Bedbugs are spoiling my sleep

Sarah, I'm going to take your advice, thanks.

There was also a very yucky description of how they suck blood.

When they bite you they go semi-dormant, so fat and lazy they are while filled with your warm blood.

When you kill them they pop like zits. It's pretty nappy.

Look in the seams of your mattress...

do dust-mites bite?

ack..its horrible. and i'm really not imagining it.

Now, I flea bombed the room the following day, and also sprayed a surface spray, and when we returned there were millions of tiny little red dots all over the bedside tables (and presumably the whole bedroom). When they were on our skin, they moved around like tiny spiders. Were they bedbug nymphs, baby spiders, or something else? Anyway, we seemed to have killed a lot of them - but we'll bomb again and wait a few days before we start sleeping in that room again.

whatever we've got is invisible. compared to tiny red crawly spiders i think the invisible things are a distinct improvement.

i hope you're infestation-free soon.

According to this guy bedbugs inhabit the bed frame as well- so make sure that's disinfected.

http://medlib.med.utah.edu/kw/derm/pages/ni13_2.htm

as opposed to THIS, from the same site, which is...

And I am losing the desire to eat after reading this thread again.

I have more or less decided that I will avoid disinfecting and/or burning everything until it seems absolutely necessary. I am not even sure if these crazy little buggers are bed bugs at all. They seem much smaller than they should be. That's why I was wondering if perhaps they were bed bug nymphs.

And if they are bed-bugs, you have my sympathy. They have been in the news a lot lately. I am just keeping my fingers crossed.

If I get any bed bugs in here, it's going to be World War III. I have a hypoallergnic case around my mattress, so I have been telling myself that it will keep the bed-bugs out as well, since they apparently live in the mattress in many cases.

I had to wash everything, even my leather, and cover myself head to toe with this sublockesque nerve poison for bugs. It was kind of amusing, whenever I kill bugs with anything other than brute force I am always reminded of the nightmare descriptions of chemical warfare and the horrors it visits upon victims. DIE BUGS DIE!!!! DIE!!!! FUCKERS!!! HA!!!

Anyway yes, bedbugs, sounds horrible, I was quite hypochondriac about everything I touched for a while after the scabies thing. They need things to feed off of so if you take yourself out of the equation they will presumably starve and die out, it sounds as if you're doing things right so far.

Arthropods are only good for 2 things in my book: 1. eating, if they come from the sea 2. honey.

I used mouse poison to kill the mice. Sorry, nothing else worked. So... a mouse dies under the floorboards. Smell could make ya puke, but that's not all:

MAGGOTS are crawling across our kitchen floor from somewhere below. They arrive as fast as we can sweep them up. They stick to the soles of our feet like half-cooked grains of rice. And they just keep on truckin', all over the floor.

I knwo theyre fleas as we de-flead our cats once and they jumped in the bath, shook themselves, and red blood dots went SPLAT all over the place. Dead fleas, y'see.

They like summer, they like carpets, they jump/crawl/flick on you and leave a tiny not very sore/itchy bite.

Theyre a fucker to get rid of.

What?! I'm confused now. My brains full, can I be excused?

tHEY ARE DEFINITELY MAGGOTS, ok? On the floor, not under my skin. And you need to tell me what to do cos I'm, like, totally freaking out!!

http://members.aol.com/brestlvr/dethwrm1.jpg

http://posters.imdb.com/posters/s/swarmb1.jpg

PS my house is not overrun with insects of all species... the flea thing was in a different apartment and caused by two new cats. The ants still seem to be a bit of a prob, but then again Nick leaves crumby plates all over the bedroom floor grr.

What are scabies?

I'm surprised in the three years I've lived in this crackhead slum I've never had anything like scabies or bedbugs *knocks on wood*

I just looked it up. It's mites, actually.

why would you try and talk someone into thinking you had scabies when you were in the middle of hooking up?!

To convince then you don't have syphillis. Duh.

This really is crazy. What did you think they actually were? What did she think they actually were? Razor bumps are mildly embarassing, I guess, but not embarassing enough to lie about how they're really "scabies."

