Fear of and getting rid of bed bugs

[Tippy]

Let me start this post by saying I don't have 100% confirmation I even have bed bugs now. But I did them have during my stay in Canada and I found it a deeply traumatic experience.

Something about bed bugs gets deeply into the psyche. It might even be a primal thing. But the idea that you are a host of a parasitic creature that comes out and feeds on you at night is like the description of a horror movie. Then you have this diseased feeling of you having something that you can't publicly discuss that may or may not come out in itching and rashes. One starts to feel like a dirty piece of vermin. If you already have low self-esteem this problem inflames it. Then if you have an autistic mind you can get obsessed with the tools and methods of eradication - reading until ones eyes are stinging and as the slowly dawning horrific realisation comes about that they are near impossible to fully eradicate. It also just seems associated with being a low status human somehow and confirmation of one's own most negative interpretation of themselves.

I remember in Canada buying a bed encasement, laundering all my clothes frantically, buying traps. Everything. It was a torrid time. I killed some of them but eventually I just gave up and lived with the problem before moving about 6 months later.

Ever since then I have always been apprehensive about staying in hotels or even visiting someone else's house. I even went through a period of strongly believing I had beg bugs last year only to see a dermatologist and be told my itches were caused by a seasonal allergy.

Anyway, I bring this up because the other day at work I was copying something. I sit down at a desk to staple the documents and boom. A bed bug falls in front of my face onto the paper. It was truly alarming. I am in no doubt what this creature was. I killed it leading to blood smearing all over the white paper. But now what?

What could have caused this?

Maybe my apartment is infested
Maybe someone the office building is
Maybe someone else from work has them
Maybe it was just a random lone traveller

I have no idea

But I have started looking to move out of my apartment feeling somewhat convinced I have them. Maybe this is a bit over the top. I already wanted to move for others reasons and bravely fought off a cockroach infestation earlier in the year. But I just wonder what anyone thinks about this. Is it worth moving over something like this? Perhaps I am being too paranoid I don't know.

Perhaps nothing happens by accident and the repeated insect confrontations really are symbolic of something under the surface I need to confront. And maybe moving to a bigger, better place would symbolically represent a kind of maturity. But it might also be infested with something else.

Who knows!

 

[Caduceus]

What could have caused this?

Never ever put things that directly touch the street onto a bed.
This includes all types of shoes, and all bags and suitcases.
Also never lie inside your bed with the same pants you sit anywhere outside you house with.

People who pack their suitcases by putting them on top of a bed do not realise they are transferring a lot residue of bird droppings, rat pellets, and dog crap (which usually gets onto the wheels of the suitcase when pulling it outdoors) onto the bed.

Finally never allow a pet cat or dog onto the place bed you sleep.
For me people who sleep with pets are disgusting.

 

[God's lonely asperger]

My current bed is from my grandfather's time and I don't know if that's explicitly the cause for my encounters with those devils.

 

[scary_robot_music]

One starts to feel like a dirty piece of vermin. If you already have low self-esteem this problem inflames it.

One thing about bedbugs is that unlike other vermin they are NOT an indication that you're a dirty person who keeps his house filthy. The just want blood, and the blood of an obsessively clean person is just as good as any other.

I've never had them but it's something I worry about too. Every time I travel for work when I check in to a hotel I put my bag down in the bathtub or shower initially and carefully check under the sheets for bloodstains or shed exoskeletons. I read somewhere that those are the main signs. They can hide pretty much anywhere though, not just in beds. It is a lot like something from a horror movie. I never thought of that before, but it's a good observation.

 

[Rax Moscow]

If you're not sure you have bedbugs, you probably don't have them.
I got them once, staying in an expensive Hyatt hotel for one night in Texas (one common cause of spread is traveling construction workers, who carry them on their boots or clothing, and spread them rapidly). Right across the street was a Motel 6, and I angrily thought, I bet if I stayed there, I'd be $100 richer and have no bed bugs. It has nothing to do with rich/poor, clean/dirty. They will latch on and suck your blood.

That said, I knew pretty quickly the next morning, that I had them. I had tons of mosquito bite swollen spots all over my body. Some of them had a little blood. I barely slept the night before, tossing and turning. Then when I looked at the bedsheets, I saw a few tiny larvae along with some blood spots. If you see those things, you have bed bugs. If not, it's something else. You can easily find pictures of bedbug larvae online. They look like tiny worms which are visible, but smaller than a fly.

Luckily, it was winter, and when I got home I stripped naked outside, left all my clothes and suitcase there overnight in the freezing temps, and went straight to the shower. The bugs never got inside my house. They can be expensive and difficult to kill if they get in your home. The hotel by the way, couldn't have cared less when I informed them I got bedbugs there.

TL;DR if you're not seeing small bloodstains, larvae, or the exoskeletons, you don't have bedbugs. Those things will appear in your bed in just one night. If you got them, it was probably from a traveler.

 

[StanWildman]

TL;DR if you're not seeing small bloodstains, larvae, or the exoskeletons, you don't have bedbugs.

This is absolutely not true.

We have dealt with the problem and sometimes the main sign will be the bites/welts which are like something between a mosquito bite and a spider bite. They tend to last much longer than mosquito bites, but they do NOT need to be bleeding and you often will see no sign of the bugs besides the bites, depending on the color of your bedding.

Once you have them, the mission must be to wash everything that can be washed, and for things that cannot be washed wrap them in airtight plastic like a sealed lawn and leaf bag (and keep the items in there for a year at least), and then vacuum everything repeatedly and meticulously including all mattresses and carpets in the area. Then, the airtight mattress enclosures must seal the the mattress and bedspring, and pillow enclosures on the pillows.

To avoid in the future, a key tactic is to bring lawn and leaf bags when traveling so that luggage can be sealed up during your stay. And definitely keep everything off the bed and the floor that can be kept off.

The cleaning part can be a backbreaking effort which helps create motivation to never let this happen again.

BTW I have heard that spreading diatomaceous earth around the bed and carpet and other areas will take care of bedbugs but I have never tried it and hopefully will never have the need again.

 

[Vas Incrementum]

If you suspect you have them set these simple traps, as this fella did.