Tales of a Bed Bug Refugee

I’m sure you’ve not been wondering where the hell I disappeared to over the past month, as I don’t post often enough to have a readership. Still, there is a very long story behind it that I will go into now.

First a visual aid:

Take a good look at it, people, because you’re going to be hearing a lot more about it before it gets better. It’s called a bed bug, and if you think the Republican invasion of New York was newsworthy, wait until you find out about the other invasion that's going on all over the city in epidemic proportions. Pull up a chair (what are you doing surfing the internet standing?) and heed my tale.

It started in late June. I awoke, not to the usual cooing of pigeons on the fire escape or rumbling of the garbage truck hurling last night’s taco wrappers deep into its bowels, but to the incessant itch of not one, but four welts on my foot. Hmmm, must have been a mosquito. Though the windows are closed. How curious.

Next day, same shit. Somewhere in the recesses of my brain are two words, “bed bugs”. I don’t know why. I must have overheard them on some Fox News promo during the Simpsons. I have no idea what they mean, but I have a sneaking suspicion I should look them up.

I looked them up .
If I have them, I am totally fucked.

They are like impossible to get rid of. They are paper thin and live in the tiny cracks and crevices of your home, especially on or near your bed. They live in baseboards, picture frames, and, of course, box springs and mattresses. They can also lay eggs in your clothes if your clothes are, say, lying in a hamper. It doesn’t matter how neat or dirty you are. You get them from someone else who has them. Either by sitting on their furniture, or by having your suitcase next to theirs on an airplane, or by sitting on a movie theater seat that has them. They feed, of course, on your blood, but they can live up to a year without eating, so there's no going away for the summer to starve them out.

Apparently the reason I’d never heard of anyone having bed bugs before is because they were wiped out in this country around WWII thanks to the widespread use of DDT to kill mosquitoes. With the banning of DDT use in recent years, along with the increase in international travel, (bed bugs have continued to be a problem in other countries all these years, apparently), bed bugs are on the rise. And in New York City, their numbers have reached epidemic proportions.

So what do you do? First, you wash everything you own in hot water, or have it dry- cleaned. This is supposed to kill the eggs. I live in a fourth floor walk up. The laundromat is 3-1/2 blocks away. It is July. This is not fun.

Continue washing everything you use, especially bedding, as often as necessary to keep bugs out of your bed (Daily? Every other day?) I begin washing my bedding every other day. I’m still getting bit.

I call the landlord who agrees to pay for his exterminator to come down and spray the whole place. I call the exterminator who tells me to wash everything I own in hot water and strip the bed so he can spray it. I tell him I did wash everything I own.

“Did you wrap it in plastic before you brought it back from the laundromat and keep it there?”

Shit. I have to wash everything I own all over again. I think I’m starting to lose weight from all this manual labor. I’ve spent about $200 in laundry and dry cleaning and about $100 in clear plastic bags for my clothes in a span of about two weeks.

I wash everything I own and keep it in plastic bags. I strip the bed. The exterminator comes and sprays. He tells us we have to wait 15 days to spray again because that is how long it takes for the eggs that are already laid to hatch. The poison apparently doesn’t kill the eggs. We will continue to get bit, he says. But if a bug runs across this stuff, it will die instantly.

“So, I’m supposed to sleep on a bed sprayed with it?”
“It’s fine. Put a plastic cover on it, if you want.”

The day after he sprays, I come home and proceed to put a plastic cover on the mattress and box spring. As I flip the box spring over, I see my first one. It’s alive and well.

Two weeks later, we’re still getting bit. The exterminator comes back and this time we take EVERYTHING out of every piece of furniture because they really like wood and pretty much all my furniture is wood. We put everything in plastic bags that isn’t furniture. My house looks like a crazy person lives there. From lack of sleep, I’m starting to feel like a crazy person.

We make the exterminator examine every inch of the place. He says he doesn’t see any bugs.

“We’re probably almost there”, he says.

“Really? You think we’ll get rid of them?” I ask.

“Listen,” he says. “If you lived in a house, maybe, but this is New York City. They could have come from a neighbor. They could go to your neighbor’s and hang out until the coast is clear and come back. Insects have been here long before you or I and they’ll be here long after.”

Thanks for the science lesson, asshole. That’s not what I asked you.
No one can seem to tell me how to get rid of these bugs for good.

He sprays everywhere. Even our books, our luggage.

“They love zippers,” he says.

The next night, I go to sleep, hopeful. The next morning, my roommate and I both wake up with bites.

Meanwhile, my partner at work is starting to become a little paranoid, though she doesn’t let on just yet.

Back at the ranch, we decide, fuck this poison shit, we’re going natural. There’s a spray I’ve seen on the internet. It’s made of natural enzymes that break down the bug’s exoskeleton on contact. I order the biggest jug. It arrives on a Friday afternoon—broken and spilled out all over the box. Like the bottle, I am gutted. I look inside, there’s still about a 10th of the bottle left. I pour it into the complimentary spray bottle and guard it with my life.

This spray is so safe, you can wash your sheets and clothes in it. You can even bathe in it. It kills bed bugs, lice, and mites. It sounds perfect. My roommate and I wash everything in it that day. I read on the internet that if you put the legs of your bed in glasses of water, the bugs can’t climb up. I do that and go to bed. I wake up bite free. My roommate does not. This goes on for a week. Me, no bites. Her, lots of bites.

Finally, my partner at work, who knows about everything, breaks down.

“I’m terrified you’re going to give them to me,” she says. Our work calls for us to sit in each other’s offices all day.

“I don’t blame you,” I say. “I can’t promise you I won’t give them to you.”

“I think you should move,” she says.

“I’ve considered that,” I say, “But it would mean leaving everything behind. Otherwise, I’d most likely take them with me.”

“My boyfriend,” (who’s very well off), “will lend you any money you need to move,” she says.

“What?!” I’m humiliated. Not only do I feel like a leper, now they’ve gone and thrown my financial situation into it, too.

“Well, we’re building the new apartment and if we brought those things into it,” she doesn’t have to finish. I understand her concern. It just feels cold and callous.

I go home feeling dejected. The incredible pressure I put on myself to try and keep this situation under control and not spread it to my friends is taking its toll on me. I have been losing sleep due to my anxiety over getting bit coupled with the need to wake up about 6:30 every morning to wash my bedding. I’m ready to throw in the towel. I bring up the possibility of moving to my roommate who is far poorer than I am. She becomes hysterical, crying. She can’t afford it and she refuses to leave all her things behind. I now feel caught between both of their needs. I’ve hardly had time to consider my own.

I call my dad who helps me realize that I can’t let anyone else pressure me into a decision. I have to do what is right for me. I dissect my anger at being pressured into moving from my knowledge that moving would be the best thing to do.

I’m almost one hundred per cent decided when a bed bug runs across the TV table while my roommate and I are watching. The lights are on. The TV is blaring. This is the first time we’ve seen one be so ballsy. It isn’t the last. Five minutes later, another one runs across the TV table convincing my roommate to move, too.

I call the landlord. He agrees to let us out of the lease and give us each a glowing recommendation to any potential new landlords. He will refund our deposit and most of August’s rent. He also agrees to dispose of our stuff for us since we don’t want to put it out on the sidewalk.

The next day, I go out and look for a new apartment. My roommate and I have decided to go our separate ways, partially because she refuses to get rid of a few things. For fear of carrying eggs to my potential new apartment, I go to Old Navy first and pick out some new clothes without trying them on. I am headed to my gym to shower and put the new clothes on, when a broker returns my call. He’s right around the corner and has an apartment to show me. I decide it will be safe not to shower, but simply to change clothes. I go into a nearby Whole Foods and ask for the bathroom. The lady says she must escort me to the bathroom. It’s their policy. She looks at me up and down since I don’t have any groceries, but takes me to the back anyway. She waits outside the door as I change into my new Old Navy jeans and t-shirt. The jeans are way too tight, but I have no choice. Fortunately, the shirt is baggy. I stuff my old clothes in the trash. This will be the first of many that will go in the trash in the coming weeks. I feel like a homeless person or a refugee. I walk out of the bathroom and catch the lady doing a double take as she realizes my clothes are different. She must think I’m homeless.

The six apartments the broker shows me are all shit holes. The foundations are literally slanted. The floors are soggy (?). There are huge leak bubbles in the ceilings. They rent for $1800-$2000 a month. More than double what I was paying when I had a roommate, but I am afraid to have a roommate now. I need to cut down on all the bed bug variables I can.

The day turns out to be one of the hottest of the year. The tight jeans and cheap t-shirt I purchased allow for no breathing. I go to my office at the end of the day with chafing on my thighs. I call my mother and cry for the first time about the whole situation. I bawl like a baby.

I decide to spend the night in a hotel because I can’t face the bed bugs. Not tonight. The cheapest room I can find that still feels “safe” is $200 before taxes. That night I feel awkward as I check in carrying nothing but the plastic bag from Old Navy and one from Popeye’s. Comfort food.

The hotel is completely dead and there’s no one else for the front desk staff to focus on but me.

“Where are you from?” the jovial bellhop asks.

The desk clerk is holding my ID. I can’t lie.

“Here,” I mutter.

“Oh,” the bellhop looks like I just slapped his hand. I feel the need to explain. I start to.

“I just couldn’t stay in my…” I trail off with the sudden realization that they probably think I’m like Julia Roberts in Sleeping with the Enemy, fleeing in the middle of the night with nothing but a few spare things in a plastic bag.

That night I find it hard not to think of the fact that the number one way to pass bed bugs is through international travel. How many foreigners do you think have stayed in the average Manhattan hotel room? I manage to fall asleep and sleep the best sleep I’ve had in weeks. The curtains in the room are heavy and the room is so dark that I don’t even know it’s 9am when I awake to the sound of my cell phone.

“I’m moving back to my parent’s on Long Island,” my roommate’s voice informs me. “I’ll be out of there tonight.”

That’s it. It’s just them and me. Alone in that godforsaken apartment.
I can’t do it. I decide I will never sleep there again and I will never wear any of my old clothes again. This is the beginning of my life as a bed bug refugee.