It's not really that bad. We've never had a flea, lice or mouse problem where I live. I think Col's experience is not at all common.

You people really disappointed me on this one.

Second, Bedbugs are re-invading USA, arriving from foreign shores. I am starting to suspect Australia based on this thread, but I have been there and came away clean, so perhaps it's Canada.

Three weeks ago it was ANOTHER fuckin bird nest in the bedroom wall. 'Cheep cheep cheep vomit up that fuckin worm mum' every 15 minutes from 5.30 in the morning! We rang a few government/animal protection type people to find out what we could do. One woman said, 'Oh, love it's going to be hell for you for about three weeks, I really feel sorry for you. Oh dear. Perhaps you should move your bedroom? so we did. Then, three nights later, we lost patience and gassed the fucker.

Regarding the birds that nested in my wall, on the first occasion these may have been Indian Minor Birds (on the second occasion they were a marginally less aggressive and hungry sounding native bird, we were told). They are lithe, brown/black, with sleek black and yellow beaks and yellow eyes. They have the most kickarse claws and movement skills you've ever seen in a small bird. They were rarely seen only 15 years ago. Now, they are EVERYWHERE. And they watch you.

The native birds (yes, they're another sorry import story, or so I've been told) are terrified of them. The woman from the animal protection society said they don't just breed in spring like other birds - they breed all year round. They have an alarmingly complex, cold sounding birdsong too. And they are watching us. They can wait a thousand years, breeding, evolving, until one horrible day, it will be all over for the humans.

Did I mention that for a brief period in late spring they FLY? Into your face?

Coming up in 2-3 weeks - the annual Christmas beetle plague. They are already dopily plunging into the toilet by the half dozen, these tank-like, nut-like, increadibly stupid insects. They panic and dip and dive around your kitchen and into your t-shirt like a Sopwith Camel which has just been hit by enemy ack-ack fire. Kids like to collect them in large quantities (they are easy to catch), put them all into a big plastic container, then empty them out in the middle of a big field and run around screaming in the upward-spiralling woozy bug maelstrom

Christmas Beetle:

http://www.ento.csiro.au/ecowatch/Primary/beetles/images/christmas_beetle.jpg

well, good luck with your next plague...

We're having the exterminator over next weekend so I hope our roach issues will be *KAPOW* *KERBLAM* resolved. Also, I am never going to Oz.

Install mosquito nets and set the bed frame legs in bowls of kerosene. I know *I* would.

i'd had these horrid welts on my arm and leg for some time, then we pulled the bed out from the wall so that a new window could be put in and notice black dots all over our 6-month old bed frame.. how odd! that night, my partner sees a bug walking on the pillow. so, we look it up, it's a bedbug! that explains the dots, the welts, the spots of blood in the sheets :(

so we got rid of our bed frame, the futon mattress, and all sorts of stuff that was around the bed. the public health woman who came to check said that she'd never seen a bed frame so heavily infested. great. we've slept in the living room on a camping mattress for the last month, as the pest control company has 'treated' our bedroom with pymethrin each week. they do four rounds, to catch the eggs as they hatch.

4 great things about begbugs(i am trying to stay positive):
-they are big! which means you can easily see them, and you know if they're around. also, you can see the spots they leave behind, and the shells from their molting.
-they do not live on people or animals, only in wood. which means that we don't have to shave our hair etc.
-they can't jump, swim, or fly, only walk. physical barriers work, such as a line of vaseline around the legs of your bend, or sitting the legs in a dish of soapy water.
-they do not carry blood borne diseases! this means that i am not at risk of hepatitis, as i thought i might be.

unfortunately, that last point means that the building can't be forced to treat them by the health authority, because they are not a disease threat. this being a co-op, people are scared of chemicals, and will refuse preventative treatment until the bugs are in THEIR beds. so, the bugs will have fled the poison in my unit and gone next door. when there is poison next door, they'll come back here.

apparently bedbugs are all over town, in fancy hotels and all. be careful in vancouver!

