We’ve had a series of news reports about bed bugs in Chicago then I saw that thread about them in GQ.
Of course now I’m creeped out about them. I’ve had enough issues with vermin in my flat so I’m sure eventually I’ll get these too.
So my question is has anyone here on this board had them and successfully got rid of them. If so how?
I don’t see any sign when I inspected my bedframe or mattress. So far no bites, but I know they’re waiting for me
Any pro active treatments or is this something you just got to wait for. I used to have bugs but I don’t keep food in the flat and once a month I put boric acid in the kitchen so roaches and ants aren’t seen anymore. I had a few mice last year but I found the hole and sealed it up <knock wood> I haven’t seen one in a long time, nor any sign of the critters.
Yeah, we had them. My wife came back from South Africa and brought them back. She had been staying in a nice hotel, too. We brought in an exterminator (it cost about $750, I think), but a day later we found them again. He came back free of charge, but said we had to get rid of our bed and box spring. The funny thing is they only bit her, I never got bit. It’s the same way with mosquitos for me, I rarely get bit.
ETA: It’s not really about the presence of vermin or trash, they just feed on mammals.
The bites really bothered my wife. They are also all in a row. There are black spots in the creases in your mattress from their waste. You can also find them in your bed with some investigation. It’s been a few years, but I think a doctor told her they were bed bug bites.
Never had those… but I’ve been told that you can either freeze them of burn them to death. I could fit my mattress in the sauna… not much in nature can deal with 100c temperatures. Or if it was winter I could throw it ouside… a bit of -40 ought to do the trick.
No I don’t have any bites or anything, but they had a series of news reports and the bed bugs are getting really bad at Chicago hotels. So you just know it’s a matter of time before they make their way into the flats. And I live in a poor part of the city so you know the neighbors will be buying second hand sofas and mattresses and bringing them into the building.
Watch I’m fine now but in six months I’ll be running a “oh my I have bed bugs thread”
Of course I was reading on the Internet and you know no one ever has “success” stories on the Internet. So I was just wondering if they are that bad.
I’ve had bugs before but it’s pretty easy to control them. Keep food locked up tight and boric acid on the kitchen floor and it controls them just fine. The mouse problem was fine <knock wood> once I found the hole they made.
But these reports of bed bugs are really bad. So I thought I’d be interesting to see if anyone had a battle with bed bugs and won
We got them in the apartment when my idiot roommate decided to grab a headboard off the street and bring it home. A week later everyone was getting bit.
We started small. Bug sprays. Bug bomb. Nothing worked.
Then we did research. Washed all our clothes in super hot water and dried them on high. Bought boric acid. Had adrenaline-filled late night bug hunts. Nothing worked.
Finally, we bullied the landlord into bringing in an exterminator. We shipped the cat to a friend’s house for a weekend. We bagged all our stuff. The guy came in, spread some terrible looking spray and powder around everything. We double-wrapped our mattress in plastic and re-lacquered our wooden captain’s bed. We re-washed and dried all our clothes. That worked.
That was about two years and one apartment ago. No more bed bugs. Our mattress is still wrapped in plastic, just in case. I had a major screaming meltdown about three months ago when the boyfriend grabbed a cool rocking chair off the sidewalk with plans to fix it up. It was back on the sidewalk minutes later. I’m still super paranoid whenever I find any sort of bug bite on my body. Bed bugs are terrible.
If you even SUSPECT you have bed bugs, skip straight to the big guns and call in an exterminator.
Are you sure it wasn’t fleas? This sounds like the way fleas bite, all in row. Although I have never been attractive to biting insects my daughter was always a flea/mosquito magnet - they loved her! She was unfortunately the early warning system for a potential flea infestation in our household - they always seemed to find her far more tasty than the pets. As soon as she started scratching at her ankles, I knew it was time for flea control. They would leave little bites all in a row, mostly (but not always) on her ankles or lower legs. Not as big as mosquito bites, but just as itchy. Fleas also leave behind little black specks like pepper - flea excrement.
The good news is, fleas are a lot easier to get rid of than bedbugs, I think!
No, it was bed bugs. The exterminator caught a few and showed them to us under a magnifying glass. It’s been something like 5 years and I might not remember all the details, but def. bed bugs.
We have them, just noticed a few weeks ago. Haven’t got rid of them yet, but we’ve made an appointment with the exterminator for September 7 and 8 (requires two treatments).
