View Full Version : More Bedbug talk
some of you might remember my earlier post about my daughter having bedbugs. She is in a city that's plagued with them.
She came home for christmas and we "decontaminated" her and her things and were very careful.
So far, no sign of them here.
She vacuumed her room in this other town and put everything she could into a hot dryer. She also bought special mattress and boxsprings and pillow covers. She only saw 1 baby one in about 10 days after cleaning out.
Last night she found one on her bed and now her housemate has a bunch of them in her bed.
She's coming home again next weekend, and it will require alot of work to "decontaminate" her stuff again.
It would cost DD and her 2 other roommates over $1,000 to have the house de-bugged. But then anyone could bring them back in again.........on their clothes, in bags, purses, coats, etc.
Where does this end? I think I'll call the health department in that city, but I know what they'll say. Just seems like this problem has gotten VERY out of control. I wish they'd invent some chemical that would sterilize them.
Its really starting to get DD down. Its hard to just accept that you're going to have to share your bed with bugs, but I'm not sure there's any real longterm solution.
Even if the three of them had money to fumigate the house, they could pick them up just about anywhere and bring them in.
Seems insurmountable. :(
Mighty Frugal
1-6-12, 9:01pm
They could pick them up anywhere but so could any of us. I think they should chip in and pay the $$ to get rid of them. By not paying for it, does that mean they have resigned themselves to allowing these squatters permanent residency?
I've heard they are extremely difficult to remove on your own. I'd pay to have the place fumigated. And then take the necessary precautions to try to not let them back in-but we all live in a society so it's never a guarantee
good luck
you can live with them without getting bitten -- i did for anfew months before i could move out of my awful apartment in new york. here is what i did. the important thing to remember is that, unless your infestation is really bad, bedbugs don't typically like to live in your bed -- they like to burrow in wood. wooden nightstands, bedframes, baseboards, etc.
* move the bed away from the wall so it's not touching any walls
* get the zipper containers for mattress and box spring
* put pillows in a hot dryer
* wash all laundry and take it out of the dryer (hot dryer!) and put it directly into those giant ziploc zipper bags
* if she has a wooden frame bed, she should switch it for a plain metal bedframe (they are pretty cheap)
* put each leg of the bed in a dish of mineral oil. this prevents the little bastards from getting up the bed leg into the bed to bite her
* keep pajamas, bedclothes, and pillows on the bed and off the floor
* change into pajamas before getting into bed
be being fairly fanatical about all this, she can live with them at least until the landlord can get an exterminator in. and it IS the landlord's responsibility -- it's a building-level infestation. if s/he is shirking it, definitely call the housing authority for the city, or at least tell the landlord you are going to!
i ended up having to get my own exterminator -- cost about $300 and was worth every penny. he did my old place and did my new place when i moved (just to be on the safe side, in case there was an egg on my furniture somewhere) for that price. it's not cheap but, man, having bedbugs is depressing. it really messes with your mind and your sleep.
hope she can get this taken care of and get moved and deal with it without bites in the meantime.
also, the chemicals they use keep your place safe for a bit. and it's really quite rare to just bring bedbugs in from the street -- possible, but rare. they really don't come out much during the day (again, unless the infestation is really bad) -- they like the dark.
i've also heard that some dry ice placed somewere else in the apartment can confuse them, as they are drawn to the smell of co2 in your breath, but i never tried that.
good luck to her! bedbugs are the worst.
Thanks Mighty Frugal and madgeylou.
She's done alot of the things you mentioned, but I think they've gone to the other roommates rooms now. There's one of the roommates that's just not compliant, so it makes it hard on everyone else.
Plus, they are always having people over, so you never know who's bringing what into the house.
Actually, in her state (Ohio), the landlords are not responsible for treating for bedbugs. DD has tried to reach the previous tenant to find out if the bedbugs were already there, but hasn't had any luck. I'm thinking it would help get the landlord to pay for it, if they knew the place was infested before DD moved in.
DD has called around and it sounds like it would be at least $1,000 U.S. dollars to get the place decontaminated.
I guess the city she lives in has problems everywhere with bedbugs......libraries, restaurants, nice hotels, etc., etc.
Seems like something in nature must be out of whack for these little buggers to take over in so many places.
I've read that one of the new methods of decontamination is to heat the house up to 115 degrees F, which kills them all.Seems like it might be rough on alot of the other things in the house too, though.
They even have bedbug sniffing dogs too!
All I can say is EEEwwwwwwwwww.
Thanks for your help!
Originally posted by CathyA.
I've read that one of the new methods of decontamination is to heat the house up to 115 degrees F, which kills them all.Seems like it might be rough on alot of the other things in the house too, though.That it is... I listened to a radio program on bedbugs, and almost all of the listeners who called-in to share advice/stories, told of damaged property and goods after the heating process. IMO, not worth it.
That's good to know Mrs. M! Seems like you'd have to removed all the electronics and it would wreak havoc on all the furniture too. Seems like scientists could invent something that would make them sterile (and not kill us humans at the same time.)
