ugh, so disgusted. potentially very MM.

[jm1982]

we found bedbugs in our apartment today. +o( :-( +o(

last night i noticed in the middle of the night that i had a bite on my arm.
then this morning, i was sitting on the bed with my cat, reading, and i noticed something small and reddish crawling on my hand. so i stuck it in a ziplock bag and googled images of common bugs (flea? nope. tick? nope. bedbug? oh no.)
THEN, i ripped up the sheets and searched the mattress pad - found nothing, then under the mattress pad in the mattress seams and creases - still nothing, then finally under the bed skirt on the top of the box springs. nothing around the foot of the bed, a few tiny suspect stains on the bedskirt at the midsection, and then the horrible telltale stains at the head of the bed at the corner.

i called DH hysterical after i was poking at my corner of the box springs and SOMETHING CRAWLED OUT.

he came home, i took a very hot shower, and we've left three messages for our landlord trying to figure out what the next step is (we live in a 3-flat walkup, neighbors below us).

so looking at the stains, they seem to be concentrated to the two head corners, much worse on his side (though he's never noticed a bite). we have a pet, we keep extra clothing items under the bed in storage bins, we did a ton of laundry last night and had it ALL on top of the bed as we were hanging it up, etc.

i'm looking for advice on our next steps, and for any personal experience on how much this might cost. google is alternatingly terrifying me ("we tried four different services and all these home remedies and threw out all our stuff and we still have bedbugs") and making it seem like NBD. state law here is that the landlord only has to pay for the extermination service for bedbugs if 2 or more units are affected, and we haven't heard about anything regarding the neighbors. we won't do anything until we hear back from the landlord, but i'm seriously freaking out here.

we keep a clean house, we really do. the maid service is here every other week, but neither we nor they mess with the bedskirt, so who knows how long these things have been here. we went on vacation about 10 days ago (also brought home a cat about that time), so we might have picked them up then. but we've also had other vacations / hotel stays in the past six months, plus the neighbors right below us moved in 6 months ago, and we purchased this mattress and box springs brand new back in october (so i guess they could have been on the truck?). no bites noticed until this week, but the stains seem like they can't all have appeared in a week's time.

[Deleted]

bedbugger.com/2007/01/20/faq-think-you-have-bed-bugs-some-dos-and-donts/

I'm sorry.

[biscoffcookies]

Ugh -- so sorry you are going through this.

First -- do NOT start sleeping somewhere else. The bedbugs will just follow you, as their food source, and it will cause the infestation to spread.

For the short term, you can "sanitize" your bed so that you aren't so sketched out about sleeping there. They sell covers that encase your mattress and box spring and will trap the bedbugs inside. This means the bedbugs hanging out in your bed can't come and bite you (and will therefore eventually die). Second, wash all your bedding (including bed skirt) in hot water and dry it on hot. Throw your pillows in the dryer too for a cycle -- the heat will kill any bedbugs and/or eggs that might be hanging out there.

Then, you can get these: www.amazon.com/Climbup-Insect-Interceptor-Bed-Trap/dp/B0033SC0LI/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1342031693&sr=8-2&keywords=climb+up+interceptors

You put them under the legs of your bed and they will trap any bedbugs that are trying to crawl up. So as long there is nothing else touching the floor that the bedbugs can use (e.g. bedding), they shouldn't be able to get at you at night. (This is especially true if you wash/dry all your pajamas and store them in plastic bags such that bedbugs/eggs don't hitchhike into your bed on your clothes.)

Long term, contact a reputable exterminator. I'd use something like Yelp or Angie's List to find one that you can trust and that is effective. There are a bunch of different methods of remediation, but bedbugs are resilient little buggers and therefore the "generic" pesticides that they might use for ants or spiders will not necessarily work. The exterminator needs to know how to treat bedbugs specifically. Also, I've heard sometimes that exterminators will try to take advantage of people with bedbugs because they do pack such a psychological punch.

Bedbugs are found even in luxury hotels, so they are not a reflection on the cleanliness of your house. Hang in there!!

[Awkward]

+o( I am so sorry you have to deal with this. Please remember this is in no way a reflection of your housecleaning skills. Like someone else said, luxury hotels get bed bugs sometimes. Mattress and pillow protectors are a good start, I think there are also sprays you can use on bedding to repel them? I think I read about that somewhere.

[Deleted]

I've heard you can get your house "heated" to some hot temperature like 140 and it kills them.

[thatgirl2478]

Oh geeze - this is SO not a reflection on you - those little buggers are EVERYWHERE. I wouldn't bother with sprays, from what I've read they are ineffective to say the least.

The good news is that they can't jump. Move your bed away from the wall, make sure your bed skirt isn't touching the floor (better yet, remove it). Encase your mattress & box spring in the bed bug proof bags they sell (you'll have to make sure it's completely sealed and I THINK the buggers can live for 18 mo or so without a meal, so plan to have them on long term. )

As for treating the house - the whole place will need it. The best treatment I've heard about is either freezing them with liquid nitrogen or heating the whole house to 130 + degrees. The good thing about the heating method is it gets them where they hide - in the outlets, behind baseboards, in light switches, in the cracks of your furniture - and you don't have to remove any furniture. Find a professional company and discuss it with your landlord. It may not have been YOU guys that brought them in (bed bugs only eat people, not pets) it could have been ANY of the tenants as they can easily travel through walls along electrical and plumbing lines.

I hope you're able to eradicate them swiftly!

[mrshandy]

Ugghhh....

I'm sorry to say that I'm familiar with these terrible menaces. It really doesn't have to with cleanliness. I lived in this shitty apartment with my sister when we were broke and in grad school. We found them a few months before our lease ended. The apartment complex didn't do jackshit to get rid of them.

We got rid of them as best we could and the bites reduced somewhat. But we could never get rid of them entirely. So when we moved out, I threw away my fairly new mattress and new bed frame since I was terrified of them following me to my new place.

I agree with biscoffcookies advice. There was just a study that showed traditional pesticides will not get rid of them. I would try to find someone who has been recommended by others.

Also, if you have carpet, make sure to vaccuum frequently. I'm sorry you have to deal with this. They are resilient creatures and really hard to get rid of. The thought of them still terrifies me and I check our mattresses every now and then just in case.

[fuddyduddy]

Ugh. I don't have any advice, but I'm sorry you have to deal with bed bugs. They sound like a nightmare.

[Kore]

Omg No advice, just sympathy. This is a nightmare.

[jm1982]

thanks for the responses, everyone. DH and i will be buying mattress and pillow covers (and laundering all bedding) today. i'm still waiting to hear from the landlord. and i definitely do NOT want to encourage these things to spread out across the apartment so we won't be sleeping in the living room tonight (thanks for that tip!). i'm thinking i might need to have a few drinks tonight to be able to sleep in the bedroom, even with the mattress covers. ugh.

[jm1982]

update: we're taking care of isolating the bed today. our landlord finally called us back with the number for the local pest place he uses, and i left a message with them. i'm a little dubious as i can find no information about this company online in regards to bed bug eradication, so i'm also going to read up on what to expect, so that we're prepared in case the company offers wrong advice.