) that you can use to wipe down the wood floors and any other areas that seem infested. There are probably pest control books that cover getting rid of fleas at the library too so that’s another free way to try to solve the problem yourself. We hope it helps!
xo,
s
for fleas you can use Mule Team borax…those little rascals get in it and never get out. Also, if you have animals, and they are outside sometimes, the price of a vet recommended flea treatment (not found at walmart) is workth it’s weight in eliminating this problem.
I’m a Richmond native living in the big apple now with my beau and we are unfortunately dealing with bedbugs right now. Our old apartment was completely infested, so of course we moved immediately, threw out most of our furniture and spent countless hours and dollars at the laundrymat/dry cleaners. Unfortunately, we moved into a beautiful new apartment building and were not as careful as we thought during the big move. Almost immediately we started seeing spots on our sheets again and I’m not gonna lie, came very close to a mental breakdown. We’re now living out of plastic and praying everyday that we will be successful in getting rid of them for good. Thank you for posting this, it’s good to see that people DO survive bedbugs! When you’re in the throws of it, it’s hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel!!
RIC/NYC love,
Rachel & Sean
Very good article, I am going through eerily the exact same scenario now. Landlord giving us a hard time about who is responsible, my mattress and clothing currently wrapped in trash bags and airtight bags, any uncomfortable itches are now a source of paranoia, and a blame game going on as to who’s fault it is we got these bugs. I ordered myself some pronto spray, and in combination with the professional spraying and the quarantine of my clothing items, I think I should be alright. My fear is the other residents of the buildings wont be as diligent and they will likely become reinfested and perhaps allow the bugs to return to my apartment. I am moving as soon as I can afford it.