BED BUGS

Either don't make your bed, or turn-down your bed in the morning. The stops the bed being a warm, moist envronment which bed bugs thrive in.

Bedbugs are spoiling my sleep

they are almost impossible to get rid of, and with all due respect, turning down or not making the bed has nothing to do with it. your friend needs to vacuum his/her apt top to bottom, including all furniture and soft surfaces, and focus on crevices/baseboards. wrapping the mattress in plastic can help. there are a few pesticides that are supposed to work (drione is one), but they're not legal in new york. our downstairs neighbor got some stuff called real kill from home depot that we've all been using, with some success.

also - if it seems bad, the mattress has to go.

Thankfully I've never had them but I have had friends that have had to move because of bed bugs. Lauren is right they really are almost impossible to get rid of. Getting a new mattress and replacing furniture is usually a must.

ugh, wow. i can't imagine.

Also, tell your friend to check out the following sites:

http://www.bedbugregistry.com/
www.bedbugger.com

thx!

I was just wondering this morning if maybe I had bedbugs. I have a couple inexplicable itchy spots on my legs.

u should get itchy spots checked out! i guess they happen in scattered, small spots, but they itch a bunch

jesus christ am i ever glad that i got the hell out of new york

yea wtf, is this only a ny thing?

interestingly enough http://www.bedbugregistry.com/ is my friend's site.

Jesse, they feel like HORRIBLE mosquito bites. Raised and weepy.

good night

sleep tight

yea wtf, is this only a ny thing?

No, the bedbug infestation has been really bad here in Boston the last couple years. The dept of pub health now labels all items left on the curb with big stickers warning people of the bedbug danger. Gross.

EWW good point! i never thought of it

what I read is that bedbugs were history because of the kinds of chemicals we were using on roaches for the better half of the mid to late last century, but when the more ecologically safe baits and traps replaced constant spraying, the bedbugs came back.

my girlfriend had them a few months ago. We dry cleaned tons of stuff, washed stuff and kept them in the dryer forever, got rid of TONS of clothes/sheets etc, put the mattress in a plastic bag and put everything else that wasn't washed in vacuum sealed or just tied-shut bags. If you put clothes in an airtight bag and leave them there for 3 months, the bugs will starve. Beyond all that we sprayed and vacuumed and washed all our furniture.

In the end an exterminator looked around and said he didn't see any signs of the bugs (they leave little marks on the mattress, usually) and my girlfriend didn't get any more bites. He said it's possible to pick 1 up and bring it home, it eats for a few nights then you accidently kill it at some point and that's it. Maybe we were lucky.

If you put clothes in an airtight bag and leave them there for 3 months, the bugs will starve. Beyond all that we sprayed and vacuumed and washed all our furniture.

^ its more like 3 weeks

I thought they could live without out food for up to a year??

ddt is supposedly the be all, end all bed bug killer but it's not legal anymore. i think i read that there have been tentative moves made to relegalize it for limited use, but i could be making that up.

Black Market DDT

it's all rachel carson's fault

I guess, Laurel?

The best thing to do is to sleep somewhere else while isolating everything clean in plastic and waging chemical warfare.

if you can, allow your apartment to get below freezing for one night

I think the deal is that if you've had yr mattress fumigated or steamed, it's helpful to wrap it up in plastic afterward until you're sure the rest of the infestation is gone...otherwise it just gets re-grossed.

Ugh, what a nightmare. I moved into an apartment here in Vancouver with a minor infestation last year, and it was a serious pain in the ass. We ended up having a pest guy come in several times, thankfully paid for by landlord, who treated the place and also gave us this enzyme spray which kills adult bugs-- we basically sprayed down all the furniture and washed the floors, baseboards, etc. regularly with it. This went on for a couple months, but we got rid of them without moving or chucking shit out.

Thank goodness my apt is uncomfortably cold and has giant cement floors separating the storeys. Knocking wood I never get these.

me too... i'm kindo f scared

when i was watching 'i am legend' i couldn't stop thinking of bed bugs. quarantine NYC.

i am really not the person to get something like this. i'm so paranoid i would probably just move.

Even if you moved, you'd still have to go nuts on every piece of clothing or furniture you own, before you could even start dragging them into the hallway.

In their plastic bubbles.

right.

great.

Now I'm kind of nervous b/c I have a couple weird bites on me that itch, and when my neighbors moved in (about a year and a half ago) they told me that they had to leave their last place b/c of bedbugs.

oh. u should have a check up!

i guess using a hair dryer on your bed/furniture can help

oh god that just sounds like a hellish month, hairdrying your whole fucking apartment. i mean, it's just so awful.

the most telling sign of bed bugs is when the bites are several in a row, about an inch or so apart. Apparently they start biting you while you're sleeping, you get restless and move a bit, it knocks them out, they move an inch away and bite again, and this repeats.

it doesn't look at all like flea bites. very distinctive

Hmmm...well then I feel better. I sometimes have allergic reactions similar to the current itchiness, but I've been living in squalor for the past couple months (at least sort of--haven't done laundry in over a month b/c the laundromat is far away and the weather's been shitty) and I got worried.