That's right, CathyA. The people also spoke of things not sitting proper after the process and not fitting right, like lids on things, plastic bowls, Rubbermaid and Tupperware containers, ornaments, as well as a gamut of other things affected by the intense heat. So many possessions permanently damaged through warping and melting.
even if the other rooms are infested, and if people bring them into the house, your DD should be able to avoid getting bitten by following the steps above ... my apartment building was filled with them. she just can't let anyone else sit or lie on her bed -- they can sit in chairs, on the floor, whatever, but not the bed.
even if one gets into the bed, there will be nowhere for them to live due to the plastic bags around mattresses and box springs and the fact that she is laundering sheets / pajamas and drying pillows regularly. they'll either die quickly, or head to a more congenial habitat.
i can't believe that the owner of the building wouldn't be responsible! that's terrible! how is a college kid supposed to "prove" they were there before or not? is the landlord just giving up?
one more reason never to live in ohio again ...
they were a terrible problem in new york a few years ago, but i haven't had any friends or acquaintances who've had to deal with them in quite a while. there ARE chemicals that work, pyrethins, that disrupt the hormones. they're not as intense as, say, DDT, but still.
and my heart goes out to your daughter. it is really a mind game more than anything else. i mean, mosquitos carry disease and we don't freak out about their bites the way we do bedbugs. i think it's just something psychological about having your sleep disturbed. i know it was for me. good luck to all of you.
PS: freezing them out works, too! i put my books in the freezer for 2 days (rotated them through, putting them in ziploc bags when they had been frozen) before i moved.
I hadn't thought about the books and freezer. DD wanted to bring a book home the last time and I said no. Do you think 2 days in the freezer is long enough?
Maybe when she moves, she should rent a chest freezer, just for freezing these little buggers to death. That's a good idea! Its better than keeping everything in plastic bags for a year!
DD keeps referring to her bed as a "bedbug coffin", since she bought those special mattress/box spring covers that bb's can't get in or out of. But I don't think they actually live INSIDE the mattress, right? I think they like to live mostly in the little beading around the mattresses/the frame/and in between the top and bottom mattress.
I guess I hadn't thought in terms of settling for just not getting bit. I was thinking in terms of eradicating them altogether..........but I guess not getting bit is better than nothing! And I guess if the buggers can't bite, then they'll go elsewhere.
I feel bad for DD. She was having some major problems in her life and she had fixed up her bedroom to be a real "oasis" for her.....nice, comfy bed, comfy chair and lamp to sit in a read, etc. Then she finds these
bugs! If I were her, I would wait until dark, turn on a heating pad under the quilt, and a couple hours later, check it and kill any of the bugs.
We've been thinking about getting her some diatomaceous earth. I guess when they walk through it, they die. You can sprinkle it around the legs of your bed to keep them from climbing up, but her bed linens sometimes droop down to the floor. I've also read they can climb to the ceiling and drop down onto the bed.
I guess landlords would go broke if they had to pay to get rid of these bugs, where college kids live. The kids are at ages when they can be messy and not do things they're supposed to do, and then have lots of friends over, who might bring some bugs/eggs with them.
We'll see. I think unless the 3 girls living there can all shell out alot of money........it might be a matter of just trying to keep the bugs under control. I'm encouraged by the fact that since DD covered her mattresses with those special covers, cleaned up her room, vacuums all the time, and washes and dries clothes and linens in hot water, that she has only seen 1 adult bug and 1 baby bug in 10 days, I think that's a good sign.
Then again.......she was gone from her room for a couple days and I have the feeling that's when the bugs went searching for another warm body in the other girls room.
DD has quit letting a cat sleep with her too. I even bought her a nit-picking comb for her to use on the cat.
DD was so busy before the bugs showed up, their presence almost pushed her over the edge! I can understand that.
In trying to cope with humor, I told her this morning that for her birthday, we were going to buy her a gift certificate to "Bed,Bug, and Beyond." hahaha She appreciated that.
I reminded her that people who live in the tropics and areas like that, get used to things like ****roaches. She said that the bedbugs don't freak her out as much as before. But.........of course she'd still be happier without them.
I have lots of encouragement for her and advice on how to stay calm..............but man, if they show up in our house, I'm going to FREAK!! haha
Hey, maybe she could keep one of those electric/light bug-zappers on the floor in her room? (just kidding).
total eradication is best, but not getting bitten is better than getting bitten. especially because, in my case, i started developing more and more extreme bites. like, over time their bites were more and more toxic to my body. i still remember the last one i had -- it was huge. <shiver.>
from what i've read, their favorite place to live is wood. they like getting inside the mattress/boxsprings in the wooden parts, they like living in baseboards, etc. and then when they detect your CO2 in the middle of the night, they come out and bite. BLERG.
it sounds like she's taken a lot of good steps but there are a few more she can do. keeping bedclothes on the bed only, and isolating the legs of the bed so that bugs can't crawl up will both help a lot. a dish of mineral oil is impossible for them to get through.
basically, the less hospitable she can make her room to them, the more they will go elsewhere to seek warm bodies they can get to. they can run but not really hop, so isolating the bed from any other surface is the key.
Thanks madgeylou,
I did tell her to pull her bed out from the walls.
With all the other trap-like lures they've developed for things like roaches, seems like they could develop something to trap bedbugs.
Too bad they can live so long, even without a meal of blood.
Actually, I read that roaches are their natural predators. Maybe I should send her some roaches?? ;)
Maybe because they have developed so many roach traps/chemicals, that's why the bedbugs are out of control?
Sure seems like there must be a reason for this incredible increase in their numbers, besides not using DDT any more.
Thanks for your suggestions madgeylou! Nothing better than talking to someone who has had them before and fought the fight!
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