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Bed Bugs Are Bastards

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BlitzPuppet said:
Lol, so you let someone else take a chance that you already had them.

You are THAT guy.
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If you buy a used mattress, you are asking for it. I sold it used and as-is. What should I have done instead? Thrown away a good mattress?

Besides, my apartment always passed the bedbug inspection, I moved more or less because I was fed up with the continuous inspections and I wanted to move before I actually caught them. It was a building where one unit had bedbugs and kept getting them. Every occurrence of bedbugs meant an inspection for all units in the building.
 
I used to live in a highrise, and the first I heard about bedbugs being a problem I did some research and bought sheets and a mattress made with bamboo. I never got the bugs.
 
bradly1101 said:
I used to live in a highrise, and the first I heard about bedbugs being a problem I did some research and bought sheets and a mattress made with bamboo. I never got the bugs.
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This is the exact reason I live inside a old metal oil container. Saved me so much hassle never getting bed bugs.
 
What worked for me.

Use abut 3/4 rubbing alcohol in little sprayer, go all over your mattress with sprayer killing them then vacuum. Wash and dry sheets hot.

Make sure mattress and sheets don't touch floor or wall.

Put some sort of lube, Petroleum Jelly on legs to bed, Bugs can not go through it.
 
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As per article 4 section B you are hereby authorized to use the only means effective to eradicate the vile bed bugs:

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My brother's apartment building got them a couple of years ago.

As of a month ago, they apparently still haven't been eradicated. He had to throw out basically everything he owned. He said they even crawled into the bindings of his books.
 
Get rid of all your furniture (anything with fabric), including your bed, and move.

Wash all your clothes in very hot water and bag them before you move into your new place so you don't take any bedbugs with you.

They may even be in your car...
 
JulesMaximus said:
Get rid of all your furniture (anything with fabric), including your bed, and move.

Wash all your clothes in very hot water and bag them before you move into your new place so you don't take any bedbugs with you.

They may even be in your car...
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Your possessions aren't worth the possibility of transferring bed bugs to you new residence. I got rid of everything I owned when I moved out of our bed bug infested apartment building.

I always check hotel mattresses now, and usually quarantine my suitcase when I get back to my house after staying in a hotel.

They need to bring back DDT. That's why tick and bed bug infestations are rising so dramatically over the last couple decades.
 
I have read some bad information in this thread. I've been fighting a bed bug infestation in my house for 3 years now. They are almost impossible to get rid of permanently. In this time I’ve tried many different techniques and services, and have become an expert in bed bugs.

This is the real problem. Their life cycle is variable mattering on the conditions. A single active bed bug can live for 9 months. The eggs can sit dormant for up to 14 months. On average they only feed every 7 days. If there is no food available an adult bedbug can enter a hibernation state for up to 6 months, waking occasionally to search for food. In laboratory tests with a large sample of bedbugs exposed to 14F 2-3% survived after a week, it takes -26F for half an hour to ensure death of the entire colony. When exposed to temperatures in excess of 120F they had a 1% survival rate after 90 minutes. A single bedbug can lay 4 eggs a day for 9 months, so if a single bedbug survives within a year you have a full infestation back.

There are NO effective pesticides for bedbugs that are approved by the CDC.


Thebobo said:
What worked for me.

Use abut 3/4 rubbing alcohol in little sprayer, go all over your matters with sprayer killing them then vacuum. Wash and dry sheets hot.

Make sure mattress and sheets don't touch floor or wall.

Put some sort of lube, Petroleum Jelly on legs to bed, Bugs can not go through it.
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I used a similar method. Alcohol kills them on contact, so I soaked all my bedding in alcohol, and any sheets that didn't survive it got thown away, the rest got laundered in hot water, hot dryer. I then used spray bottles of alcohol to spray every surface in my house. Then I steam cleaned the carpets. Once everything was dry I spread 20 lbs of Diatomaceous earth everywhere. In all the baseboards, in the drawers of my dresser, in every nook and crany I could dust it in. I dusted under my matress and made a circle around all the legs of my bed.
I did all of this every 3 months for a year. It was a major pain. I have not seen a single bed bug for one year now. I'll be moving in 2 weeks, and that that time I'll be inspecting everything very carfully for them.
 
bignateyk said:
They need to bring back DDT. That's why tick and bed bug infestations are rising so dramatically over the last couple decades.
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Agreed. DDT is nasty stuff, but I'm willing to put up with the consequences if it means allowing limited, licensed use for bed bugs.
 
I went through the same ordeal in 2009.

Call a exterminator and burn your belongings. I was able to get rid of them but I was unemployed at the time and had a lot of time on my hands. But if your committed to the fight. 99% rubbing alcohol, Murphy's oil soap and a rent a carpet, upholstery, drapery steamers and go at it.

Clean your wood furniture top to bottom with Murphy's. Clean all your baseboards also with it.
Tear off the dust covers on the bottoms of your upholstered furniture and inspect and kill using the rubbing alcohol. Steam all furniture and drapes top to bottom. Cover you mattress and box spring with bug proof liners. Steam your carpets after a couple of visits from the exterminator.
 
Permethrin is what I would use.. Smell is going to suck though.. so probably won't work in your situation.
 
If there is ever a global nuclear war that wipes us all out, there will only be two survivors.

roaches and bed bugs. Bed bugs are the 80's action movie of the insect world. They just take a pounding and keep going, John Matrix styles

(I may have been watching a lot of 80s movies recently...)
 
onza said:
Permethrin is what I would use.. Smell is going to suck though.. so probably won't work in your situation.
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Bed Bugs are now resistant to Pyrethroids like Permethrin. It along with the discontinuation of DDT as a pest control is the main reasons we are seeing their return after having been nearly wiped out in the 40's.
 
I've been wondering whether I have an issue with them. I've never actually seen what I think is a bed bug. I do see bugs, but it's usually just spiders, or what I assume are just cockroaches. What makes me wonder whether I have an issue is that sometimes when I lie in bed, I get the feeling that something is biting me. Although, I've never actually seen or felt any sort of bugs with my hands.

What makes me even more unsure is that I sometimes feel that biting sensation when I'm not even in bed. Hell, I've even felt it at work when that part of my body is easily visible, and there's nothing there. I've also noticed that I've been a lot more itchy lately (mostly on my side around my waist), which could just be drier air or something else. Maybe I ought to see a dermatologist!
 
Aikouka said:
I've been wondering whether I have an issue with them. I've never actually seen what I think is a bed bug. I do see bugs, but it's usually just spiders, or what I assume are just cockroaches. What makes me wonder whether I have an issue is that sometimes when I lie in bed, I get the feeling that something is biting me. Although, I've never actually seen or felt any sort of bugs with my hands.

What makes me even more unsure is that I sometimes feel that biting sensation when I'm not even in bed. Hell, I've even felt it at work when that part of my body is easily visible, and there's nothing there. I've also noticed that I've been a lot more itchy lately (mostly on my side around my waist), which could just be drier air or something else. Maybe I ought to see a dermatologist!
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They bite in your sleep. They sense the amount of carbon dioxide in the air then come out to attack.
 
Whether it's bedbugs, the fungus that's killing all the frogs (Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis), the parasite that's killing the bees (Nosema ceranae), AIDS, strains of the flu, etc....we can thank the extensive travels of man.
 
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