(My laundry pile is now higher above my dresser top--about 4-1/2 feet. Just been buying new clothes and handwashing some.)

jesse! just drop it off!!

I should. But also I work a lot and (yet, somehow) I've been broke.

My life sucks a little bit right now.

=/ winter doldroms

the bites usually appear in groups of 3. it's not so much that they get knocked off, rather that they're feeding more than once as i understand it.

(bites appeared in groups of 3 for me, anyway.)

oh, and it's possible to have no reaction if you're not allergic to the saliva. i was waking up with itchy spots, and my bf wasn't. as far as he knew, nothing was wrong. we thought i had an allergic reaction to something until our neighbors mentioned it to us.

yes

this is what is happening to my friend -- her hsuband has no reaction

I've actually been told that men are far less likely to have a reaction to the bites than women are.

Sorry about that, ladies.

Yeah, go actually carry out that routine seems so tedious, I can believe anyone would do it!

#shitpeoplewithbedbugssay

ugh i'm so sorry.

I used to dread getting bedbugs SO much, and I still dread it, but I felt much better when an exterminator once hand waved and told me "bed bugs are easy- it's fleas that are the real pain in the ass to get rid of".

I'm still in denial I think. I think the worst part will be hogging the 3 washing machines for the whole weekend (there are 3 for the entire building - around 60 units)

Oh, also when word gets out that we have bed bugs an everyone else completely hates us

they won't hate you, they just won't ever come over

i'm sorry to hear about your situation
stay strong karl!

Do NYC neighbors really still condemn bed-bug-havers? Where the fuck do they think the bed bugs came from? Spontaneous generation in your apartment alone?

It's ok. Feels like a rite of passage that I've been lucky enough to avoid until now.

Ugh, just had a daydream about one of the bugs filling himself up with my blood, and then she returns to the mattress and has a make out sesh with the husband bug and my blood flies around the box spring. After an appropriate bed bug gestation period passes, a squealing newborn emerges from a pool of my blood.

In some ways I am most powerful as the provider and deity for this community of parasites! *drop d tuning drone*

I don't actually know if the neighbors will be mad or not, but I'm just assuming they will. I've read too many polls about what American think about basic scientific facts to have any faith that they'll understand where bed bugs come from. :(

xp that is actually less horrific than the reality of how bedbugs reproduce: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traumatic_insemination

(trigger warning for that link if u couldn't already tell)

i recommend that you do not luxuriate in the horror -- just take care of business and move on
otherwise, it can become kind of all-consuming (and insomnia-inducing, at least for me)

and yes, people all over the country will still turn up their noses at finding out their neighbors/friends have a BB infestation

xp that is actually less horrific than the reality of how bedbugs reproduce: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traumatic_insemination

(trigger warning for that link if u couldn't already tell)

― example (crüt), Friday, February 27, 2015 11:12 AM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that is fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucked up

gotta say BED BUGS live up to the hype. they are as bad as ppl say.

Once you have gone to INSANE-seeming lengths to get rid of them (and you should), I gotta rep for a product called Fabriclear which is a nontoxic spray, easy to find in stores/online. It works, but I recommend using a whole bottle every 2-3 weeks until you're SURE they're gone for good.

i stayed in a hostel in amsterdam about 10 years ago and in the days following it all these tiny bites emerged everywhere on my body, it was terrifying. figured it was bed bugs but i did not carry the infestation with me, thank fucking god

could've been fleas if the bites were small and they didn't haunt you for impossibly long periods of time

1. Get a mattress & boxspring cover so either they're in or they're out but they're not both. If there were any inside they'll be dead in a year or by the next time you move, which is the only time you'll ever take the cover off anyway.
2. Dryer dry or freeze or dry-clean everything. (Things like books that can't be washed can go in plastic bags in the freezer.)
3. Whatever kind of spray works and you're comfortable with its level of toxicity.
4. Diatomaceous earth sprinkled around the baseboards and bed and stuff.

It's kind of a long-term job meaning you go back and do it again in 1 week, then 10 days, then 2 weeks, etc, but you don't have to throw away the entire contents of your apt like some people used to do!

JESUS CHRIST BEDBUG COITUS WTF

I had no idea, and now I can never go back to not knowing. Fuck.

remove bookmark :(
good luck karl

"bed bugs are easy- it's fleas that are the real pain in the ass to get rid of"

yep, fleas not nearly as horrific as bedbugs but I am dealing with the 3rd wave of flea bites in last 8-9 months because the crazy lady downstairs doesn't clean her apt/take care of her cats and it vexing

What are y'all's opinions re:heat treatments? My friend swears by the ones she had done at her old apartment.

Just ordered a new bed (overdue for one anyway, but y'know, no money forever).

Might buy some of that Diatomaceous earth ment'd above to put under the bed and mattress at the hardware store.

Besides washing or burning all my clothes and towels, what else? Near zero-budget level.

btw they might be fleas, i don't know, but the doorman told me last year that someone in the building had bedbugs.