Ok, this bedbug invasion must be stopped. I'm callin my congressman, T0m T4ncr3do (he really is my congressman :o ), tellin him that these alien bugs are a threat to our American way of life and traditional culture. First, we wall off B.C. (thanks for the tip, Derrick). Then all int'l ports and airports.

-- Forksclovetofu (forksclovetof...), March 13th, 2005.

I have NO memory of having written this.

A similar bill was introduced last year but died when the council session expired.

http://www.beppegrillo.it/archives/immagini/DDT.jpg

haha!

(nb. Squirm was a formative movie for me - I accidently watched it all at a young age, on a very small b&w tv, but I remember it in full screen, full colour. For a while I thought I'd imagined the whole thing b/c no one I knew had even heard of it. Thank you again, Internet, for PROOF. It is a movie about worms.)

Squirm is about electrified worms in Georgia!! (I also read that it's based on a true story. I don't know what that means.)
http://einsiders.com/reviews/dvd/images/squirm1.jpg

THEY'RE hiding between the sheets everywhere from backpackers hostels to brothels and the chances are you'll sleep with them soon.

After a 50-year lull, the biting bedbugs our parents warned us about are back with a vengeance.

The country is in the grip of a bedbug "pandemic" and Victoria is the most infested state of all, with an estimated 15,000 per cent rise in cases since 2000. Nowhere is safe from the new breed of super-resilient bugs, which can cause severe allergic reactions in some who are bitten.

http://www.nydailynews.com/img/2007/12/30/amd_bedbugs-dos-donts.gif

Bad memories. And for those who did not read the whole thread, it turned out that my little critters, whatever the f*** they were, were not bedbugs and were eliminated fairly easily in the end (back in those days I was Colin).

how did you eliminate them?

stay off drugs

http://idlewords.com/2008/04/seeking_bedbug_legal_aid.htm

Friend of a friend looking for a lawyer for their anti-bedbug website.

I'm getting eaten alive, but neither the sheets nor the mattress have any blood spots. Does that categorically rule out bedbugs?

Not sure if it categorically rule it out, but blood stains on the sheets is a "tell-tale" sign:

A bed bug infestation can be recognized by blood stains from crushed bugs or by rusty (sometimes dark) spots of excrement on sheets and mattresses, bed clothes, and walls. Fecal spots, eggshells, and shed skins may be found in the vicinity of their hiding places. An offensive, sweet, musty odor from their scent glands may be detected when bed bug infestations are severe.

Ugh.

had these last year, at least flatmates were complaining of getting bitten all the time, I never got a bite. is it possible some people are immune or they don't want your blood or something?

we had to remove every single item of fabric from the house and get it cleaned and then some dude came in and sprayed it top to tail

2009: Year of the Bedbug?

I live in a big old apartment building, and so the management sent exterminators into my place today to rid it of an infestation of bedbugs. When I came home, my place looked like the DEA had busted it, and the berber carpet is a battlefield of fallen bedbugs. We'll see if they come back tonight at their usual 4:45 a.m.

hygienic difficulties

i had bedbugs last year at my old place (a big reason why it's my "old" place). my downstairs neighbor brought home a used couch that was infested, and the little critters found their way into my apartment. i'm a bug-phobe so i took care of the problem immediately, and didn't get that many bites. but i had a few sleepless nights.

had these last year, at least flatmates were complaining of getting bitten all the time, I never got a bite. is it possible some people are immune or they don't want your blood or something?

Some people just aren't affected by bedbugs/bites. Consider yourself extremely lucky.

I've had them in my apartmen, I'm moving out; if you're in the U.S., this is useful. My building paid to have all my clothes laundered or dry-cleaned, so they're good with that, but my mattress and couch pretty much need to be quarrantined and thrown out.

http://www.theage.com.au/travel/travel-news/new-york-under-attack-as-bed-bugs-make-unwanted-comeback-20100913-157g6.html

like the underlying 'if only we could still use DDT' vibe near the end

I love how the Age online's front page is now modified for GiANT BUG with giant BUGS TAKE OVER NYC headline.