That day I go to work like everything is normal, but I sneak out to spend the day apartment hunting—to no avail. That night, I call two of my oldest friends who live in the city to see if I can crash with them. The hotels in the city are just too expensive to keep up for more than one night. One of my friends tells me he’d be glad to put me up, just not now. He’s expecting weekend guests. (It’s Thursday). He’ll gladly put me up Sunday night, but then, only for a day or so. His boyfriend has a deadline and needs quiet in the apartment. My other old friend who knew nothing about the whole bed bug thing calls me back and says he is afraid to put me up. He doesn’t know enough about the bugs and feels worried that I’ll bring them to his home. I fight back the urge to cry or get angry with him. How can I blame him? He’s absolutely right and I’d feel the same way. I tell him not to worry about it.

I stand on a street corner, holding my cell phone, mentally going down the list of friends who don’t have cats. (I am deathly allergic.) I can’t believe I’m actually without a place to sleep. I feel like a leper.

I know who to call. My good friend from work, Ben.

“Ben, I’ve decided never to sleep in my place again. I’ll understand if you don’t want to put me up, but I assure you I’ve taken every precaution. All my clothes are new. I’ve thrown out my old bag.”

“Sure. Just be careful,” he says.

Ben, have I told you lately that I love you?

The following week gets better. I buy pants that fit. The weather cools off. And I find a kick ass apartment in the neighborhood I’ve always wanted to live in—the East Village. I also, (and this is for another post), managed to have a job interview and get a new job during this whole drama. So, I am able to move into a sizable apartment in the East Village thanks to the salary boost. The last day of my old job, Ben and I go see Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan in concert in a minor league baseball park in Fishkill. On that same day, my old landlord sends some men with a dump truck to our old apartment to dispose of all my earthly possessions. As the sun sets over the concert, Willie sings “Living in the Promised Land” and I identify with the refugees in the song more than I could have ever imagined.

I plan my new job start date far enough away so that I can go home to my parents in Texas for a week of much needed r and r, simultaneously alleviating Ben from his lifesaving duties. I return on the 21st of August to my new apartment, which is completely empty. Moving in consists of simply walking in the door with the (new) clothes on my back.

I start my new job on the 23rd and spend the first week going back and forth between work, the new apartment, and Bed, Bath and Beyond. I have only three shirts to wear to work. Out of fear of carrying luggage on the plane from Texas, I bought only enough clothes as I could fit in a small duffle bag, which I kept on my lap. On the 29th, while liberals march through Chelsea with anti-Bush signs, I run from Rockaway Bedding to Jensen Lewis to find a platform bed made of steel. I tell the saleslady at Rockaway that I am glad I found a steel bed.

"Bed bugs?" she asks. She knows.

It arrives tomorrow between 8 and 12. In the meantime, I am sleeping on an air mattress on the floor.

At the end of my first week back, I make one final trip to the old building to pick up the cable boxes I’d left in such a hurry. It turns out the cable company will charge me $200 a box if I don't turn them in. I wear one of my parent's old t-shirts which I brought with me from Texas especially for this day. I wear some new Addidas shorts, which I am sad to part with. I meet the landlord there. He gives me the boxes. I turn in my keys. I go to the cable office in my t-shirt and shorts and turn in the boxes. I go to my gym, throw away my t-shirt and shorts, shower, and put on one of my work outfits and go to work. I can't believe I never have to set foot in that place again.

The next day is my birthday. It feels more like a rebirth day.

“I’m starting over in a new apartment, with a new job, with nothing,” I tell my friend Margaret, an immigrant from cold-war Poland, herself.

“Like a baby,” she smiles at me.

Yes. Like a newborn baby.

Comments

[Rebecca]

Dude! I give you the most sympathy!!!! My Boyfriend and I have just moved into this apt. in Brooklyn in June. I started to see these tick like creatures in the bath room and didn't think more then it was really wierd to have ticks in Brooklyn. I then in the next few months started to get literally eaten alive. I though the same thing that they were just mosquito bites. But it started to get bad. I went to the demo. and he gave me some steriod...didn't work. I then went to another about a month later because I just couldn't take the pain anymore. He did a skin biospy. However, he told me to check my house for bugs. I did and no shit...I found a entire working coloney. Oh did I mention that these bugs even though they were sleeping on the boyfriends side, not once did they bite him..so for the past week we have desperately been trying to get rid of these things. We have thrown out the bed, head board, pillows and blankets. We have bought cans of RAID..we sprayed everywhere...wouldn't you know...we found some in the bed room again..were we sprayed...tonight. So I was wondering how the fuck do we get rid of these things...I need to sleep!!!!! If you have any insight please send it our way.

[sabrina]

Gosh i sympathize with you all, my dad and sister had bed bugs bad too, but thankfully the landlord did have it sprayed several times and that got rid of most of them i think ? i also noticed one tick looking bug in my apt in the bathroom and i caught it and killed it and i noticed just one in my bed but dead last night i am so freaked out and worried about this i have terrible allergies and can not handle sprays or powders now what ? i heard that lavender oil from like the bath and body shop $10.00, helps ? i guess that you drop some of the oil all over the bed ? i just got my bed too 500 and something for it, last year .. it is the best queen i have ever had too, so sad. well maybe that there was only just those two, where did they come from ? sadly dont have a clue.. oh God please help me with this :( well try the lavender oil's i guess .. no bites yet..

[abigfatwasteoftime]

Wow. I sympathize with both of you guys. I can't tell you how to get rid of them for good, obviously, or I would have done it myself in my apartment. I do know one woman who claims to know someone in Brooklyn who got rid of them. She purchased her own professional strength poison and sprayed her own home. I DO NOT RECOMMEND DOING THAT. Poison is best left to the professionals. I doubt Raid is going to help you, though, if the pros couldn't get rid of them in my apartment with their full strength stuff. Granted, I only went through two sprayings before I gave up. Rebecca, as for why your boyfriend "never got bit", I have read that a percentage of people do not have an allergic reaction to bug bites. That's what the itchy welts are--an allergic reaction to the saliva of the bug. Most likely your boyfriend is getting bit, it just isn't making him break out into itchy red welts.

[Mike]

Yikes! I got em' too. Woodside, Queens here. I not sure, but they could have come in on a piece of used furniture, a set of dresser drawers, I bought from the Salvation Army over the summer. Or maybe the guy who lives downstairs who has a new roomate every week. God only knows for sure. I called the exterminators and they're very sympathetic, but they can't do anything until they have my landlords permission, since I'm just a renter. So now the landlord knows. They said no one else in the building has complained. Not yet at least. Got a Miele vacuum cleaner, since they're supposed to be the best. They have disposable bags, not just a canister to empty, which can make more of a mess. I started washing alll my clothing and keep them in plastic bags, but I still have to wash the clothes in my dresser draws (which there is a lot of) and stuff in the drawers of my Queen size captains bed. I haven't moved the bed away from the wall yet, partly because I'm afraid of what I'll find. I saw Fear Factor this evening on TV, and I can really relate to it! Can't wait for the extermintors to get here and give me their assesment of the situation. I'm ready to rip out the ugly wall to wall carpeting that was here when I moved in five years ago. I got alot of stuff. Books, clothing, video tapes, DVD's. I don't like to be weighted down materially, but on the other hand, I do use everthing I have at one time or another, so do I really have to get rid of everything? I really like this apartment and moving right now is not an option. Financially or otherwise. Took me so long to get settled and fix up the place nice, so I am ready to dig in my heels and declare war on bedbugs. My bedroom is quarrantined now and I am sleeping in my other room in a sleeping bag. Actually, it's quite comfortable. To be continued...

[Buggy in Vancouver]

This is the nightmare. Ongoing. Endless. 80 large garbage bags of laundry and stuff that we just know we can never trust again. Furniture, stuffed animals, clothing, linen, towels. Gone. We spent a good $200 on laundry and drying alone. So far, the bill is in excess of $700 (not including the loss of a queen size sheep bed rug and god only knows what else was on my bed on the moment of "discovery"). Management tried to "blame" us for the infestation. Said our furniture was "old" (no it just looks "old" and we paid $1000 for each peice two years ago and I advised him "I have the receipts").

It started in August 2004. My 20 year old daughter complained of "bites". Mosquitoes no doubt. Summer time. She continued to complain. I started to crawl around on all fours looking for spiders. I captured a bug, put it in a jar, took it to my landlord and he told me "baby ladybug". HA!! Life rolled on. Then I got sick and had to spend two weeks in bed. Agony. My neck swelled, I could not sleep. They thought I had a "reaction" to the antibiotics I was on. I lay awake night and day with ice packs on my neck. Finally I crawled out of my bed, went to a local clinic where I was diagnosed with "scabies". $60 worth of scabie ointment later, 20 loads of laundry, scalding hot showers for all, a sense of revulsion, but manageable. What we could not wash (such as watches, etc) we put in the freezer. We thought, wrongly, "it's over". I returned to work. A nervous mess. But Victorious. Wrong. More bites. I finally get to see my own doctor in his office. He says, "this is not scabies. Whose bed have you been sleeping in?". "Mine," I said. I went home, somewhat puzzled by his comments, took the time and looked up "bed bugs" and voila!! we had 'em. Absolutley everything on my bed was rolled into a shower curtain and thrown out. We worked night and day doing laundry. The fumigators came in, the cats went to Cat Hotel ($$$$$). Meanwhile I was telling my co-workers "we have a flood in the apartment" (trying to justify the many secretive telephone calls that I needed to do to facilitate "the plumbers"). My daughter works in a very pleasant and quite public job and is "Miss neat and clean". She bore up well. I less so. Piles of black plastic garbage bags lined our hallways. I vacuumed the beds, put vaseline on the legs of the beds (they say this helps), doused myself and the bed with insecticides. And moved to the couch. My room is a bedbug masoluem now. We keep the windows open 24/7 hoping for freezing cold weather. We will never turn the heat on.

My daughter took this one step forward and told her live-in boyfriend to move and move NOW. He was not uncooperative and left by saying indignantly, "I will never sleep in this house again". Turns out that the boyfriend was quite likely the original source. He started a new job in late July at a large industrial laundry facility (read that as big laundrymat for hotels, both rich and poor; hospitals; nursing homes; and other facilities that use "linen". The workers are not provided with showers on site. Bingo. He is moving into a nice new apartment November 1. I calmly told him he needed to seriously consider getting a new job. He was insulted.

Beside my new patent leather pumps (never worn) and just below my 15 work suits and oh-so nice turtle neck sweaters, is a cannister of Creepy Crawler (get some).