Once you have gone to INSANE-seeming lengths to get rid of them (and you should),

yeah, i just can't expend that kind of energy on anything.

also i haven't actually seen one yet, but the 3 bites i got look like the internet pics.

if you haven't already done it:

1) buy a plastic cover for your current bed, if you still have it.
2) when the new bed arrives, keep it wrapped up in plastic and away from everything else. don't want to risk ruining your nice new bed while this is going on.

the best tip that i didn't know about at the time is:

3) this'll look a little insane, but push your current bed away from the walls a few feet, then put soapy tupperware containers underneath each of the four legs. these are death moats to protect your bed. Advanced guide here: http://cchealth.org/bedbugs/pdf/How-to-Make-Your-Bed-a-Safe-Haven-from-Bed-Bugs.pdf

hmmmm... thanks.

biggest problem is i don't have a few feet. and my bed doesn't really have legs. (The frame basically broke apart years ago.)

i think getting rid of a few of the mounds of magazines and newspapers would probably help too.

hmm, not having legs on the bed is a bummer, my wife and i used these little cup things on the legs of our bed with diatomaceous earth in them when we lived in a place with bed bugs and it worked really well - never got bitten. i suppose just putting diatomaceous earth all round the bed in a little mound could help.

we threw away our box spring, dried everything fabric that would fit in a tumble dryer for like a couple of hours, and put a cover on the mattress, threw away some books that were near the bed (found a bed bug inside a copy of borges' labyrinths) . a couple of months later we were lucky enough to be able to move - our landlady's daughter had had bedbugs and left a bunch of her washing in the basement, with bedbugs in it, basically infesting the house. landlady didn't care about this or even think it was the root, was the final straw. our new place just had black mould instead of bedbugs.

thx jim & Karl

i see online that my bldg management will send an exterminator, so i guess i'm calling.

btw KM that pdf you linked recommends a fabric cover as being safer than a plastic one.

also a new frame is coming with the new bed, so i guess i could put the d-earth under the legs then.

so it's safe to unpack the new bed about a month from now?

fuckin' nightmare

Been through it -- nightmare it is.

More effective than an exterminator is if they can heat your apartment to something like 120 for 8 hours. Heat kills better than anything they can spray.

i used a fabric cover, it worked - still have the same mattress now and have been bedbug free for 3 years

commisserations dr morb

my apt goes up to 120 in August, but i hope i'll have moved by then

Ugh, bed bugs are vile and hideous. I had them for a while, though it took me long enough to find what they were and what was happening. Someone in my building had told me a while before that her neighbour had had them, I didn't think anymore about it but the little bastards are nothing if not expansionist. Anyway, ditched my bed, bed clothes etc, found them in a pile of magazines near my bed, and in the spine of a book and several other places. I got rid of them by going on a mad killing spree, armed with WD40, which kills them (and most insects) instantly. Touch wood, they've never come back (holes and knotholes in wood being somewhere they like to congregate).

... this was several years ago, so pretty certain I'm safe now.

i'm a pedestrian. does WD40 leave stains?

Probably, I'm not recommending it as anything other than a way to instantly get rid of the bastards. Professional help would be preferable.

so i take it the boxspring/mattress covers are in the bedding store

Bedding, Bathing & Beyond has them.

Bed, Bath & BED BUGS

tore the bed apart, found nobody.

spread the d-earth around.

so my landlord's exterminator refused to spray for them bcz i had no "evidence"

ie i didn't save the one i pulled off my butt at the beginning

now i have psychosomatic itching and am determined to move

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/10/bed-bug-madness-the-psychological-toll-of-the-blood-suckers/381447/

the new bed i bought in April is still in the box, of course.

who has a freezer big enough to put all their books?

fuck this, had a scare which, yeah, posted about up thread about a thousand years ago.

now it's the real deal, not def infesting, maybe coming from neighbors apt. dealing w/ our own pest control company we called and managements, someone's coming friday. start some treatments as well as super going to use silicone to plug up gaps around floorboard.

in the meantime box spring and mattress and pillows are covered. bed pulled away from wall. Was recommended to temporarly put masking tape covered w/ vaseline around the bed so doing that now.

bugs have no effect on me. wife is covered in huge itchy bites. we'll start drying and bagging clothes shortly but don't know what to do with all the books in the bedroom. And my entire home studio. mangement's people do the spray, they say is fine for electronics. that makes me really really nervous.

fuck this. was about to make a snarky comment about bringing back DDT but went and read about that and decided that's a stupid thing to say.

I used diatomaceous earth round the bed frame (You get special plastic cups that you put the legs in and the diatomaceous earth sits in a little moat around them). Put any fabric that can withstand being put in the dryer on high in the dryer for 90 minutes or so. Vacuum like crazy, dumping the bags immediately if you have that type of vacuum. If you have the time look through your books, I literally found a bug sitting in a book. And threw the book out. Can't think of anything else other than the spraying.

in the most horrific apartment i ever lived in, i think only reason the bedbugs went away was because ants came in and killed them

where can i get these ants you speak of?

this is a nightmare of mine. best of luck

That sucks. Does Marie Kondo have a chapter about this?