Bed bugs

[Roadrunner]

I think I have them 😱

I have five bites in a straight line.

 

How do I get rid of them???

[Spryte]

Oh no.

 

I’m so sorry!

 

My ILs had them at their assisted living home, and had to hire professionals. They also replaced all their furniture and basically everything - but that must have been overkill.

[Roadrunner]

Oh no.

 

I’m so sorry!

 

My ILs had them at their assisted living home, and had to hire professionals. They also replaced all their furniture and basically everything - but that must have been overkill.

Are you serious???

I would gladly replace everything, if I could afford it, but that’s not in the cards.

 

 

I want to know why my DH isn’t bitten.

[happi duck]

Do you have pets and it could be fleas? When we dealt with fleas only half of us seemed to be bitten but it was actually that we reacted to the bites. Probably everyone was bitten.

 

Hope it's actually something simple!

[Kassia]

I don't want to scare you, but I have a friend who has had a nightmare experience with bedbugs.  Apparently, she had them in the house and she and her DH weren't getting bitten or didn't notice, but her dd came home from college and was bitten and, by then, the house was full of them.  They hired Terminix and had to bag up all their clothes, linens, etc. and put everything in the garage.  Even with Terminix, they can't seem to get completely rid of them.  Just when they think they are gone, they find more in the traps or elsewhere.  I never knew bedbugs were such a terrible nuisance.  It's really been awful for them.  Hopefully, if you have them, they will be much easier to get rid of.

[TeenagerMom]

First, you need to find where they are.  We had them in a couch we purchased and caught them early enough they were still contained to just there.  Check your bed.  Bed bugs typically choose one person to bite and continue feeding off that person and also not everyone reacts to the bites. My hubby is very allergic to them. No one else in the house is apparently.  Continue sleeping in your room on your bed. If you have a small infestation limited to the one room, you don't want them to go in search of food and spread throughout the house.

 

The BedBugger forums are a fantastic source of information.  We treated with a steamer and DE, checked religiously for 60 calendar days  and called it good. We've had no more issues.

[Roadrunner]

We don’t have any pets. My DH thinks I am exaggerating, but he isn’t the one with bites. I was hoping they were spider bites, but I don’t think spiders bite in a straight line.

I am freaking out.

 

I guess we will start by attempting to locate them. It’s probably a bed. 😱😱😱

[Roadrunner]

. Continue sleeping in your room on your bed. If you have a small infestation limited to the one room, you don't want them to go in search of food and spread throughout the house.

.

I should willingly become their supper?! 😭

[maize]

When we have had bites in a line like that they came from a spider.

[JFSinIL]

My dd had them in her townhome, and it took THREE visits from a pest control place to kill the buggers. Not a fun time.

[Roadrunner]

When we have had bites in a line like that they came from a spider.

This is my hope!

[Spryte]

Are you serious???

I would gladly replace everything, if I could afford it, but that’s not in the cards.

 

 

I want to know why my DH isn’t bitten.

 

I think it was overkill.  Really.  Seriously.  But they live in a tiny, tiny one bedroom apartment, and they really only had 3 pieces of furniture to replace - 2 chairs and a bed - so it wasn't a big deal for them.  I think it was an excuse to get electric recliners (the kind that lift up, if you've seen those, for people who have trouble getting up), and separate twin beds.  It wasn't a hardship.  The worst part was that they tossed all the keepsake type stuff they were saving in a special box for DH - but he's not sad about that, either.  So it's okay.  

 

Are you sure you have bed bugs?  Maybe you just have a rash?  (I haven't read further in the thread yet, you may have answered that already.)

[KatieJ]

We picked them up last fall. Lovely.

I washed all the bedding, rugs, etc. in the room. When I got under the foam topper mpcover, that’s where found a very small nest.

Once all ththe. Edging was out of the room, we set off a bed but bomb. Two hours later we vacuumed everything thoroughly and put the bed back together.

So far so good. It’s been over three months.