I was living on 3 - 4 hours of sleep for about 6 weeks. My body became my enemy. Still is. I now spend my spare time at home armed with my Mag flashlight peering into crevices, scrutinzing seams on futons. I have a new job now (god forbid my last one is infected - read that as possible). I told my doctor, "what if I have taken this to work??? !!!". He said, verbatim, "let the lawyers scratch!". This is something I would not wish on my worst enemy.

My daughter and I both live on the couches in our living room. We are waiting for "the boyfriend" to remove his property (we are doing the countdown). We steam cleaned the bathroom, threw away the shower curtains, bought new ones. We will never purchase patterned bed sheets again. White only. This is one way to more easily see the tell-tale signs of bedbug infestations. We live in a state of seige.

I watched a documentary on starvation in Ethiopia. The principle of the film was a well-fed British journalist who agreed to spend a month "with the people". The camera men ate separately from him during his "trial". After a few days in a new encampment, the Brit met "the bed bugs". He looked just like me. Frantic. Freaking out. Ran to the river and scrubbed his body then wrapped himself in a white sheet and looked miserable. I laughed until the tears ran down my cheeks. When company came over that night, to my daughter's horror, I had to tell them about this story. She understood. The company thought I was "just eccentric" (actually I am going through a nervous breakdown).

So, new job on Monday. Cool. One that is shall we say .. responsible. Fresh start. Better money. GREAT JOB!

Last night my daughter said, "Mommy, I have more bites".

[Buggy in Vancouver]

So, I begin the laundry detail, again. Fumigators coming in again. More Glad bags lined up in the hallway. But be damned if we can actually find any signs of these freaking bugs. To say that our nerves are frayed is an understatement. My 20 year old daughter broke down in tears for several hours last night, interspersed by having two scalding hot showers. My once prized hand loomed Persian rug is slated for "storage". I am going to douse it in chemicals, roll it up and forget about it for a few years. As to our overstuffed couches - don't know yet. My daughter is sleeping on the couch that I slept on hoping she won't be bitten. I slept on "her" couch last night with fresh linen.

This is how these bites manifested themselves: a series of cluster bites around the waist, lower back, the ankles, the neck and even the face (no wonder the clinic doctor originally diagnosed me with "scabies" as there are some similiarities). In my case, I am hyperallergic (armed with the EpiPen because I am prone to anaphylactic (whatever) shock). Being bed ridden (and unknown to me riddled with bedbugs during my convalescence) I was a sitting duck for blood feeders. My own reaction to these bites was extreme. Other people may present no obvious symptoms. Anxiety, insomnia, restlessness are not unusual for the victims of these blood sucking bugs. Tempers fray easily in our home right now. Feelings are easily hurt. Oh, did I mention "paranoia" ?? My new job requires that I take public transportation in and out of an area heavily populated by "poultry workers" (who are not unknown to carry other nasty varieties of "the bed bug").

The first most important criteria in dealing with these blood suckers, is the proper identification of them. Batbugs need to be chemically treated differently than bedbugs. Batbugs are spread by, yes, bats, and birds, and nests that might be disturbed (such as in ventilation ducts, elevator shafts, etc). An experienced fumigator needs to define what the insect is before it can be treated. Repeat treatments are usually required. Remove clutter. Vacuum frequently, and yes dispose of the bags immediately. Vacuum the mattress, under, sideways, upside down. Use a mattress cover (white) or throw the mattress out. Learn absolutely everything there is to know about bedbugs, lots of stuff on the net. Caulk cracks in cupboards / closets. Invest, as our fearful "leader" did, in a metal frame bed. Keep bed linen OFF the floor, move bed and other furniture away from walls. Leave it that way - yes, forever. No more leaning up against the wall with the remotes. Vacuum everything frequently.

Just because I can I threw away a bag of clothing this morning. Not my favorite stuff, but just stuff. More to go. Reduce reduce reduce. What can't be bagged, frozen, boiled, or dry cleaned, suspect. Add Borateam to your shopping list along with hand-pump and spray action "Creepy Crawler". Wash the floors routinely. Not once a month, but weekly. Use bleach. Vacuum baseboards, couches, shelves, clocks .. this is war.

Get deep into those drawers. They are there. Consider purchasing all metal furniture (Ikea has some). Wash all drapery. Live a life of zen.

Oh yes, if you don't have one .. rent one, buy one .. a small steam cleaner. It is invaluable.

And hope.

[abigfatwasteoftime]

Wow. I've been away for a while and just read all the new comments. They bring back horrible memories. I am so glad I was able to pick up and move, but I worry that I will run up against those little @$%&ers again. Thanks to everyone who is posting because it reassures me that I was not crazy and that I did make the right choice by getting out of the situation. And hopefully, your information will help someone else who is going through this horrible nightmare. For those of you determined to stay and fight, I wish you strength and good fortune. Your experiences will help future bed bug sufferers as I'm sure this epidemic will get worse before it gets better.

[Buggy in Vancouver]

Thank you for the opportunity to post my own experience on this nasty matter. One can feel very isolated and alone going through this experience plus a little "mad". Reading the vast array of information on the topic is helpful and informative, but getting an inside view on another person's experiences and feelings is very helpful. Every year we send my Mother, in the middle of Canada, a Holiday package of chocolates and small gifts. She has asked us NOT to send any gifts this year because she remembers 65 years ago when her father destroyed a couch with an axe, then burned in, because it was infested with bedbugs after a travelling relative slept on it. To this day she can clearly recall the details of that couch ~ " . . . brown leather with tassles and it pulled out to be a bed .. " She was 10 years old. Her baby brother wakened the family screaming. Grandma went to calm her screaming baby and to her horror found bedbugs in his diaper. Grandpa took care of the rest. Mysteriously the family home burned down a few years later. Family members still tell how "calm" Grandpa was. He just watched the fire, moved the family into the barn and built a new home a year later. One has to wonder if he lost the battle with the bedbugs. Perhaps a bit extreme thinking, but - I'd do it if I had to.

We are on the eve of our 4th fumigation.

[Buggy in Vancouver]

Fumigators are not the most social workers. My daughter, in Command of the 4th Fumigation (this might serve her well for future Assaults) asked the "terminators" (as she politely calls them), "How long is this going to take today?". Buddy says, "The sooner you leave, the sooner we get it done, come back in 6 hours." Not to be outdone by the Professionals, she sprayed the insides of all the closets with Eau de Pesticide last night. Overkill? We hope. Then she tied the hallway doors closed with two large hockey skate laces because we have clever cats who can open doors. This morning as I raced to the bathroom, I bounced off the ropes. I have a new office, yes with my name on it. I am paranoid when people sit on my chairs. I am sure I reek of chemicals. I have moved the furniture. The three extra chairs are in a corner. I am using a steno chair instead of my nice executive chair to reduce the opportunity for infestations. The exec chair sits in a corner guarded by two smaller chairs. People stand in my office. I am living in a home surrounded by garbage bags and my office is a sterile cell. Our clothes are in opaque garment bags (Ikea, get some). I can't remember what I own or where things are. I bagged a pair of loafers (freshly sprayed) took them to the office where they stay. I wear gumboots for the commute and a slick rain coat because I am being transported long distances on commuter buses loaded with poultry workers. I cut my waist length hair off to shoulder length. Why, one might ask, so extreme? Because I was sitting in my last office a month ago when I felt a "bite" (keep in mind I have extreme reaction to these things). I raced to the bathroom and to my horror found a bloated bloodied bug on the inside of the beautiful sweater I was wearing. I almost lost it at the point. Maybe I did lose it. The demands of my work do not allow me to "take off" for a day or even an hour. Where had that sweater been? Serenely folded in a hanging closet unit. Brand new.

Yesterday a very beautiful co-worker, dressed to the hilt, came into my office to go over a few things. "Wouldn't it be more comfortable to sit on the chairs?". I looked at the fantastic sweater she was wearing, a lovely fluffy thing, and abruptly said, "no". I really wanted this job. It was on my "dream list".

The Landlord greeted me when I returned home yesterday. "I hope things will be better now." I can only hope. Because my next step is going to be this: things will go into cold storage for 18 months. We will move into a bachelor apartment with air mattresses and two years from now I will be wearing all those suits and sweaters again. Until then, I can only hope.

[Buggy in Vancouver]

We are not nearing normalacy. We continue to live in the living room, our bedrooms used as storage for the sealed black garbage bags holding linen, clothing, whatever. We don't even know what might be in the bags. No more bites and no signs of the %&*^&*^ things. I continue to put small items in the freezer when I return from work (via the poulty worker laden bus); gloves, scarves, tote bag. And no I don't think I am being "extreme". I continue to experience insomnia, something I have never had in my life, sleep being my ultimate refuge and pleasure. Once taken for granted. In fact, this has been a life altering experience no matter how I look at it, from the small and insignificant to the critical.

We are finding moments of dark (desperate) humour. Flipping through a catelogue my daughter says with glee, "Mommy, here's a metal frame bed!!". "And look at this, Mom, bug netting for beds". My hand crafted honey wood bed frame is slated for the trash bin, along with just about everything else we own. I just don't trust the things I live with anymore.

To our horror, we saw a mattress and box spring in the apartment dumpster the other day. We are not alone.

Just to show you how nasty these &*^%&() things are, during fumigation #1, I personally sprayed (read that as soaked) three framed wall mirrors. During the 2nd fumigation, sure enough, the fumigators found a live *&^(*&* on one of those mirrors.

This is what I want now. A concrete apartment, no gyprock, no wood (ever), no cupboards of any sort, no closets. I viewed such a loft a few years ago, regretably I did not buy it. The design idea was to build in it. I personally would leave it as is.

Fingers crossed in Vancouver.

[Buggy in Vancouver]

Like clockwork - they're "back". Exactly two weeks after the 4th fumigation, one bite at about midnight last night and the hallways are lined with bags of linens - again, which proves the information provided by the health department is right - the problem is cyclical. Chemicals may kill the "living" bugs, but they certainly don't kill the "eggs" and the eggs can sit dormant for as long as a year even under challenging circumstances. My warm body provided the optimum moment. I found the *&%$##$ thing - very very small, like a small dark brown dot, but squash it and voila - MY blood.

We stripped my daughter's bedroom to the walls, painted it, removed all furniture (what was left after the purge), washed all clothing and the drapes, scraped the hardwood floors and were planning to move a futon into her room tonight so she could get back to the art of living. I moved into my sterile bedroom only two nights ago. I am back on the couch after a scalding midnight shower. The room is sealed again.