The general consensus seems to be there’s two ways to exterminator-treat: spraying and heat treatment. Here it seems that apartment blocks (especially those run by provincial housing, as they seem to get the highest rate of infestation here) get sprayed - which usually take 8 or so treatments. The exterminator says that the heat treatment is the “Cadillac of treatments”. Heats your house up to 140F or so, bedbugs don’t like heat. That’s what we’ll be getting
We’ve also been doing what we can to control them ourselves, including spraying Raid on areas where they’re likely to be, based on their “leavings”, and murdering the little buggers on sight by hand.
Wife and kids are paranoid about them, but I’m more stoic. In fact, I still continue to sleep in our bed, and still in the nude*. (Wife and kids are on couches and cots) I notice them when I’m trying to go to sleep and eliminate them, but I’ve never got bit (or at least I don’t have any bite marks)
*I’ve revealed this before on the Dope, in a thread that asks what you wear to bed (and there were plenty other nude sleepers there too), so it’s not news. Had I not mentioned it before, I may have left it out of here, but it is germane to understanding how I don’t fear them.
We brought them back from spending Christmas at a rustic lodge in Big Sur one year. They actually infested a sofa in the room where we unpacked our luggage, as opposed to our bed.
We had an exterminator come in and spray, but that didn’t kill them all. He came back at no charge and sprayed again – still had them.
Steri-Fab insecticide and mildewcide (since we’d also be steam-cleaning)
They’ve got kits that contain all that stuff, which is what we went with, but it seems the dust that’s now part of the kit is a different kind, which I cannot attest to.
A hand-held steamer with a pointy tip attachment.
We had to be diligent and get every crack and crevice, including behind switchplates, outlet covers, hanging art, and baseboards, but we did get rid of them, thank og.
The exterminator says “they could have come from anywhere”, but we figure it was either my wife’s cousin or our friend, both of which have bed bugs (wife’s cousin is one of those who live in provincial housing apartments. They’re constantly spraying over there, she’s slept over here a time or two when she’s had to be out of the suite for it, it may have happened then.)
We’ve had a bedbug once just after we came back from camping. We’d spread a blanket on the grass and I’m sure that’s the way it got in our house.
I first spread DDT on the mattress (you could buy it anywhere at the time). It didn’t work.
Then I covered the whole bed with a plastic sheet, put a strong fumigant (obtained from the museum where I worked) under the bed, shut door and windows and went to work. That was it. But I never found the bastard.
I’ve been bitten by horseflies, spiders, fleas, leeches and other pests, but budbegs are the most execrable of all. :mad:
Huh, I thought that was the one thing that really did work well, and it’s banning was contributing to the resurgence. You can’t buy it any more but I was thinking I’d just cook some up if I ever had an infestation. Maybe not.
Had 'em, killed 'em all, it was pretty easy. People are overreacting to the menace, IMO.
That said, ours was a relatively easy infestation to deal with, since we had no carpeting, no pets, and a mostly localized population (my roommate was apparently a real magnet: he got eaten alive, but they never came for me). Basically, we just spread diatomaceous earth everywhere, then waited. Within two weeks we saw no more adults, within three weeks we saw no more bedbugs at all. We kept the DE down for a few more months just to be safe. It was kinda unsightly, but otherwise a non-issue.
Here’s a thread about my recent experience with bedbugs, here in NYC. Here’s what I did to get rid of them (no relapse so far – crosses fingers):
– Exterminator came and sprayed Suspend
– Sprayed the carpet, bed, furniture, and curtains with bleach and Bedlam
– Sealed my mattress and pillow in special cases from Sears
– Washed and dried every piece of clothing, bedding, and the curtains in hot wash
– Set my bed’s legs in plastic cups filled with alcohol
– Threw out an old rug, an old pillow, basically anything they might’ve been living in that could be tossed
Don’t believe the people who’ll say that bedbug bites are no worse than mosquito bites. I grew up in the Deep South and have dealt with the biggest, nastiest mosquitos, but bedbug bites left me with WELTS. I had to take a day off work and heal because my arms looked so horrible there was no way I could serve food to customers all day with red, bumpy, rashy welts up and down my arms. It was a solid week before the worst of the welts faded, and probably about 10-12 days before I was completely healed.
