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Good night, sleep tight. Don't let the bed bugs bite.

M

Mark R

Diamond Member
So goes the soothing rhyme.

Unfortunately, the little ****s are biting, and more importantly, they're biting me. How do I get rid of them?

It all started with my rental property which housed some Master's degree students from China. They cleaned the property precisely once - on the day they left. Prior to that it had never been cleaned; I know because I had to check the place when the ceiling nearly fell in from a leaking pipe from an upstairs neighbor. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. Anyway, they cleaned it sufficiently to get their deposit back.

Anyway, I stayed there while refurbing the place, and got bitten a few times - but not having experienced bed bugs before, ignored it and assumed it was due to mosquitoes or similar.

The place was cleaned by myself, new bedding installed, and then "professionally" cleaned by a cleaning contractor.

New tenants move in, and they start getting bitten to hell. Immediately recognising it as bed bugs. So, not really knowing how to deal with it (and the tenants, having had a similar experience, were really reluctant to get an exterminator in), so we clean out the local hardware store of sprays, powders and various other potions. We flood the place. The bed is swimming in solution, floor is soaked. Linen boiled. Mattress removed and replaced with a new one. Curtains dry cleaned. Powder everywhere.

But there's a problem. The little monsters keep biting. I call a few exterminators, and a couple came round and took samples for analysis. However, it's been 3 weeks now, and the report hasn't come through on the bugs. The exterminators basically said that these presumed Chinese ones are incredibly resistant, and that they don't want to use the wrong chemicals. Fair enough, I suppose.

Now there's an even bigger problem. Obviously, when I was hauling out the infested mattress, and spraying, and rolling around on the floor puffing powder into every little crevice, these brutes have jumped onto me (or more probably their eggs have stuck). Because now my own home is infested - and I've got double trouble.

My own place has been dusted and sprayed, but I'm still getting bitten half to death.

What can I do to make these little bandits die?

And just in case, you think I'm being a bit of a pussy. These pics are after the first night they attacked. Subsequent nights, have been pretty similar.

bugs1.jpg

bugs2.jpg


Cliffs:
Got bed bugs from filthy tenants
Used Poison.
Still Alive.
More Poison.
Still Alive.
 
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Chemicals can be hit or miss, and generally require several house wide applications by an exterminator.

The best way to get rid of them is to heat the whole place to 110. They have special rigs that pump in heat from the street, and go around the house blasting everything with gigantic blowdriers.

If you have a steam cleaner, can try hitting the bed and couches with that, but the little fuckers are pretty resilient. Never had an infestation myself, but a friend did and I have nightmares about it...
 
Wow. I've heard bedbugs are EXTREMELY hard to get rid of! I've also heard about heating the house up to a certain temperature. Best of luck OP!
 
brainhulk said:
if you fill your bathtub with vegetable oil and take a dunk, you can suffocate the little bastards
Click to expand...

They're not ticks, they're body lice. They will literally run away as soon as you move or turn on a light.

You must wait in bed with a flamable aerosol and a fire source. When they come out to feed. Turn on the 'light'.
 
Copy pasta ....

Bed bugs can go a remarkably long time without feeding, should no host be present to provide them with needed blood meals. Scientists have documented adult bed bugs living up to 550 days without eating, and nymphs may last for months. So simply leaving an infested dwelling unoccupied for a few months in hopes of starving them out will do nothing to discourage the little freeloaders.

Just to make their extermination more difficult, bed bugs can sense chemical odors, and may avoid areas where cleaning agents or even pesticides have been applied. Some scientists believe bed bugs have developed a resistance to certain insecticides as well.

Finally, to rid a dwelling of bed bugs for good, every possible hiding place must be cleaned or treated. In a home, that means all clothing, bedding, linens, and other washable fabrics must be laundered, usually repeatedly. Every crevice and seam of mattresses and upholstered furniture must be inspected and treated. Cracks in walls must be sealed, loose wallpaper reattached or removed, and carpets treated and vacuumed. Dresser drawers have to be emptied and cleaned, and all clutter must be removed to limit hiding places for stray bed bugs.


Good luck,looks real itchy....😱
 
Heat treaments are the only sure fire way of getting rid of the infestation. If you go the chemicals and cleaning method. Make sure your very thorough. Like roaches they like to hide in electronics also.
 
Google~Fu says the only reliable way is to clean everything out, bring heaters/blowers and heat up the whole house to something like 120 degrees (about 50c).


Basically: Nuke the whole place from orbit.... only way to be sure
 
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Spray the perimeter of your rooms/floor directly by bed with strong stuff. Spray down carpets/beds/etc with stuff meant to kill junk in carpets.
 
So when I first moved in it I found a couple dead bugs that we thought were bed bugs. Jury is still out on what they were but no bed bugs. We had a bedbug sniffing dog come in and confirm there were none (should be coming back soon for the November sniffing).

Anyways, I called the landlord and demanded it be remedied, they gave me an overview of the process.

The company they do work with uses a steam gun thing to kill everything. Won't hurt powered down electronics and they spray in the electrical too. Steam kills.

They then heat the place up like others have talked about.

They then come in and spread Diatomaceous earth in electrical boxes and crevices. This kills them because its little silica daggers that kill the bastards by a thousand cuts (so chemical resistant Chinese bed bugs still die miserably).

They also suggest these little dish like bed risers that trap the bed bugs from climbing up the bed posts.

With clothes and linens they send them to another company who does a special high heat dryer run to cook them all.

I remember them tossing out the figure of $1000 to treat. The company says at least 3 treatments 1 week apart are needed. I'm not sure if the $1000 is total or per treatment.

I'm in Boston and the company they use is Green Planet Pest Control
http://www.greenplanetpest.com/

Clothes company is Garment Valet

Good luck, and I hope you can kill the bastards.

EDIT: I should add what my internet research told me does NOT work: aerosols. According to what I found, it seems bed bugs are irritated by aerosols and run away before the killing chemicals even get near them. Add to the fact most are chemical resistant now and most pest control options are useless. Bug bombs and traditional dust also don't work.
 
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So much hairy grossness. Oh god, I just ate. *hurls*

Time to bring in the big guns. You're going to have to call an exterminator. From what I've heard, bed bugs are notoriously hard to get rid of.
 
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