At about 2 am I started to laugh. From her couch my daughter said, "mom are you laughing?". "Yes, hysterically."

Tonight we begin to cull what property and clothing we have left. I am wearing a track suit to work today. I reek of Creepy Crawler. My thoughts are consumed by bed bugs. I need therapy.

[Buggy in Vancouver]

You weren't crazy. You were smart. Don't even look back except in horror.

http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/local/news-article.aspx?storyid=8874

[rachael]

I bought 2 cans af flea and tick killer,my bed has been coated for 24 hours and still the little $%$%^(*&Q are alive.I looked down to see a large one walking along, I shot it with a home sprey of clorox and dish soap.It's butt pointed upwords,it's death pose.Do the live in carpet?there's another one BAM!!!!and a baby!!!!!

[Buggy in Vancouver]

Welcome Rachel to the ever growing population of bedbug victims. Tick spray won't do it unless you have ticks and fleas. And if you do, then yes, they live in carpets just as easily as bedbugs. I have been following up similar threads in Canada where bedbugs are just beginning to develope. To be "bed bug free for over one year" seems to be the benchmark for success in eradicating these insects. No matter what methods are tried (from expensive fumigations, to homemade concoctions with strong bleach in them), one of the recurring themes is perseverance. Just about everyone I have "read" or spoken with on the net confirm that they have had to "get rid" of property, starting with their beds. While some "experts" say it might not be necessary, it's probably wise to get rid of your mattress and box spring and consider, as our fearful leader of this blog did, replacing the bed with a metal frame bed at some point. Extreme house cleaning plays an important role in the control of bedbug infestations, but it is not the sole solution. It merely reduces some of the opportunity for the *&(&**(& to infest. Learn everything you can about these little blood sucking thugs. Our fearful leader (host of this blog) posted a most excellent URL .. "everything you wanted to know about bedbugs but had no idea they even existed". Learn everything you can about bedbugs. Become an expert. I continue to promote a product called Creepy Crawly from Green Cross pesticides in Canada. It's my only hope as an individual, along with professional fumigations, endless laundry / dry cleaning, tiresome house cleaning, discarding of clothing and household property (yes, even including beloved books).

The commonality we know is this: bedbugs are very very VERY hard to get rid of. There is nothing good to be said about this "experience". I continue to remind myself that "what does not kill me, makes me stronger". But in my case, death by bedbug is a possibility and not unknown (as a few 5 star hotels have discovered by way of litigation when a guest dies from the bite of these (*Y*(&)(&(* things). But that's just me and a handful of individuals who have extreme allergic reactions to "things". Revulsion is another common factor. It's really hard to live with bedbugs. It is just so disgusting and does nothing to foster "self esteem". Get some professional help from your local Public Health authority (PH nurses can be great); get your landlord to fumigate - do all the right things and when all else fails, abandon ship and write it all off as a learning experience and yet another opportunity to Zen your life. Good luck rachel. You are not alone (literally).

[Still Buggy in Vancouver]

Just a refresher course is WHAT is the enemy. This is an excellent site. Everything you need to know, almost.

http://www.uky.edu/Agriculture/Entomology/entfacts/struct/ef636.htm

I hate to admit this, but as I was sitting at my PC on Friday, I noted a small welt on my forhead, then the lid on my right eye swelled up. Quite quickly actually. At first I thought there was hair on my head, sudden itch .. I brushed my hand over my face and when I went to the bathroom to take a look, to my horror, I had squashed one of these @#$#*(& on my face. They are getting desperate. My cane chairs are now on the balcony, along with the bamboo ones we put out there a month ago. I am loathe to throw them out because I would have to transport them through my building, thus increasing infestations. I am considering calling the Salvation Army to assist me with the removal of furniture. I am sure the SA has been through this a few times (since their hostels are continually infested).

I have worn the same "outfits" to work for the last monoth. I launder what I wear every night. We come home, shower, launder, camp in the living room, sleep (sort of), get up, shower, launder the bedding, dress, go to work, come home ....

[metta]

Does anyone actually have a picture of these bites? I have a few bites and have checked my mattress and everywhere else you've told me of -- nothing. I'm having the carpet cleaned today and getting a new mattress. I already have a metal bed frame. Do I have bed bugs?

[Buggy in Vancouver]

The bites frequently appear in clutches, two or three slightly raised white welts. If they don't get worse, and they can in some people, they will slowly disappear leaving slightly dark dots longer than what you would experience with a mosquito bite (for example). They can present at the wrists, the waist, the back, the neck, the shoulders, the feet, the ankles, the hands .. areas of convenience for them. These pests go thru' 5 molts or changes. From the almost invisible (like a speck of dust) to the disgusting adult creatures they are. Each phase requires (preferably but not only) human blood (they will go for your pets if they are desperate) in order to move to the next phase. So you can be "bitten" by a thing as small as a particle of dust and not "see it". This creature then finds a place to rest .. and grow .. etc. I found one less than the size of a pinhead only because it was slighly bloated with MY blood after it feasted on my blood and the ONLY reason I found it was because I LOOK (believe me) and I had pastel green sheets on the bed. If I had not known what I was looking for, I would have simply thought it just a speck of dust. Once you get your new mattress, just to be on the safe side, rub vaseline on your metal bed frame legs and keep your bedding off the floor and your bed away from the walls / curtains. Make your bed "an island". If you continue to get bites, keep looking for the source. Who knows if you have bed bugs. I never saw one until it was too late. Most doctors have no idea WHAT a bedbug looks like and can misdiagnos it as "scabies" or other problems. This is not unusual. The stories are growing legion now. Folks have gone to costly dermatologists, purchased expensive creams, etc. long before they realize they are dealing with the bloodthug, the bedbug.

Along with the new mattress, make sure that ALL your bedding is washed in HOT water. Also, in case you can not WASH your duvet / pillows, at the least (if not dry clean) put them in a VERY hot dryer for about 45 minutes. That should do it. Be paranoid. Launder everything. Wash your drapes. Vacuum your BED. Discard the bag. Live in a state of alert for a few months, see what happens. If nothing, you win. If bedbugs - you lose.

[Buggy in Vancouver]

I feel kinda bad about taking up so much of this fearful blogger's blog so I started my own on, yup, you guessed it - the bloodthug. If you wish, join me in my misery at http://damascus48.blogspot.com/ I will continue to pop in here but I will have mercy on our leader who may by now be BUG FREE !!!

[abigfatwasteoftime]

Vancouver--that's cool that you're starting your own site. I will go check it out. Good luck with the little buggers. Metta--I don't have any pictures of bites, but I think what I noticed about them is that they don't seem to have a point like mosquito bites often do and they often are long and vertical and most obvious of all is that they itch like crazy all day every day until they go away weeks later. They itch far more than mosquito bites.

[abigfatwasteoftime]

Vancouver--that's cool that you're starting your own site. I will go check it out. Good luck with the little buggers. Metta--I don't have any pictures of bites, but I think what I noticed about them is that they don't seem to have a point like mosquito bites often do and they often are long and vertical and most obvious of all is that they itch like crazy all day every day until they go away weeks later. They itch far more than mosquito bites.

[Buggy in Vancouver]

We are going to have to lose just about everything we own. And that's the bottom line. We might be able to salvage some things, put them into "storage" for 18 months, but overall, we will be leaving this apartment with the clothes on our backs and nothing else. I am trying to envision what the next landlord will think .. they have nothing but 3 cats.

[abigfatwasteoftime]

Wow Vancouver. I'm so sorry to hear that you lost everything. I can certainly sympathize. You're the third person I know of who decided to walk away from everything. Not counting myself. I guess that makes four. People still imply that I overreacted. Just the other day, a member of my family said, "You didn't LOSE everything, you walked away from it." And it pissed me off because I wouldn't have walked away from everything if I hadn't been pushed to that point. And God knows I didn't choose to contract a bed bug infestation in my apartment. I don't think anyone can understand what it's like unless they go through it. I wish you much happiness and a bed bug free status in your new home.

[Buggy in Vancouver]

Yuppers, we are still "in" our apartment. It is "vacant". Some clothing in garment bags but our "home" is just a shell.

What annoys me is that people tend to "blame" us for this mess. My landlord (now gone) tried to put the blame on me; my mother does a "tut tut" as if in some way this was my fault.

This experience has wiped me out. The costs, the losses, the DISGUST and revulsion of it all has taken a huge toll on me. It will take me one year to "recover".

I am not yet able to move because (a) I am afraid of ANY possibility of taking "eggs" with me (as you know they can lay dormant for LONG period of time) and (b) I don't have any money now because this thing has turned my life upside down and inside out. A total piss off.

Soooo, I am starting from scratch, with less than nothing. Not a good place to be.

Thanx for your good wishes. This is an experience I will NEVER forget.

[No longer Buggy]

Hey, missed you. Update. After spending thousands of dollars in our fight against the dreaded bed bug, after losing more than 3/4 of our personal property, including the beds, after going nuts a few hundred times a day for about 4 months, we might be bedbug free. I am not holding my breath because the hallmark is one year bed bug free, even 15 months because the insidious little bastards can endure damn near everything for extended periods of time. I do not fully trust the situation yet. We did not abandon ship. Our ship is empty and we live in a barren apartment now. There are still about 5 large black garbage bags stuffed with clean laundry that no one wants to deal with. I don't even know what might be in those bags. I might just trash them. I do know this: when we move, we will take very little with us just on the off chance that we take these freaking bugs with us that have defied massive chemical attacks. The fumigators doubled their chemical dosage during the last fumigation. Our once lovely hardwood floors still show the chemical stains. We do not "wash" it away, rather just push it around "just in case".

Our last fumigation was on December 14, 2004. Since then, no bites, found a few corpses. So we are two months free of this pestilence. We do not have visitors to our apartment. Our famous Sunday dinners are on hold. My family (in particular my mother) thinks I "over reacted". In fact, she seems to "blame" me for this mess. It all pisses me off. If a person has NOT been infested by these little bastards, they are incapable of understanding the impact it does have on the "infected". Mom has the "holier than thou" attitude even though her own father went nuts on the bedugs during the depression.

I have the occasional "moment". A small itch on my body and I go into "I have the bedbug feeling". It continues to be unsettling. I continue to distrust my environment and I see almost everything in terms of bedbugs (if I see a movie with metal beds .. I go "aha!! they KNOW")

This continues to be an experience I will not forget.

