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 – ewwww)
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.
Great…I already hate touching the pillowcases & comforters in hotels. Now I have a whole new reason to be uncomfortable! Thanks for the info, though. I’d heard of bed bugs, but I didn’t know they were so hard to get rid of. Yuck!
Gah! How gross!!! I read about bed bugs a while back…dunno why, but apparently one of the easiest ways they get transported is by people having new mattresses delivered and having the company haul the old ones away–they don’t seal up the old mattresses before they go into the truck.
My back feels all itchy now.
That post LITERALLY made me itch all over.
I can sympathize. Unfortunately my wife and I stayed in a hotel room with bedbugs on our honeymoon…we didn’t know what they were since we never saw them, so by the end of the trip I had over 200 bites on my body.
Fun, right?
We found one on our luggage when we returned, so we spent the entire day after we got back on our front stoop going over every single thing in our luggage seam-by-seam.
Luckily, we didn’t get infested, but it was 3-4 months before we could sleep without worry!
AAAARRRRGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!
I made my oatmeal, sat down to real some blogs while I eat, and ….ARRRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!
But I did read the whole thing, so I either wasn’t as horrified as I thought (though I, too, scratched the whole time I was reading) or you two have once again hit on something that didn’t even know I needed to know about!
Happy Saturday!
Gross! I just got a new memory foam mattress and read that they don’t like memory foam mattresses so hopefully that is true and I will never have a problem with those gross critters!
Yikes! We had a bed bug scare last year. My husband was summering at a law firm. One of his other fellow summer associates who also lived in our building had bed bugs, so she told the firm. The firm brought in those canines to check for bugs, and the dogs had reactions to six offices – all of whom lived in our building. I completely freaked out, but thankfully, they had a cute bed bug puppy come in and sniff our apartment out and we had no bed bugs.
Apartments and row houses are particularly hard to get rid of them in…they move from one to another.
As an electrician I’ve discovered severe infestations that the occupants didn’t know about on several occasions. They crawl into walls and plug boxes etc…
They are very fast, but somewhat slower durning the day as they are intensly nocturnal…I’d open up a plug box or switch box or something looking for a problem and find hundreds of them…always near the bed.
You can find their droppings around the walls/plugs/moldings/etc as well…and severe infestations have a smell to them. As you said, not filth…but after finding a couple infestations I recognized the odor before I found the next two. All of these were in apartments BTW…and not all low-rent ones either.
(shudder)
So glad I don’t do “electrical work” at large any more.
CUAgain!
glad i’m not the only one scratching now
gross
This gave me the heebie jeebies like you wouldn’t believe. I’m itchy all over.
What a nightmare. My kids brought home lice this year and I nearly lost my mind.
TOTALLY FREAKED OUT HERE. Thanks. Thanks a lot. (Glad you’ve been bug free since!)
What an awful event to have to live through. The info is helpful, though!
I read that here in SF, several hotels had seen a rise in bed bugs, and one of the few things bed bugs can’t withstand is a deep freeze. So, a company had re-fitted freezer delivery trucks to fit … mattresses. They’d yank the mattresses, freeze them, and after treating the rooms, place them back into use.
Weird stuff.
all I wanna know is where did you find that artfully shot photo in your theme colors of bed bugs.
Haha Kristen, you crack us up. We actually credited the image at the bottom of the post (it’s from an anti-pest sight called Pestec). We found it via google!
xo,
Sherry (& John) <–the one who actually found the image…
yucky!
I am so glad that you got rid of those. I saw a Dateline special about them once. Oh my.
And here I was thinking “I’ll just read this one YHL post, then I’m going to go to bed. Mmm, bed.”
Not so sure about that now…
so gross- our dogs brought in fleas once and that was bad enough. i’m itching all over right now! i usually do spot checks once in while on our mattress and walls for bed bugs though- even though our mattress is pretty new, it never hurts to be careful!
OH, itch-itch, scratch-scratch!! Nasty looking little critters.
John and Sherry, could a fabulous “flea” market or thrift store piece of furniture possibly harbor bed bugs? I bet John is super careful when you’re shopping secondhand stores. Please share some inspection tips. Will a fresh coat of white paint kill bed bugs (seriously)?
Hey Denise T,
Bed bugs usually like soft cozy places that they can burrow (like a mattress) so a wood table or chair is a pretty unlikely place for them to take up residence. Since they’re the size of a pencil eraser, they’re not invisible, so you should be able to see them on anything made of wood, glass or metal so there’s no need to paint anything to “seal” it.