*Shudders* I'm considering a trip to New York, but the bedbug frenzy is making me hesitant.

my mom got bit by bedbugs at a hotel in burlington, vt. i never want to travel anywhere ever again.

its really not that big a deal

yeah, itches like crazy tho

ANKLE SWARMS

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/63/Traumatic_insemination_1_edit1.jpg/737px-Traumatic_insemination_1_edit1.jpg

what is going on there

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traumatic_insemination

pretty fascinating

and now I get why you were learning about mating plugs yesterday

keep on thinking of that article as 'mating pugs'

ha!

this thread title is strangely poignant

maybe just reminding me of the "stop vomiting off the balcony. it is RUINING everything. it has RUINED the children's TOYS." note

hahaha, the best of notes

I have to review a film tonight and the screening is at a 42nd St theater that was closed for a day last August to exterminate bedbugs. How much paranoia am I entitled to?

Lots, i'm itching just thinking about sitting in theatre full of bugs.

my house had them last year, we had them professionally killed

You hired a hitman?

Seriously though is this NYC bedbugs thing a little overblown? I'm feeling like it's a little overblown. Like these guys with dogs come to your business with dogs and then lo and behold the dogs sniff out some bedbugs and then they're like "Well, you wouldn't want to be known as the movie theater with bedbugs would you? But we can take care of the problem $$$."

im feeling like maybe sometimes bedbugs are discovered in ways that dont involve teams of dogs sent by exterminators

ha

the only thing to fear is fear of bedbugs itself

and the canine-industrial complex

So I had these fuckers in my old apartment in 2009 (see above), and I seem to have them now tonight. I have to wonder if they stayed alive in some of my books or papers that I had moved into storage then and recently retrieved. Hate to think that I'll have to get rid of my books and papers, if that's the only option.

yeah they can live for ages without feeding.
if you get a good exterminator you won't have to throw out anything.

Since yr books & papers are in a storage place, can't you just throw some bug bombs in there, shut the door, and come back in two weeks? Also, if you want to take things out one box at a time you can plastic-wrap your books & stuff and put them into a freezer for a while. I'm sure there's more info online.

Sorry to hear this. :(

YOU NEED DDT - get some on the black market with bitcoins

Search: "Bed Bug Blues," by Jimmie Davis.

ok, here's my problem

every morning, i wake up with 2-4 bites. the bites are smaller than bedbug bites or mosquito bites. i've never noticed more than one new bite on any part of my body, no rows or groups of bites. the bites are not that itchy (just itchy enough to bother me) and never turn into any sort of sores or pimple-type thing.

my doggy sleeps at the bottom of the bed, under the covers by my feet or behind my knees. i treat him with advantage ii (flea-killer) every month and i check him for fleas every day. since this started, i have not yet found a flea on him. it is hard for fleas to hide on him since he is a tiny little dachshund with very short and sparse hair.

i have wood floors and no carpet. i wash and change my sheets every week, and i have recently started washing my down comforter and pillows every week as well, to try to control this bite problem. i have a small collection of wool indian blankets and serapes and i am having those drycleaned as well. i've checked my mattress thoroughly and there don't seem to be any bugs living in the seams, and i haven't seen any bedbug poop or blood spots on my mattress or sheets. under the bed i have things like socks and underwear and shorts stored in flat wicker baskets, and i haven't seen any bugs down there either.

i do have a big crawlspace under the house, and i think there are rats down there. i know the rats can get into the walls and crawl around in the attic, but they have no access to the inside of the house. there are some small cracks in the wood floor, though, so i think air can pass between the house and the crawlspace. in the backyard, the crawlspace turns into a wood deck. in the backyard there are a couple of corners with piled-up dead leaves and dead tree branches but afaict my dog doesn't go hang out in the woodpile when he goes in the backyard.

so here are my questions:

1) what is biting me? i am starting to think it is mites, since these guys are invisible, bite through clothing with no problem, and leave only tiny bite bumps.