[abigfatwasteoftime]

Hi, (No Longer) Buggy. I'm so glad to hear that they've regressed. At the very least, you're getting some sleep, huh? Probably a good idea to get out if you can. Who wants to live with all that poison soaked into the floor? That's why I left, because I was only renting and it wasn't worth it to me to stay and fight. Not when fighting means a year of fumigation and exposure to chemicals. Your mom is wack for not being more supportive. I'm sorry to hear it. But, rest assured, you've got a sympathetic reader here. I think you're incredibly iron willed to have stayed as long as you did.

[Bugged in Vancouver]

We have reached the three month hallmark of "bedbug free" but I think they are lurking, waiting to emerge again. I am finally sleeping again which is good because I have a new job that is very demanding.

The chemical assault. I have had a sinus infection since the middle of December. Nothing seems to shake it. My own extreme reaction to the bites of these disgusting insects has left discoloration and scarring at the base of my back, on my shoulders and lower arms. I am now considering some sort of procedure to "erase" these marks. This should be expensive.

My daughter, 20, refuses to consider a move. She loves this apartment even though we live in little "islands" in it. What little furniture is left (also doused in chemicals) is set out from the walls, nothing touches anything. We continue to have no beds and camp in the living rooms on chemically soaked couches. One of our three cats developed a persistent eye infection. My daughter lives in a state of denial even though she was devastated by the Bug Invasion and blames milk / cheese for the cat's conjunctivitus. For the most part, she acts as if this never happened. I continue to be devastated by the whole event.

If my daughter was not involved in this "house", I would have left the day after I discovered the problem. I would have taken a few personal valuables, checked into a hotel room and to hell with the rest. But without the cooperation of my daughter, I could not abandon this infested ship. I know that she will think back, in ten, twenty years, and see the folly of it all. But that's all hindsight. We live with our mistakes, sometimes we learn from them.

I have a new revulsion - people touching me on the commuter trains, using changing rooms at clothing stores, touching the walls of elevators, etc.

For the time being, we continue to live here.

I think of New York as my sister city now and writer of this blog as my bugged soul mate. This blog gave me comfort of sorts when there was none. Thanx.

[Lisa]

It will be ok... don't despair. I refuse to give up. I have them too... It is such a relief to say it aloud. It must be like admitting you have a sexually transmitted disease. There REALLY needs to be a support group for bedbugs. They take SO much out of you, physically and mentally. It is not just the bits, or the knowledge that these fould creatures are crowling over your bed, your belongings, your clothes. It is the physical wear of fighting them. So much laundry, so much taking furniture apart, moving things, wrapping things in plastic, the endless chores, the disarray your home is thrown into. And often to no avail. You continue to have them... So you fight and fight and it goes on... COuple with this the bites themselves, which are, needless to say, horrible, but the lack of sleep. You are tuned in to every little skin irritation, you jump awake at the tiniest itch you'd never have noticed before. You search your bed... now you are up. The tension never dies and when you finally relax enough to get those couple hours of sleep you so desperately need, your paranoia is proven to be well founded by the bites in the morning, blood on the sheets, moltings on the floor. The next day, exhousted, frustrated, bitten, itchy, you must continue the very physical battle. Despite your sleep deprivation and your physical wounds, keep at it... clean, wash, spray, dust... keep at it.

My relationships and work are suffering. I am not the person I was before this. It has made me slightly mentally ill. Just the lack of sleep alone would do that. It is all I can talk about. I cannot move on to other topics. It truly is like having a disease. When you are around others, normal people who don't have it, they cannot understand. They think you are crazy or obsessed. But they sleep each night and their skin is comfortable, and clear and wound free and their homes are safe and clean, and they do their laundry when it is actually dirty, not when it came out of a plastic bag for 24 hours and is still celean but could be infect. They don't know. No one knows. Except those who have sudffered the same. WHere are they? I need them now.

I will not give up. I have moved already. I left New York City and am in a 2 family house now. They came with me, though I was very careful. I will win this battle. I have heard of people winning. It is incredibly hard, but I will do it. I am educated on the matter now. That is the first step. And trial and error... You make mistakes along the way, then correct them. I had pretyt clothes, to be washed only in cold water. I did, thinking it would be safe... They survived. I will not make that mistake again. I clung to possessions of sentimental value. This is war. They are gone now.

I will win this battle. Everyone suffering it will. It is possible. It must be possible. It is hard. I moved. I bought all new stuff... emptied my bank account on new clothes, new furniture, new everything. My new home is adorable and new and clean. And infested with bed bugs. But I am NOT beaten. I have every product available. I spray and dust and wash daily. The bites become more rare. I will win.

[shane]

I feel for all of you. I work in a social service agency in Maine. We have had two homes infested since May. We keep having Terminix come back and spray the homes. The house parents keep having to clean everything and set up for the next spraying. It is such a pain in the ass and frustrating. It is sad, but I long for DDT's return sometime just to stop the damn mess.

[Bugged in Vancouver]

Two major dailies have recently reported that bed bugs are epidemic here, 8 out of 10 service calls to pest management companies are for bed bugs, 40 some downtown hotels are infested, etc. I am not alone. We have stayed in our apartment. We continue to live on sheet draped couches in the living room; our former bedroooms are closets and a computer room; we rarely have guests and only under very controlled circumstances (and no, you don't need to take off your shoes) when the guest(s) sit at the dining room table, drink a cup of tea and leave within an hour. Our lives are not normal and I have woken up in the middle of the night, grabbed a flashlight to inspect the couch I am sleeping on simply out of paranoia. Lisa's posting above says it all.

I started a new job in early April. I chose it in part because it is located a bit off the beaten path in a building with very few offices in it, less traffic in the elevators, etc. My own working area is somewhat isolated and because of the recent spate of news articles about bedbugs I have been able to broach the subject with my colleagues who share my horror of possible infestations. At least I can speak about it without "incriminating" myself. Our last fumigation was in early December 2004. We have not seen any further evidence of infestation. But we do not trust our "home". We continue to live on "high alert" based on the fact that these nasty insects can and do live for as long as 18 months without "food". While that might be an "extreme" it is our benchmark. Given that we did not destroy all of our property and that this apartment is beautifully floored with hardwood (more cracks in the flooring to hide in) and that we do not know the extent of the infestation in this building in the first place, we continue to run the risk of continued or "new" infestation. We are afraid to move based on "better the devil you know than the one you don't". We are well aware of our storage locker that we have not touched since Dec. 2004. We continue to be livng walking targets for the horrors of it all again. I am not sure how I will handle another round of this nightmare. It is constantly on my mind. I wait for an "empty" train to commute on (and I notice a growing number of commuters doing the same). I do not go into the cafes in any downtown hotels now with co-workes. They think I am a bit anti-social and they would be correct. It will take me another year to recover financially from this ordeal. Come December I will "do" all the drapes (again, again, again), super-duper vacuum, cull the closets (yet again), and call in the fumigators for a "last blast" (for prophylactic purposes) then I might consider getting a bed again. Meanwhile, we are vigilant.

[Bugged in Atlanta]

Auuughhh.....I feel all your pain! I feel better at least knowing I'm not alone, because NOBODY understands till it happens to them. Just call someone, talk to a lawyer, it's not that simple.......if only. My landlord is claiming they are not legally liable because they claim I broght them in when I've lived here for 4 years. I have not traveled or brought anything used.....so ok? I have 4 more months on my lease. I am counting the days.

They did spray my bedroom when I first discovered the buggers, out of the kindness of their heart according to them. I have thrown away my bed mattress and all and have been sleeping on an air mattress for the last 6 months. My boyfriend is not allergic to the bites because hes never had a bite, but I have.

I washed everything I could, sparayed raid in all my windows apprently they like to live there especially the window in my bathroom when I take a shower I see them sometimes. And sprayed with a general bug bomb in my whole apartement every two weeks for a month or two before giving up. It was costing too much and didn't seem to work, although I have found some dead ones. I think it helps the investation but doesn't stop it.

I gave up and decided to just armer myself while sleeping untill i can move. I sleep with two pairs of knit magic gloves (I will purchase leather gloves as soon as there in the stores)and a turtle neck tucked into my gloves,and with sweat pants tucked into my two pairs of socks (one is a slipper sock.)and a white sheet wrapped around me tightly at night and a pillow (new threw the old one out) with a vinyl pillow case that has duck tape covering the zipper as a precaution. apparently this was not enough because I woke up today with threee huge bites. The worst I've ever had since my discovery. And I just fumigated my apartment a week and a half ago again myself. I'm losing hope!!!!! Help I'm tired and desperate any advice from any survivers????

[Tom S]

I just noticed them a few days ago in my apartment. So far they only seem to be inside the sofa and around the carpets. But it's only been a few days. I no longer sleep in the sofa bed but on a small mattress on the floor. I do see the once in a while, especially at night. I am very paranoid that they will infect the mattress but I doubt they will as long as I got my guard up.

The first few nights I noticed them it was really bad. They were crawling all over me at night.

So far they have not gotten past the living room. My couch is currently white with Diatomaceous Earth powder while covered with sheets and the bottom is surrounded by it too. Today my plan is to cover the floor under the carpet (medium sized center carpet) with this stuff. I have found this stuff to be somewhat useful against the bugs.

I have been vacuuming, powdering, inspecting and killing them the last few days.

I have been waking up around 3-4 am last few nights trying to find where they're hiding. Last night I killed about 10-12 of them hiding inside the couch and under the floor. But I only seen 2 small ones on me during the night. The night before about 5-8 bigger ones.

I am hoping I go them under control. I live in a small 1 bedroom apartment and I only stay and sleep in the living room.

Some of these stories are really freaking me out. Today I will be buying some more spray cans, another tube of that powder stuff and more vacuuming.

I may also have to take the couch apart and see what I find there. Do these bugs tend to stay in colonies or are they just living any place they find on their own? I know they only feed on blood but is there anything I can do to somehow poison them from their insides?

Does anyone have any advice on what else I can use? Would this product work;

http://www.killsbugsdead.com/fop_cdrf.asp

I WILL find a way o getting rid of them for good.

Feel free to email me.

Bye for now.

[Tom S]

I'm the above poster. For some reason my email is not displayed.. It is tomsztur@gmail.com .

If anyone knows any good products or wants to correspond with me about this send me an email.

