Bed Bugs -- You Better Take Preventative Measures Now

[pustelniakr]

Update:

This past Wednesday, we were officially declared bed bug free.We now begin a 3-month warranty period (bugs not gone or return? start over at no additional charge). I discovered my first bites about 3 months before finding my first bug, and, believe me, I did look for them. Then, I began to easily find more, so apparently they had hit a threshold where they began to spread. We began to formally deal with them at the end of September, so it has been about 14 weeks to get to this place. Total cost? Around $5K and counting (more rental unit time, more ziplock and space bags, changes in furniture, etc.).

Now, we begin to bring belongings (except those that went to the landfill) back in from the storage unit. This is best done during the warranty period, so re-introduction can be handled at no additional charge. The first to come back shall be my treasured music collection, which has been in those special plastic tubs, shown in my last post, with Nuvan strips for over 6 weeks. I now have 15 of those tubs, which should speed the treatment of our belongings. 5 tubs costs the same as one month of storage unit rental.

I have put my main audio rig back together, taking the time to correct a couple of things, to clean out long-accumulated dust, and improve power distribution and interconnect routing.

We still feel stressed, tending not to trust our being free, even though we have not been bitten, nor have we seen any indication of bug presence, and that for several weeks.

Inspections and treatments were at weekly intervals, until 2 consecutive weeks passed with no live evidence seen. One time, I found a living bug, albeit pretty much a zombie, which reset to weekly. 2 2-week intervals with no live evidence triggered a single 4-week interval, which just finished. This resulted in the start of the 3-month warranty period.

We will never be the same, and have significantly changed our behavior. You can bet that we will do whatever we need to do to prevent ever having to go through this again.

I remain available as a resource for whoever may have need of what I have learned during this experience...

Enjoy,
Rich P

 

[OnTheBlitz]

Rich,

Thank you so much for sharing this and with such detail. I've been following this since your very first post. I'm very happy to hear that things are looking much better now.

Chris

 

[onwardjames]

DDT was one of a few that used to be used. Do you know of any exterminators that have a bed bug infestation in their home or business?

Nope, but I know several that are batshit crazy, and many no longer with us from cancer.

Alot of Insecticide were pulled from use due to being deemed carcinogens,it was more to protect people in the exterminator industry. Too much of anything is not healthy but hey I still use Round Up every year come weed season with no side effects.

Round Up can cause cancer, please protect yourself and use that sparingly. After all, it always ends up in the water, and scientists are pretty certain that glyphosate is why the bees are having such a hard time.


To Rich, I am sorry for the hell these critters have put you through, and am glad to hear you're back in the clear, and got your tunes going again. Thank you for this most wonderful compilation of treatments and experience. May you remain free of these awful demons.

 

[pustelniakr]

...May you remain free of these awful demons.

Amen.

Thanks,
Rich P

 

[ETLS]

+1 on hoping this is the last of their presence in y'all's lives.

 

[Rome]

So glad to hear all is good riddance my friend!

Rome

 

[DonCarleon21]

It is awful but recently we found bugs in our house!!

 

[pustelniakr]

Be wise. Heed my input. Work to not make it worse. Get a reputable professional who specializes. Be ready for this to take a while.

Good luck,
Rich P

 

[DonCarleon21]

Well, I have good news that it seems that ten days later, it seems that we have defeated these damned bed bugs.

 

[pustelniakr]

Pretty optimistic, but I hope it is true. What did you do?

Rich P

 

[philo426]

What I want to know is ...what caused this resurgence ?..in the 70s they were just a saying !

 

[pustelniakr]

Resistance to pesticides (biggest cause: even DDT would not be comprehensive today), greater world travel (especially refugees), willful ignorance, lack of attention to means of transmission and exposure risks, stigma associated with admitting having them (not understanding that having them does not mean one is dirty or cluttered), DIY attempts to get rid of them (just makes them worse and harder to get rid of), some show no reaction to bites (around 20% of the population), refusal to accept responsibility for keeping one's infections to one's self, etc.