2) assuming it is mites, how do i get rid of them? i've tried researching on the internet, but it seems like "mite infestation" is closely linked to stuff like morgellons, and so i am tending to find a lot of downright bad information (like i found one site where somebody said they got rid of their mite infestation by mixing a box of advantix ii with a few tablespoons of shampoo and then spreading that all over their body).

i am afraid that it is one of three things:

1) tropical rat mites living on the rats under the house, which are then crawling up out of the crawlspace and into the bed with me and doggy at night. but that seems totally illogical. mites are tiny-ass almost microscopic creatures. how would they know to crawl out from under the crawlspace every night and come find me and doggy? wouldn't they just jump from rat to rat?

2) mites have infested the deck and the backyard, and i have to make the backyard off-limits to doggy, because they are jumping on him when he is in the backyard, and then jumping onto me when he gets in bed with me. this option sucks because doggy loves the backyard and he gets his exercise out there. he is kind of an antisocial dog so i don't walk him much because he terrorizes all of the other dogs, especially the ones that are 10 times his size. instead i let him run around in the yard and play fetch and stuff with him. he loves to sniff around and hunt for rats, skunks, squirrels and possums in the yard (i think we have all of them) and i don't want to take away his "play area".

3) mites have infested my mattress. this sucks because i have this expensive european memory foam / latex combo mattress that i can't really afford to replace right now.

i am afraid of #1 because my landlord has not been able to control the rats effectively, and i doubt the cut-rate exterminator i know he will hire if i complain again will be able to control them either. we've been rat problems twice before, and while we've had luck killing them with traps and blocking their access to the inside of the house, it seems like new rats move in every time as soon as the old rats are gone.

help!

1) get a miteproof cover for your mattress.
2) vacuum everything around the bed thoroughly after putting the cover on the mattress but before making the bed.
3) Wash all your sheets, mattress pad, duvet cover, pillows(if possible) in hot water with an extra hot water rinse.
4) Replace your pillows or get miteproof covers for them too. Or both.

Neem oil is a non-toxic insect repellent - stinks like crazy but is available in skin lotions that aren't so bad. It also alleviates itching and redness. You might try that before bed.

Jaq explains it all.

aha! i had no idea about miteproof matress covers but it sounds like the way to go. lucky for me i have a miele platinum so vacuuming is always a joy. i will give the neem oil a shot and maybe give doggy a rubdown with sulfodene.

The very idea of night bugs freaks me the hell out, but for some reason (possibly laziness and miserliness), I haven't fully implemented my all-out-assault action and prevention plan.

Neem is safe for pups btw - it's used around horses as a fly repellent which is how I first heard of it. I think the 2-container bed leg passive no-bug-climbing-up device is a good one: for each bed leg, one large and one small flat-bottomed container, bed leg goes in small container, small container goes in large container, fill eht gap between large and small container with neem oil (or boric acid).

that 2-container bed leg system seems a little OTT, partly because its hard to believe that the mites are climbing up the bed legs. i feel like they must be hitching a ride w/ the dog (in which case neem oil) or already living in the bed.

Yeah, that's for when I've watched something where the army ants march through a village and carry off the babies. Also means no covers can ever touch the floor. And the bed sits on its own in the middle of the room.

I've just spend a couple of months thinking that something was biting me every night and going berserk over the possibility of bedbugs and rat/mouse mites.

I even thought it might be scabies or shingles. The symptom was red welts that faded away and weren't that itchy.

I eventually consulted the doctor after reading about hives. It seems from a couple of blood tests so far that I have iron deficiency and it's causing these strange skin irritations.

so if it is disclosed to you that there was a bedbug infestation exterminated on floor two of a building, and you're moving to floor five, is that a reason not to move to the building?

i would think that depends a lot on the building

how much common space would you share w/ them?

like if it were like a dorm and i were sharing laundry facilities, yes, that would be a reason

like there was one case in indianapolis where bedbugs spread from one bed through half of a fifteen story building, but the details are important

Infested apartments tended to be right next door to each other (53%) or across the hall (45%). Bed bugs frequently walked out of the front door of one apartment and into another on the same hallway. Bugs were also spread through the building when infested furniture was discarded without wrapping it in plastic, by neighbors visiting infested apartments or infested common areas, and by an infested wheelchair used in common areas.

well, there is a laundry room. other than that i dint know what common space wed be "sharing" other than a lobby.