Regards,

Tom

[Bugged in Vancouver]

Wow - more bugged folks. Look, our beloved host did it the right way .. she abandoned ship. This IS actually the best way to do it. Take nothing. Cut the losses and move on. WHEN I leave this apartment, which is barren for the most part, I will take nothing but the cats (who will be put in the Cat Hotel for grooming, just in case) and start all over again. I can't even think about our storage unit here. It's the only way I can hope to have a bug free place in the future. Meanwhile, we still live in a state of siege. Bug Bombs? we tried all the products - major fumigation worked after the 4th time (we think). IF a couch is infected / infested - get rid of it FAST. Get rid of the carpeting too. Dump it all. You MIGHT be able to kill the "living bugs" .. but you can NOT kill the eggs (and remember one bug reproduces approximately 300 eggs). BEFORE I had the professional waste management folks take this crap out of here, we went through 3 fumigations, steam cleaned the futons, did it ALL .. as the waste removal guy was here with leather gauntlets to the elbow and a hazmat suit, I saw a cluster of FRESH eggs on the corner of the mattress .. I knew I was right to destroy my property. This is a war you can not win with conventional weapons or attitudes. This is "nuke" time.

[Bugged in Vancouver]

PS: don't know about the USA, but in Canada the Landlord is OBLIGATED to fumigate no matter WHO may or may not be "at fault". Check your local health laws / tenancy acts .. etc. Good luck.

[Bugged in Atlanta]

Tom, abandon ship! I'm with Bugged in Vancover. I plan to when my lease is up in 4 months, I'm counting down the days. Don't be fooled they are everywhere in your apt and in everything you own. Even if you don't see them, trust me. Plus if you live in an apt. your neighbors probably have it too, and they can just jump to your apt again even if you do the impossible and get rid of them.

[Bugged in Vancouver]

I certainly wish Tom the best of success but having gone through this shared experience with our host and others on this blog, I do not for one silly second believe in any fast "cures" nor "products" aside from DDT which is banned. Major hotel chains in Vancouver are dealing with this growing epidemic with no success. Folks don't want to talk about it because it is disgusting. I get the shivers even thinking about it. However, sleeping on draped couches has taken a toll on us. She gets the big couch and I have been scrunched on the "love seat" since November 2004. My daughter purchased an air mattress a few days ago and we are now "on the floor" between the couches. Our bedrooms remain (a) an ironing room (b) the computer room. Our next door neighbors moved after 4 years tenancy. I note they left a mattress set by the garbage. In fact, I have noted a number of abandonded mattresses, couches and rugs by the bins and growing vacancy in a building that is in a prime location for commuting to "the city". In fact, the building manager has moved the bins far far away from the entrance to the building using the "reason" that the binners were making too much of a mess dumpster diving. I saw two such "divers" by the bins last Saturday and noted the plethora of "bites" on their legs - shudder. These bugs travel. My daughter recently went to Cuba (yes, during Dennis). Both she and her seasoned travelling companion did bedbug tests every day in every hotel / guest home they stayed in. They were happy to report no findings. One would hold the luggage while the other checked the mattresses, then they would settle in for their holiday. Perhaps they took them to Cuba - a new invasion.

Bugged in Atlanta is right. If they are in one apartment in a building, they are IN the building. They are in the hallways as WE move in and out of our units / suites. They are in the cuffs / seams / folds of our clothing; they are in our laundry as we trudge up and down the elevators / stairs frantically doing the MASSIVE loads of ENDLESS laundry that may or may not be infested in our FUTILE efforts to END this nightmare. WE are the carriers, our property the hosts.

[Bugged in Vancouver]

More on the same. I was having coffee at a local cafe and overheard this: "How's so-and-so doing?" "Well, he's gone a bit nutty. He got bedbugs about a year ago, did 4 fumigations, nothing worked, so he sealed off his bedroom with duct tape and hasn't been in it since." I fully understand.

My daughter moved our luxurious airmattress into her bedroom a few days ago and moved the ironing board into my X-bedroom (now a computer-ironing room).

I moved to the Big Couch, a huge improvement over the love seat. December 04, 2004 to date, about 9 months. Human gestation ... I can only hope that we will survive our remaining tenancy here bedbug free and that there will be no further breeding in this apartment.

[Bugged in Atlanta]

Last night I sat on my love seat to do homework and I kept feeling like a bug was crawling on me or something. Due to the circumstances of living with bed bugs for I forget how long now I looked saw nothing figured I was just being paranoid. Only to later look again and to my horror see on actually biting me during the day while I'm awake sitting on my love seat! I didn't even get a chance to kill it, I just freaked and scremed and it came off of me in the excitement. That's the second time I've been bitten on my love seat.

I think I'm just going to get rid of it now instead of waiting until my lease is up in 3 1/2 months(yes I'm counting), and I guess just use my office chairs, my only chairs left,(one's vinyl and ones leather). I hope Bugged in Vancouvers couch is ok since that's where they're sleeping.

I'm running out of ideas and patience. I feel like my boyfriend thinks I'm nuts, since he's never seen them and is not allergic to the bites so he never knows that he's been bit. When I showed him the mark that I'm positive was a bite though oddly did'nt swell up or itch. It was a tiny tiny hole on my back shoulder that was open, meaning my skin had not tried to heal itself yet. My boyfriend said "oh it's probably a scratch from itching" even though it's a tiny hole right where I saw the bug and I didn't itch it. So he's in denial and I feel alone stuck with dealing with this problem looking like I'm crazy.

[Bugged in Vancouver]

Poor Atlanta!! My daughter's "live-in" boyfriend also presented no signs of being bit while she was a mass of bites. He dismissed her and treated the entire calamity very casually. Since he was likely the source in the first damn place and not overly helpful in resolving the problem, we finally threw him out. There is no doubt in my mind that he took the bugs with him to his new digs listed as "affordable luxury". The trick is to CATCH one of these little *78$3!@)(&)*. We caught several, put them in sealed containers and used them as evidence for the Landlord and the Exterminators.

Our progress has been labourous. We have not found a dead / live bedbug / egg since December 04, 2004. Trust me, we check. We have not had any more "bites". Our last extermination was massive. To date there are still traces of the chemicals along the baseboards. Remarkably the couches were spared. We lived through a difficult period of bizarre life-style including hundreds of "redundant" laundry trips, putting personal items in the freezer for weeks at a time in Freezer Bags, changing into clean clothing IN the bath tub after a shower, putting our laundry immediately into sealed bags BEFORE we got out of the tub, not to mention the wholesale destruction of most of our property and clothing. We washed the drapes many many times. Our vacuum is pretty well worn out. I have woken up at night to a small "itch", grabbed a flashlight, gone into a challenging "paranoia" and so far .. so good.

What was most upsetting was my daughter saying to me one morning "Mommy look". This was after doing "everything" - 3 fumigations, ETC. Sure enough a bite on her belly. I went ballistic, called the waste disposal people and watched as my property was destroyed and hauled away in steel containers to a burn-dump site. THEN I called the Head Office of the pest control people and went ballistic on them WHAT IS THIS !!! 3 fumigations !! etc. When the pest control people returned it was with a vengeance. They doubled the chemical they used and that was December 04, 2004. The last we saw of the BUG.

There is a life cycle to these infestations. A batch of live bugs are killed by the fumigations, a little time passes but the chemicals do NOT kill the eggs which then hatch, starting yet another cycle. This was all calmly explained to me by the Public Health Authorities (small comfort).

In spite of the fact that we seem to be "free", I am still VERY leary. I believe that it is mostly by LUCK that we have made it this far. I believe that the problem continues to exist in this building but that the precautions we continue to take have been helpful. The real solution will be when we move.

My daughter is happy to have a "bed on the floor". I am less so. She has her "privacy" back (keep in mind we have shared the living room since December 04, each on our own couch across the room from each other - truly Mother-Daughter bonding).

I will continue to be "vigilant" (read that as paranoid).

Were it not for my daughter's refusal to move and my own waning financial situation, I would have been out of here long time ago with barely the clothes on my back. Materialism can be a burden to say the least. She has yet to learn this lesson. I, on the other hand, have started from scratch more than a few times and would LOVE to do it again. As I have said many times, our WISE blog host did it the right way. SHE ABANDONED SHIP.

[Bugged in Vancouver]

Last seen, last week. A couch set, bed and other furniture piled up by a dumpster in East End Vancouver. Large signs taped to the pile "BED BUGS". Within ten minutes people were carting away the "booty". The former owner was shocked, "Can't they READ!!"

On Sunday my youngest son announced, "hey Mom, read it in the papers, Vancouver is the bed bug capital of Canada". Lucky us.

[Ariel]

I just discovered today that I too have bed bugs. Initially, I thought the culprits were fleas so I flea bombed the apartment and did hours of cleaning thereafter. This morning, I woke up with more bites and, for the first time, saw two of these monsters (one under the matress and one on the capret). I squashed one and decided to capture the other so that I may identify it online. Yup, they're bed bugs alright. Does anyone have any suggestions for exterminators? Will Terminix do a good job?

[Bugged in Vancouver]

Prepare the way for the Exterminators: clean, clean, clean; wash those drapes, bag the clothes, remove everything from the walls, do whatever you can to maximize the "operation". Make sure there is a clause in the agreement with the Exterminators for a "guarantee" / return within 30 days if the fumigation does not work; get ready for a long term battle. Prepare to abandon ship. Get ready for extraordinary expenses and labour. Good luck.

[Long Island]

I leaved 10 yrs in my apt neva have I had any problems and one day I woke up with terrible bites, had no idea what it was and went to a demo a couple of weeks lata I personaly did research and thought I had scabies spend over 200 on creams & going back and forth to the derm Nothing! I was still waking up with bites. Then went back to do some more research of my own after seeing one tick looking bug crawling from underneath my bed Did the research and started looking under the mattress and allaround my bed I was shocked completely I couldn't explain how it had happened to me I had never heard of this shit. I did what you all did and still I was getting bit but I found I wasn't the only one,so were my neighbors. Thats when I decided I had to get the hell out of there so I moved out of town into a house I saw that as the only solution,though I just moved recently I was very Paranoid of bringing any bugs with me Im still paranoid I just hope Im bug free!