Enjoy,
Rich P

 

[DonCarleon21]

This fight actually took longer than we initially thought. First of all, we had to look for a professional exterminator because I wasn't going to solve this problem myself. I've read a lot of articles about how amateur solutions to this problem can only make it worse. It often happened that bedbugs simply moved from one area to another. Thanks to the recommendation of our friends, we found a very cool company that quickly came to our home and set about solving the problem. Of course, we had to move to a hotel for a while, as we couldn't stay at home. Bed bugs are a terrible problem that I hope we won't face again. I would not like to search again for information about different bed bug bite relief solutions.

 

[pustelniakr]

Specifically what was done to address the bed bug infestation? With your having to move to a hotel, it sounds like you had your house tented and treated with Vikane gas. Competently utilized, this can take care of them. This is a bit expensive, and not available everywhere.

Do you know how you got them in the first place? If you don't know, then the main drawback of Vikane comes into view. Vikane leaves no active residue. That means a repeat introduction is likely treated as a new infestation, after a brief warrantee period, with another round of Vikane, etc.

I truly hope you are free.

Rich P

 

[Sandy G]

Jeez, Louise.....Sounds like a real life "Night of the Living Dead scenario, Rabbi..Amazing how so many aspects of our modern lives are basically hanging by very tenuous threads, so ready to fall into rack & ruin, & how little control we ultimately have over stuff like this..

 

[usedto]

stigma associated with admitting having them (not understanding that having them does not mean one is dirty or cluttered),
Rich P

Both of my kids went to the same college. The town was 98% a college town. There is always a ton of items in the "Free" section of Craig's List.
I used to watch it just for giggles (one day there was a free pair of HPM 100s - missed them by 5 minutes)

One day I noticed a motel in town had a whole bunch of free mattresses due to an upgrade.
The next week, there was a "caution" ad from someone that had picked up a free mattress and now had an infestation of bedbugs.

Like Rich said, you never know........................

 

[pustelniakr]

When we came down with them, a full third of my belongings went to the landfill during prep for treatment. I could not, in good conscience, put my stuff out on the curb. Some folks don't have those scruples.

Stuff found on curbs needs to be carefully considered. I came home one day, after our infestation had already commenced, but before we knew what it was, and I found my wife cleaning out a vacuum cleaner, all over the living room rug, one that she had found on the curb, up the street. She said it was only clogged, but the clogging material was all over the living room carpet. I went ballistic, but we already had bed bugs before that happened. I just did not know it definitively, but was pretty bitten up before that. They are extremely hard to catch in the act. I looked for them for a good three months before I caught my first one. By then, they had begun to spread out from their first harborages in the sofa and bed.

We likely got our bugs from the public library. My wife constantly brought home lug bags full of books to read. As it turns out, this is one of the primary ways to get these bugs. Book spines provide a perfect harborage. These bugs like a hard surface on the bottom, covered by a soft surface, between which they can tuck. They hate movement. As they tuck in, they feel touch on the top and bottom of their bodies. This makes them feel tucked in and safe, and makes them feel like raising a family.

Folks with bugs read books in bed, or on the sofa. Bugs slip into a borrowed book spine. The book is returned. Someone else borrows the book. And the story goes on. Public libraries all over the country are having to institute mitigation procedures. The greatest number of bugs we found in bed were associated with the bookshelf, in the headboard of our vintage 70s era waterbed. The bed could not be isolated from creepers, so went bye-bye.

Rich P

 

[RodantKapoor]

I hate, hate, hate bed bugs. We've been battling them for almost a year and so far I think we've been winning the battle (but not the war afaik since some stragglers could be hiding).
We've been DIY'ing as we are just impecunious renters, but we've been relentless in cleaning and inspecting the hot spots since we've noticed them, and so far, so good (knock on wood).