We try not to bug out (pun intended) over upholstered thrift store items like chairs and stools either. You’re not likely to find them in non-bedding related materials, but you might want to check the cracks and crevices for signs of droppings just to be safe. And if you bring home something that you plan to recover, it’s not a bad idea to put it in the garage and hope that the temperature drops overnight since bedbugs can’t stand the cold- then bring the piece inside in the morning It’s a good way to ensure that the item you’ll be recovering is bug free. Bed bugs are really more of a problem in major cities and among people who share walls (like townhouses, apartments, and hotels) so we’re always cautious but not overly paranoid. At least I’m not. John’s still a little scarred from the experience.
xo,
Sherry (& John)
Now Im going to move into a bubble….and be paranoid! hah. Makes me want to spray my apartment now!
Ew ew ew. I had bedbugs at home after my freshman or sophomore year at college, over winter break. Not a bad infestation, after about three bites on my belly I found one of the nasty buggers and freaked out. It wasn’t that awful to fix–I found a non-rustley plastic thing to put on my bed, quarantined everything in the room, etc–but we never figured out where they came from. I checked my dorm room, m friends’ dorm rooms, the rest of the house…and found nothing. I hadn’t been on any trips, either. It’s like they manifested out of thin air.
Icky! I saw a 20/20 thing about these once. They went around from hotel to hotel turning up mattresses and questioning the hotel managers. They were even finding them in some of the upscale hotels in NY.
OMG Great post… WOW… i’m officially freaked out. Me and my friends got scabies in college and I thought that was gross… this may be grosser. Although, scabies makes you itch because bugs are defecating under your skin… hmmmm.
I feel better now, concerning the “flea” market stuff. Okay, how did that name originate? Any trivia experts?
I once had a neighbor who worked in the hospitality business. She would not spend the night away from home without taking some kind of plastic cover for the hotel mattress, her own mattress pad, sheets, pillows, pillowcases…the works. I thought she was a bit paranoid – but after John’s post, maybe not!
By the way, I sent youngsters a fun picture of an old metal bed that’s hopefully bed bug free.
This post makes me itch. And, I can totally relate. I lived in a fairly nice apartment complex in Boston for a couple years and my roommate and I had an infestation. We have no idea where they came from, but it took two rounds of intense chemical treatment before they were gone. So gross.
They are still alive and kicking…bed bugs that is! My sister just suffered an infestation at her college dorms less than a year ago. After much deliberation the college got rid of a floors worth of mattresses, moved everyone up a floor and promised to pay for the dry cleaning of all of the co-eds clothing! Gross!
oh man. I had bedbugs in my dorm room last year and it wasn’t until the VERY last few weeks of school that I finally caught one. Needless to say I am traumatized and it is STILL hard for me to sleep without worrying that I’ll wake up with a bite in the morning (even though I am in a different dorm). These little buggers are terrible. I just read on Gothamist that they have developed some genetic mutation that is making them impervious to chemical treatment. ahh!
I had bedbugs last year, and was horrified to learn how hard they are to kill. (From the description of your landlord’s job, I’ll bet you anything there are still bedbugs at your old apartment. They can live for a year without food: the pesticides probably just made them retreat into the walls.) I was lucky that when I got them, it was the middle of summer in Arizona, and they die at about 115 degrees, so I was able to heat-treat anything I could cram into my car. A cross-country move didn’t hurt either. I used one of those PODS to move, and left it sit out in the sun for a week to make sure nothing could follow me to my new place. What a nightmare. I can’t set my bags down in a hotel anymore til I’ve checked the sheets.
John, if this post doesn’t jump start a spring cleaning frenzy at my house – nothing will ;-)
Okay, I’m officially getting started today. If I find myself slacking off, I’m going to reread this post and all the comments to keep me motivated.
I’m allergic to dust mites and bought a decent quality mattress cover (mail order via Costco) and I’m wondering if that would help to seal off the mattress to the suckers. Have you heard of anything like that?
I haven’t had a problem but you never know…and I can’t stand any kind of bug!
Hey Amy A,
Yep, a decent mattress cover should do the trick – as long as it covers the whole thing (top, bottom and sides). You gotta have that airtight seal to keep the bed bugs from getting in.
Your cover sounds much better than the very plastic-y version I could afford just out of college. It certainly was quite loud to sleep on.
-John
John’s old roomie and the fellow sharer of his bedbug hell here. John, this post brought back a lot of (itchy) memories — and made me grateful and appreciative of how far we’ve both come since then, abode-wise!
A tip to all readers: if you find bedbugs in your rented apartment or house, do NOT let your landlord convince you that the bedbugs are your fault and that you’re responsible for getting rid of them. John and I were repeatedly told by ours that the bugs must have been living in our furniture when we moved in. Meanwhile, articles were popping up all over the Internet regarding the recent resurgence of bedbugs in New York City and its surrounding boroughs (at least one article even mentioned Astoria specifically). These people were in serious denial.