[Long Island]

I leaved 10 yrs in my apt neva have I had any problems and one day I woke up with terrible bites, had no idea what it was and went to a demo a couple of weeks lata I personaly did research and thought I had scabies spend over 200 on creams & going back and forth to the derm Nothing! I was still waking up with bites. Then went back to do some more research of my own after seeing one tick looking bug crawling from underneath my bed Did the research and started looking under the mattress and allaround my bed I was shocked completely I couldn't explain how it had happened to me I had never heard of this shit. I did what you all did and still I was getting bit but I found I wasn't the only one,so were my neighbors. Thats when I decided I had to get the hell out of there so I moved out of town into a house I saw that as the only solution,though I just moved recently I was very Paranoid of bringing any bugs with me Im still paranoid I just hope Im bug free!

[Shawna]

I'm in Texas. My landlord refused to remedy the problem and now has evicted me. I wrote a blog about it here: http://blog.myspace.com/shawnamouser

I am moving next week and panicking that anything will travel with me. I have so many books and paintings that I can't let go of and my kids toys. I am abandoning all furnishings and starting over...packing everything in plastic bins, but still completely paranoid that these things will go with us. I can't afford to start completely over with all of our clothes and things....so screwed up over all of this.
I can't believe there are so many out there with the same problems. bioterrorism!
Does anyone know of any attorneys who handle this type of thing specifically because my landlord should be sued.

[Bugged in Vancouver]

It continues. CNN had a video on the Bug on line today. Bring back DDT. Fast. We are nearing our ONE year bed bug free but I continue to live with anxiety. We did not leave the building. Quite likely the problem continues to exist in this building. We have just been lucky. We continue to live in a state of seige. I found myself leaning on the back of an office chair the other day. Touching it. Then I realized I rarely touch anything anymore. I actually keep my coat and purse by my desk in the only clear space - the garbage can. No more office closets. One year and still I am paranoid. I continue to live on the couch. Nothing in this apartment touches the wall. I read the Texas blogger. The nightmare continues. I can relate. Wishing folks well. The best way to deal with this is to get rid of everything. That will work. Get metal frame beds / furniture (some actually very attractive). Change our life styles. Now we have - Bird Flu. Mass poulty slaughters here on the west coast of canada. The slaughter in 2004 was intense. I am going to give up chicken too. Duck is off the menu.

[bugs here too]

testing to see if i can post

[Arizona with no bed]

well i was researching my new found friends on the net and found this blot. You all are scaring me ,, really bad. I just bought a new bed in aug/05. girlfrined moved in with dogs in aug/05 then had the battle of the fleas. Not as bad as bed bugs it seems but real close. first of Oct it just wasn't working living together so she moved.Any way noticed a smear on my wall like blood thought that was odd( i sleep heavy)startied noticing little spots (like little freckles)on her side of the bed under the pillow a couple of days after she moved. started looking further and noticed these bugs under the fold of my brand new mattress,,fear,gross and panicked i tore the bed a part , and vaccummed everything down to the metal frame and floor.thought well got what ever that was. Well to my suprise i was cleaning today and found more. Thought i better find our what these things are. Yep you guessed it bed bugs, i could never have imageined getting these things. And you are all freakin me out. I dont live in an apt.and moving out is not really an option since i would have to sell and that would intell killing them for the new owner anyhow.
well for the last couple of hours i have been moving eveything in my room out of the house, opening basebaoards finding them. I have started treating them with a termite killer active chemical is perethrin. After researching chemicals this is secong on list. So i will try it first. I will post again to let you all know if it works. Was spotting them in other parts of your house easy ?

arizona with no bed

[Arizona with no bed]

I ask about spotting them because I dont seem to react to there bites nor do I wake when they bite me. help

Arizona without a bed

[Bugged in Vancouver]

Good luck. CNN posted a bedbug video on line last week. We fumigated the beds and still the *&*(&(* popped up. The exterminator on CNN said that he has cut open mattresses to show the owners that the insides of the mattresses were in fact infested. You stand a chance ifn you get rid of the beds, rugs, etc. and fumigate, fumigate, fumigate. It took 4 fumigations for our 2 bedroom apartment (about 1500 sq. ft.) One woman I recently met purchased a lot of funiture on credit she could not afford. She declared bankruptcy on the credit line and a few weeks later found her new furniture (ala bankruptcy) was infested through and through with the little feckers. She called a waste disposal unit and now she is bankrupt with no furniture (in BC a person is allowed to keep a certain abount of furniture during bankruptcy). The stories are legion now. We had our last fumigation on December 04, 2005. We have passed the benchmark of one year "bed bug free" and I still don't have a bed. My daughter's airmattress deflates in the middle of the night. Hard core fall to the cold floor. She has returned to the other couch in the living room. We hope we can get our act together in 2006 .. best of luck to you Arizona. As to the "spotting" those are likely crushed bugs and not everyone "reacts" to the bites, in fact a lot of people show no signs of being bitten while sleeping in the same bed with a person who is covered with visible bites. Really, I wish you the best of success. Sacrifice it all. Larger residences / buildings need to be "tented" for a "successful" fumigation. Very very expensive. Shudder.

[Bugged in Vancouver]

Gotcha on the "spotting" thingy. They are easy to find (a) if there are mass infestations (b) you are looking for the feckers. They come out mostly in the dark. We used the maglites and found them. We found them when we weren't looking for them (worse than finding them when you are hunting the little feckers). We found them in the baseboards, in the screw holes of the futons, on the futon, in the seams of the futons, in the corners of wooden drawers, under the desk, under the freaking keyboard. We found them everywhere. It was horrible.

[Arizona without a bed]

Bugged in Vancouver, and everyone else that has written in this blog make it all sound hopeless. My hopes are still up thinking the best.

I have checked all my dressers and no signs so far of any there, (back/inside/underside) only the bed and baseboards at the bed, have I seen the nymphs and adults. So I am hoping they are confined to my bedroom. Being the other rooms have not had anyone sleeping in them for over a month they should be safe right?
I am hoping my other rooms haven’t been infected. Checked my sons bed no signs. But he is only here on weekends.

Has been very cold dipping into the 20's so I am leaving the windows open hoping the cold and permethrin will kill the surviving adults in my bedroom. I will call my friend in the pest control biz tomorrow. I can only sympathize at this point what you all have done to rid yourselves of these pests. I only hope I don't have the same conclusion.

Arizona without a bed

[Bugged in Atlanta]

Well in 2 days I'm moving finally. I haven't had any visable itchy mosquito like bites since I threw out my couch a few months ago. But I think I still might have had a few baby bites since then. I am always looking at my arms when I shower and several times I have found several tiny red dots on my arm that are barely noticable. I'm assuming these are bed bug bites as well.

I follow the fears of previous posters that
I might bring the critters with me. I have a unique situation with this move, because I am moving across country in half a year. I have already long ago gotten rid of my bed. And as I said I have gotten rid of my couch and all aposltered furniture. I plan to dispose of a few wood pieces of furniture that are not necessary for my every day functions. Luckily my coffe table and side tables are glass and metal, I plan to take apart and wash with bleach as a precaution. we have purchased a brand new air mattress for the apartment. The one I'm sleeping on has a hole in it so I wake up to it being deflated. That leaves my entertainment center, a book case, and two desk( we have two computers) made of plie wood that I need because we use them. I looked into purchasing new desk and they all run a little under $100 and are not as cool as my desk I have. If I wasn't moving across country so soon I wouldn't blink an eye at throughing them away, but since we now have little posessions to move I don't want to buy any new furniture so I can just through away the furniture when I move and not have to lug any furniture over 1,000 miles. What do any of you think I should do?

What precautions should I take? I plan on washing and drying in high heat and with color safe bleach every piece of fabric imaginable that I can before having it enter my new apt. Throwing away anything questionable that I don't need. Any other suggestions?

[Bugged in Atlanta]

Now to Arizona without a bed. I'm sorry to say but you should be scared especially since you own the home. You can't just abandon most possesions and move like I am. Be prepared for a long costly exhausting battle.

Never assume they are not in any rooms. They can hide in anything along with their eggs which I still have never seen. Has anyone seen what there eggs look like? I would assume that even though you haven't seen them in your sons room they are there because they have special vision to see where there is heat and carbon dioxide to find their host like infared vision.

I have not had any furniture that's easy for them to hide in like a bed for along time and they are still here in the walls, windows anywhere. I only had my bedroom fumigated, only to later find skin casings in my kitchen, dead and live ones in my living room, and a pretty active colony in my bathroom of all places. They love to hide in widows be carefull to treat all windows with a pesticide and I would just get rid of any curtains period it's not as pretty but this is war. They also can hide behindlight switches and electrical outlets, pictures on the wall (I would get rid of anything on the walls and through it out or put plastic bags over it).

Last and most importantly the reason why they are impossible to get rid of is DEET was the only thingthat would kill the eggs of the bed bug, and is now outlawed. so there is nothing on the market that exterminaters can use to kill the eggs of bed bugs. And they reproduce at a quick rate. So all the exterminaters can do is kill the adults, and then in one to two weeks the new ones hatch kill them and the in one to two weeks the new ones hatch kill them.....etc.

It is helpfull to have your places as cool as possible to slow the rate of reproduction down, but it will never kill them. Because the bug has to be frozen consistantly for over 2 weeks to kill it. It is also helpful to sleep as fully clothed as possible because they reproduce only after feasting on you. They need blood to reproduce. I still sleep fully clothed even with gloves on at least it's not summer anymore. I do have an allergic reaction to the bites, my boyfriend does not, and have found that a few times they tried to bite through my clothes but were not able to because
i'd only have a slight small mark not a full bite. So I feel it's a good precaution to sleep as clothed as possible.

And to leave on an up note you luckily don't have to worry about neighbors in your building just giving the bug back to you once you're rid of the like I do. Good luck!

[Bugged in Atlanta]

So I moved to my new Apt. with lots of hope that were dashed a couple of days ago when I was taking a shower only to notice what looked like new bites or did I just not remember that my old bites hadn't healed yet. I have had the large mosquito like bites but have also noticed that most are only little tiny red dots on your body that don't itch and you would never realize unless you look and believe me I look. I believe the little bites are from baby bed bugs.

So I inspected my body only to find a brown dot that came off on my arm and ankle, hmm..... didn't look good. So I looked around the shower to see lots of little brown and black dots that didn't move, hmmm...could be being paranoid but that doesn't look good. Then I noticed something suspicous on the sink. I took a peice of toilet paper and looked at it and sure as shit it was without a doubt one. Aggggghhhhhh!!!! I feel like screaming!!!