Man, I got home after a week out of town to find a note dated the day I left saying there had been bedbugs in the building.

i'm going out of town, and my friend's friend is coming into town for that time (i do not know this person), and so my friend asked if this other friend could stay at my place for a few days. they'd be feeding my cat, so that's good, but i am a little worried about bed bugs. i've had them before--it was an absolute nightmare. am i being paranoid??? it's not like i think they have them, but they'll be traveling all around NY, and it's making me kind of tense. should i just open up my home to these people (friend & her two kids)??

also hurting, have they confirmed that the place is now bedbug free after the extermination? i would assume so? that seems kind of OK to me if it's been properly exterminated and taken care of...

Well they had to provide us this disclosure form that said they had completed some kind of erradication action. I read online that it's not easy to find an older building that hasn't had bedbugs at some point. At least we're three floors away.

I have been waking up with bites off and on for a month now and it is DRIVING ME INSANE. I get stressed about going to bed now. They fade really quickly - 2-3 days and you almost can't tell I had a bite. Have been OBSESSIVELY checking bed and don't see any evidence of blood trails/bodies/etc as all the websites say. I hope/assume/pray it's just spiders but I don't know. :( My husband gets NO bites. Perhaps I'll search out this Neem oil Jaq mentioned upthread - I've seriously been considering covering myself in OFF before bed!

I have a dog too, it could be fleas I suppose.. the bites are itchy as hell when I wake up but calm down to invisible when I throw hydrocortisone cream on it. We also sleep with our heads against the window, I sprinkled cinnamon inside the sill because I read somewhere bugs avoid it.. I closed the windows last night but my husband opened his >:P Luckily I did not wake up with any bites today.. but yesterday I got two on one side of my elbow, one a bit further away.. I've had single bites as well as clusters of 3 and 5. It can't be bed bugs (I know it can - I am just trying to keep myself sane). Argh.

You know what? Bite my ass, hips, etc all you want but leave my 'workwear' exposed skin clean, assholes.

finefine, that neem oil is stinky stinky stuff - don't buy a big ol can of it without smelling some first. You might be able to find skin salve or cream with a good percentage of it at a local healthfood store that might make a good start vs. the pure oil. Naked organics makes one, and there's also Theraneem and a few others.

Okay, good to know. Honestly, I am so irritated by this process that I could put up with any stink, but I will check out the health food store & see what I can find.

uh oh... I've been getting little bites on my body for a while and i thought they were mosquitoes but last night I was sat on my bed and this tiny red beetle thing landed on my book which I instinctively squashed and left a red mark on the page. I'm sure it was a bug. So now what? I need to be able to sleep!

It will pass! Lots of bugs are coming inside to relax, right? My upthread panic turned out to be just me getting paranoid; a few bites, killed a few spiders, nothing biting me anymore. Phew. Hope the same for you because I was in panic mode for a little while there - thoroughly inspecting my mattress before bed, unable to fall asleep quickly, etc.

This is the season of spiders to be sure. Webs appearing everywhere outdoors between now and the first hard frost or big rainstorm.

did it look like a bedbug or just a bug? if the former, i would check your mattress for signs of bedbugs.

i will cop to a bout of extreme paranoia where i was convinced i had them (a place i work at had confirmed bedbugs so i was sure i had brought them home after waking up with some bites) and i got a bedbug sniffing dog to come check it out and they told me i was bedbug free

I had the same scare a while back. I got a bunch of bites, mostly in patterns of three or four which is characteristic of bedbug bites. I paniced--checking mattress, pulling everything out of bedroom--but never got any more. I discovered fleas leave a similar bite pattern so I suspect that was it, but I have no idea where I got them.

You say 'landed on' like maybe the thing flew or jumped onto your book...? bedbugs can't do either of those things so it doesn't sound like the culprit this time, luckily.

Bedbugs are spoiling my sleep
All that I see
Absolute horror
I cannot live
I cannot die
Trapped in myself
Body my holding cell

A+

Couldn't watch this video all the way through. Trigger warnings, etc. apply: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=74a_1355557272