Marisa, if only we had a picture of the morning you woke up with a bed bug bite on your eyelid (yes people, her eyelid – and these things apparently take several minutes to “feed”). Your comment is a good reminder that I’m grateful to be living bed bug AND shady landlord free.
-John
OH HOW GROSS!!!!!
I am so itchy right now…
Did you actually have to show pictures?? And why did I have to read this three days before I go stay in a hotel?! I will definitely be checking the bed before I jump in…
Ewwwww…..
Two co-workers of mine stayed one night at the Milford Plaza in NYC and gotten eaten alive by bed bugs. One guy had over 70 bites. Needless to say, I won’t be staying there…ever.
This made my skin crawl–but thanks for the useful information!
Ewwwww, that is horrendous! Thank you for sharing your experience…this is good info to have should I ever run across a bed bug…*shudder*
That’s the scariest thing I’ve ever seen.
I can relate; my former building’s bedbug infestation was definitely one of the absolute worst experiences I’ve ever had. After treating everything I owned with a professional steam cleaner or running it through the hottest water and dryer at the laundromat, I am free of these awful, awful pests. (One year and counting!)
My experience was similar to John’s, except that I ended up throwing away most everything that couldn’t be washed/dried or thrown in the oven. (Goodbye, all my furniture!) I’ll never forget coming home to my boyfriend, who had put all my shoes on cookie sheets in the oven for as long as they could stand. Heat is the only thing that reliably kills these suckers.
Ugh, and the psychological impact they have — bed is supposed to be a refuge, but turns into a punishment when you’ve got an infestation. Thanks for reminding me how thankful I am to be pest-free!!!
You MUST listen to this episode of This American Life– you can stream it on your computer and it chronicles a woman’s battle with bed bugs. It sounds like you would appreciate her story!
Hmmm… the link didn’t show up. It’s episode 361.
Ugh. I feel for you guys. We ended up having them in our hotel room on our wedding night — SO not romantic. Glad you guys were able to shake them.
These things are freaking terrorists!!! I am NOT bed bug free and am in the midst of trying to get there — it feels like a WAR! I just bought a new condo, so I’m STUCK, no moving!! OMG. It’s not a big infestation… don’t see the terrorists all over, but I do wake up with bites. I had my unit treated a few days ago. I pray daily for this nighmare to end. It’s horrible to be afriad to go to bed. The only thing to do is laugh sometimes and everyone’s postings bc it’s all so true. I have to fight the huge mind-f*ck that I’m going through. For real!
All I can say is if it happens to you, it SUCKS TO BE YOU. And for all of you who joke with your friends who have bed bugs and say, “Don’t let the bed bugs bite,” You’re evil!
:-)
Here’s to better days……
I have had a bug problem and i had no idea what the bug was. i dont know if they bite me or not and if they do i probably dont know it. At first i think it was baby ladybugs. cause thats exactly what they look like, except the are black and sometimes have brown spots. now i think its bed bugs. i dont know why. i hate bugs with all my heart. so now here i am sleeping on the couch, im in high school by the way. and i wont go in my room. i dont know what to do. haha.i sound pathetic.
Hey Scared Half To Death,
Bed bugs are about the size of ladybugs but they’re flat and black. John says that the flat shape is a great way to tell if you’re really dealing with bed bugs. If you are there are definitely things you can do to control them and hopefully wipe them out before they spread. Try putting all of your clothing into plastic bags (they can’t crawl on plastic) and covering your mattress with a plastic allergy cover that zips closed (which keeps them from entering or escaping your mattress). You may just be super lucky and it might not be bed bugs since you don’t have any bites to speak of! We’re crossing our fingers for you…
xoxo,
Sherry (& John)
My mgrs sister brought home bed bugs after visiting a b&b.
She threw out her mattress for the garbage men to collect and someone took her mattress from the curb. eek. My mgr told me that bed bugs do not like rubbing alcohol. Her sister would go through the house w/ a spray bottle of rubbing alcohol (and of course spent 4g exterminating). I am going on vacation this year to a few places and I will be inspecting the rooms and matress.
The past few mornings i’ve been waking up with weird bites on my arms. They were too big to be mosquito bites but I had no clue what they were. Tonight as I was crawling into bed I noticed little black spots and holes in my bed sheet which is the only thing between me and the mattress. I went to the internet and googled “i woke up with bites on my skin and holes in my bed sheets” and found this page at #2. If it weren’t 2am I’d be out buying that plastic mattress cover. And no, unfortunately your long post didn’t put me off to sleep. Quite the contrary, will probably keep me awake lol. Glad I found your detailed and useful post though. Thanks!
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.
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.