So dispite the fact that we got rid of almost all our furinture (bed mattress, couch and matching chair, 2 desks and office chairs, a book case, two entertainment centers, and frames. We did 20 loads of laundry in hot water and with non chlorine bleach and washed out everything we could with bleach and hot water. Still they followed us......

Now it's war. I went pesticide shopping and am now armed and dangerous. I plan to purge even more posessions, since they're obviously in our stuff, what's left will be all in plastic. I plan to seal every crack possible although unfortunately there are many cracks I won't be able to caulk. I will then coat eveything from my walls to the ceiling to the floor, door frame, windows and all, everything, I have already put pesticidal dust in all the electrical sockets because they like to hide there.

We plan move in a little over half a year, so this is how we will have to live I guess untill then and then I guess hope for the best again. Let me know if any one has any suggestions I plan to do everything possible to get rid of these buggers.

[Bugged in San Francisco]

Test

[Bugged in San Francisco]

I being freakin eaten alive! This sucks.
I live in a hotel in San fran, I'm on disability. I can't afford to move or replace my bed and clothes and stuff.
I haven't told my landlord yet, I'm hoping someone else complains first. I feel like it's my fault, even though I'm sure it isn't. I haven't baught any used furniture, and I haven't travelled any where I could have picked them up.
I've thrown away my beding, I use my sleeping bag now it's all I have.
I am very alergic to these things, the bites are breaking out and bleeding! And the itching, jees the freaking itching!
A couple of times I've had blood RUNNING down my leg and arm from these bites.
Even though it's too warm I'm wearing clothes to bed, socks, shirt, long pants, scared to sleep in the bare anymore.
Even so they still bite, been going for the neck this week, a very tender place when you scratch it.
I kill hundreds of them every morning and do a full inspection of my bed before I go to sleep.
From what I've read here I'm screwed, will I have to live with these things for the rest of my life? It sure feels that way right now.
I'm gonna have to tell my landlord, but I'm so embaressed.
A friend the other day said he got bites and thinks it's bed bugs, he lives in a hotel also. He doesn't know I have them. I'm too scared to tell anyone, if they get them they'll blaim me! And I would be pissed at anyone who gave me those things! Luckily he said that hotel had an infestation before, so that was a relief. But still I didn't say anything about my infestation.
Like others here I was diagnosed with scabies when I showed the bites to my doc.
Is there anything you can put on your skin, a cream or something, that stops them biting?
It's 3 in the morning I don't want to go to bed. I don't have another room to camp out in, I thought about the floor but my room is so small I don't think it would make a difference. They're not in the matres, it's solid foam, they're probably in the carpet.
I'm starting to think this is the plague of revelations that will torture but not kill...lol
What the f to do?

[Bugged in Vancouver]

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/01/22/bedbugs.ap/index.html

We finally purchased beds. First time in over a year that we slept in our bedrooms and on beds. We have not seen any signs of "the bugs" but we remain vigilant. San Fran - call the public health department, get them as an ally.

[Bugged in Atlanta]

I'm with bugged in Vancover San Fran call the health dept. The chances are your whole building is infested since you live in a hotel. I know they'll check rooms and determine where they are i.e what rooms and force the building to remove them.

It's nearly impossible to get rid of them. Your only hope is to know that your whole building is being taken care of. This is your only hope of keeping any of your possesions. I probably would just get rid of nearly everything and move if possible still. I did recently and they followed me. (See my above post) despite my significant purging during the move. I would in the meanwhile place glass baby jars under the bed legs and vasiline around them. everywhere I've read says they can't get up it then. I wish I could do this but I threw out my bed and mattres and have been living on an air mattress for a year.

I see them in the shower every mourning. I check the shower before I turn on the water no marks anywhere. I take my shower and start to see little teeny tiny brown dots appear that weren't there before. I dispose of them with tissue paper into the toilet. More appear, this goes on my whole shower every day dispite the fact that I have caulked every crack I can find. My poisoin doesn't stay in the shower. This is my problem area. Thse little shits can get into anything. So I'm here to tell you that if you see a little tiny brown or black dot it's probably one and not just dirt or you being paranoid.

I had a total break down last night. The situation has worn me down. Before I was ok because I hope that when I moved everything would be ok. Now I no longer have any hope and do not know when I will ever get rid of these little fucks all I know is I can't live like I am much longer I feel crazy. I don't know who I am anymore. My mind and time have been plagued by these fuckers for a year and I'm exhausted and determined to use every bit of energy I have to get rid of hese fucks. My boyfriend thought I didn't find him attractive anymore because I'm not spending a moment with him, because I'm working on getting rid of these bugs every moment of the day.

I told my boss everything and asked for time off. She seemed sympathatic at the time, but later was really flaky about it. Nothing resulted in me getting time off. I will have a few days off in a week because I requested to use paid days off as soon as I discovered the buggers remergence, I knew I'd need it. I'm so stresssed out as a result........ like to the breaking point stressed. Hmmmm.... time off can't wait....

[Bugged in Atlanta]

It's a week after I have done my first full pesticide treatment with Suspend SC and Drione dust. I have also be spraying raid in my shower every night. They appear in my shower everytime I shower. They sense the heat and CO2 and come right out. I dispose of them with a tissue into the toliet but it doesn't really solve the problem. There is nothing more aggravating then seeing that every mourning after all you've done. It's hard to get to them because everything you spray in the shower will obviously not last. But the raid sees to be helping. I think because it kills on contact instead of a slow kill like the suspend.

I hadn't had a single bite for a few days and had only seen one in the shower. Could I be winning finally? Then on Sat I was laying down on my air mattress watching a movie only to start itching my thigh. I looked nothing. Oh I'm just paranoid. No a few hours later I developed the dreaded mosguito like bump. The fucker bit me while I was awake. I have had the tiny red dot bites up until now since like Nov. I think the big bites are from adults. This is not good since the whole point of fumigating, to kill all the adults.

Since I sleep on an air mattress on the floor I can't do the glass jars around the legs and vaseline thing, so I decided to put a circle of Drione dust around my bed thinking well at least they won't be able to get to me unless they survive the suspend sprayed on the walls and ceiling and jump from the ceiling. Woke up today with little red dots on my arms again. Aggghhh....

I sleep with a vinyl pillow case that has the zipper sealed shut by packing tape. I am now washing the pillow in hot water and bleach perhaps that was the culprit? We'll see.

I have been noticing silverfish all over my apt. Odd thing is the stuff I sprayed should kill it. But I have seen a couple of dead cockroachs, one today in fact, and a dead wasp. So does the spray work I wonder? God I hope. I ordered online from do it yourself pest control a magnifying glass designed to help identify bugs. I'm excited to get it to see what trully is dirt vs a bed bug and to show my boyfriend so he stops thinking I'm nuts, he only kind of does now I think. I think it'll be a great investment for future travels to inspect hotels I stay at. In fact after what I've gone through I think everyone should have one.

[Bugged in Atlanta]

Well as you can see it's about 2 months since my last blog entery Next week I will be on my 6th spraying and a few days ago I saw 2 dead adults one on my bedroom window sill the other in my bathroom window sill. So they are still with me. I have been spraying with Demand and Suspend I feel like it is controlling the situation but not stopping it. I feel like my only hope is to move again (the soonest I can is in 4 more months) with little possesions.

The worst is the shower I see the tiny dot version of them which no one would think twice about if they saw. I have tried spraying after I shower, but it doesn't really help. I have been using bleach with a washcloth it helps temporarily but doesn't last long. Has anyone had a similar experience? Any ideas of what I should do?Anything I could spray in the shower that might have an istant kill? The stuff I use has a residual slow kill action but doesn't stick to the tile well and about 3/4 doesn't dry on the tile. I feel like I will never get rid of them untill I get rid of them in my shower.

[ABigFatWasteofTime]

Atlanta, i used a product called Kleen Free which is a natural enzyme that breaks down the exoskeleton of the bug and kills it on contact. You can find it online, not in stores. I think there are a variety of similar products out there at this point. The problem, of course, is that you can't find them all to spray it on them and i'm not sure it kills the eggs, which has been the biggest damn problem in eradicating these fuckers to begin with. Best of luck to you and everyone who is fighting the good fight. Don't let the bastards get you down. -ABFWOT

[Bugged in Vancouver]

We spent one year on "the couches" in an empty (read that as stipped) apartment. 13 months after the last professional fumigation we purchased new beds and moved back into our bedrooms in February 2006. I continue to be concerned because we are in the same building and I simply can't believe the problem does not exist in the building itself. I continue to be "alert". Any small itch sends me into the bathroom for a personal inspection. Then I get the Mag Light and "hunt". So far so good. However, we do live in a state of paranoia. When a cat scratches an ear, we go into a state of alarm. Not sure how long this fear will continue - perhaps - foreva. We continue to see furniture / mattresses abandonded at the dumpster. We wonder. Moving is still not an option. A concrete bunker will be the next habitat. My new bed is on a metal frame and set 18 inches away from the walls. I have become permanently obsessed.

[Bugged in Atlanta]

Well, I'm on the 6th spraying. I waited 3 weeks this time because it's getting to costly finacialy and mostly time consuming and exhausting to keep up my every two week schedule. Really the stuff is supose to lst at least a month but is strongest the first two weeks.

I hadn't seen any signs of them except in my shower still for the last couple of weeks until a couple of nights ago my hand and arm was attacked and I saw two dead adult bugs in my bedroom window (so I guess waiting 3 weeks is ok cause it still obviously worked. I feel like all my measures are only keeping the infestation from getting worse but not eliminating the bugs.

I think until we are able to eliminate the nest in the shower we will still have them. The problem is how? I have tried bleaching the shower twice a day. Which did help for about 12 hrs. Spraying with demand SC in the shower after every shower once it's dried out. Didn't help much. Sparaying with raid, had a few times I thought it worked but didn't do much. I talked to the people at Do It Yourself Pestcontrol and they didn't have any other suggestions but to spray with demand in the shower as stated before. Any ideas? Did you have them in your shower Bugged in Vancover?

[Bugged in Vancouver]

Actually, Atlanta, that part of your experience continues to puzzle me. I had no idea that bedbugs could live in a shower / wet environment. I haven't seen any information on it but then I never knew anything about bedbugs until they bit me! Have you had the pest control people identify the shower "nest" as bedbugs? Scary.