[Garga]

I should willingly become their supper?! 😭

Yes. I had bedbugs and it was the same for me. The exterminator said that if I moved from the bed, the bugs would, too, and then the whole house would have bedbugs and it would be terrible trying to treat the whole house.

 

First, you need to know for sure you have them.

 

Look all over the mattress--slide the top one off of the box springs---look for little black spots. After they drink your blood, they poo it out and it looks like black dots (like dried blood spots.). That's the classic sign for bed bugs.

 

They can hide ANYwhere. They hide in picture frames, in furniture, in electrical sockets, in book binding...anywhere.

 

For us, we had to treat my bedroom and the adjoining rooms to it (a bathroom and a living room).

 

All of our possessions in those rooms had to be placed in plastic bags and tightly sealed. If there were any bugs in those possessions, they would be contained in the bags. We visually inspected everything for bugs. Some things were too much of a pain to inspect, so we just decluttered it into the trash. (Can't give it away or you might be giving bugs to someone else.)

 

The stuff had to live in the bags for weeks and weeks.

 

All of our clothes had to be washed and then dried at a temperature of 120 degrees for 15 minutes. I even put our shoes in the dryer for 15 minutes. My home dryer doesn't get hot, so I took the clothes to the laundromat so the dryer would get hot enough. I didn't feel that I was spreading the bugs, because the dryer would kill them.

 

The exterminator came and sprayed everything he was legally allowed to spray--the furniture, but not the mattresses. I bought mattress covers for the mattress and box spring and any bugs that might have been hiding the in the mattresses would be stuck in the covers and die.

 

The spray causes the bugs to want to come out and eat, so you have to lie in the bed after the spray as bait. When they come out wanting to feed, they walk through a different poison that will eventually kill them.

 

After spraying, you slowly start to take your possessions out of the bags. I used a local guy as our exterminator, and he would come out every 2 weeks for about 2 months to double check for the bugs. Before he'd come, I'd open a couple of bags and then wait for him to inspect for bugs. Then I'd open some more. It was a huge pain having all our stuff in those bags. I labeled them and every time I needed something, we'd have to search for the right bag and then open it up and search inside for the item, and then close it back up tightly. I don't think that big name exterminators come back as often, but the local guy was the owner of his business and was super good with customer service. He wasn't just some hired hand doing the job. He was invested in his company. He came out every 2 weeks for 2 months and we were all clear.

 

He said we were the first people he'd ever had who didn't need a second treatment of the poison. He said that no one ever bags up all their stuff the way they're supposed to, so the bugs manage to hide. But we bagged EVERYTHING in the affected rooms and all that was left was bare furniture that could be treated.

 

There were some things that we didn't use often and left in bags for over a year. Bedbugs can hibernate for 12 months and still live, so we put our paperwork and leather jackets in bags and left them in the attic for a year.

 

I hope it's not bedbugs. A friend of mine thought she had them, but oddly enough, her problem was ants. This area gets a lot of ants. The cleanest people have them. For whatever reason, her ants were in the bedroom (she does like to snack there), and they were biting her.

Edited December 14, 2017 by Garga

[Liz CA]

Are you serious???

I would gladly replace everything, if I could afford it, but that’s not in the cards.

 

 

I want to know why my DH isn’t bitten.

 

Why should they try him when you are so tasty?

 

Sorry, I cannot offer anything useful other than  :grouphug:  and hoping it's just a spider.

[TXSusan]

We had a bedbug infestation this year. I wouldn't wish bedbugs on my worst enemy! We didn't realize what the problem was until most of the house was infected. We decided to go with whole-house heating treatment. We had treatment in late July, but had to have another treatment in September. They had closed off the bathrooms, not realizing that there was a closet connected to the master bathroom. There were still bedbugs in the closet, so we had more bedbugs. When they reheated the house, that took care of the problem.

 

Check mattresses, especially at the head of the bed. Look for black dots, as previously mentioned. You could have a pest control company check out your house. They would be able to let you know if it's bedbugs, or something else. If only one room is involved you may be able to treat it yourself. There is a lot of information available online.

 

I hope that you don't have bedbugs!

 

Susan